Corruption, the endless struggle

“Worse than ever!” John Githongo doesn’t mince words about corruption in Kenya. “President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration is the greediest we’ve seen in 20 years,” he said after Barack Obama’s statements during his July visit to Nairobi. Mr. Githongo, a 50-year-old former journalist, investigated various scandals under Daniel arap Moi’s regime (1978-2002). In 2003, the new president, Mwai Kibaki, thought he could co-opt him and show an intention to break with the past, in particular by appointing him permanent secretary for good governance and ethics. But the incorruptible Mr. Githongo noisily stepped down in 2005, lambasting the “massive fraud” of certain ministers. In 2011, the prestigious magazine Foreign Policy named him a “global thinker”. Today he is the head of the Inuka Kenya Trust, an NGO working on good governance projects.