Corruption in Kenya often hides in plain sight. It is the extra signature that never ends, the queue that moves only when a “facilitation” appears, the project billboard that outlives the project. We talk about it like weather; unlucky but inevitable. Yet the bill keeps landing at our door.
Start with the scoreboard. Transparency International’s latest index gives Kenya a score of 32/100 and a rank of 121st out of 180 countries which is slightly worse than last year. That’s not just a league table; it’s a reading of how risky, costly and unpredictable our public sector still looks to citizens and investors alike.
When government delays payment, businesses bleed, taxes under-perform and new projects stall before they start.
Devolution was meant to bring services closer and cleaner. In practice, the county audit paints a familiar picture: wage bills well above the legal cap and arrears that strangle local contractors. Counties spent about 45% of revenue on personnel in 2023/24, breaching the 35% limit in most jurisdictions. Pending bills at county level climbed to KSh 226.61 billion, with Nairobi alone owing KSh 119.38 billion, more than half the national total for counties. If you’ve wondered why the road outside your estate never quite gets finished, the answer may be sitting in someone’s in-tray, gathering interest.
Numbers meet everyday life at the counter. National corruption surveys show how routine this has become. In the 2024 EACC National Ethics and Corruption Survey, respondents reported paying an average bribe of around KSh 11,625 (median KSh 3,000), with key frontline services repeatedly flagged. The 2023 survey already placed the police, licensing, and land services among the most corruption-prone. These are not abstract institutions; they are the traffic stop on your commute and the desk you visit to formalise a plot.
Impunity is the toxin that keeps the wound open. Human Rights Watch documented withdrawals of several high-profile cases since late 2022, warning that such moves risk undercutting anti-corruption efforts and weakening public trust in prosecutions. Even if some withdrawals are legally defensible, the pattern reads badly: it says the powerful can wait out the storm.
Add procurement weaknesses and you get the scandals that dominate headlines: medical supplies that don’t arrive, nets that never reach households, roads that crack in the first rainy season. The audit reports are full of the plumbing: unsupported expenditures, unreconciled records, and projects that roll over year after year. None of this is glamorous, which is why it persists. Corruption is not just the fat headline; it is also the thin paperwork no one reconciles.
So what helps practically, not theatrically?
Pay the bills first. The Auditor-General is clear: arrears should be a first charge. Treasury and counties need binding, time-bound plans that should be published monthly in order to clear eligible pending bills, alongside a hard stop on starting new projects before finishing old ones. That single discipline would ease cash-flow for MSMEs and reduce the quiet “tax” of delayed payments.
Fix payroll and procurement where the leaks are. Most leakage follows predictable routes: payroll bloat and opaque tenders. Counties breaching the 35% wage ceiling should be forced into credible staffing plans, and national e-procurement should default to full disclosure all the tenders to payment so that citizens and suppliers can track contracts in real time. The audit findings already map the trouble spots; enforcement needs to follow the map.
Make impunity expensive. Case withdrawals should be the rare exception, not the rule, and must be explained with evidence. Publish quarterly scorecards for corruption cases from investigation to conviction or acquittal, naming the offence, the amount at stake and the outcome. Sunshine is not a slogan; it is a spreadsheet.
Protect the citizen’s small courage. Surveys show people still face demands for bribes at everyday service points. Anonymous, low-friction reporting channels linked to rapid disciplinary action and publicly posted results in order change behaviour faster than new slogans. When the public sees that reporting works, reporting grows.
If this sounds unromantic, good. Kenya doesn’t need a grand speech about integrity; it needs receipts that match releases, wage bills that match the law, cases that reach judgment, and a culture that doesn’t make you pay twice for services. It will only be once through tax and once at the desk. The data already tells the story. Our job is to stop treating it like weather and start treating it like work.
By Tom Onyango