In spring 2015, at the behest of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenyan Attorney General Githu Muiagai formed the Task Force on Review of Legal, Policy and Institutional Framework for Fighting Corruption. The group’s goal was to assess the existing framework for combatting corruption in Kenya and to recommend reforms that would promote ethics and integrity while making it easier to fight corruption going forward. Yet for months, very little seemed to be happening, aside from meetings, a speech by President Obama to the Kenyan people on the subject, and some discussion of purported proposals in the press. (I examined one such proposal related to whistleblowers in an earlier post.)

The Task Force released its final report in October 2015 and President Kenyatta received the report the following month, the same week seventy-two government officials were arraigned on corruption charges. In general, the Task Force found (not surprisingly) a high correlation between discretionary power exercised by state actors and corruption. The Task Force said the fight against corruption was more about increasing enforcement of existing laws (although it did not recommend combining the investigative and prosecutorial roles as proposed legislation discussed in Rick’s earlier post would). But the report also proposed three major new legal frameworks, which mirror provisions in U.S. law, that the Taskforce report said would help reduce corruption in the country: Continue reading →