Preparing for National and Regional Elections

I am endeavouring to have a free, fair and transparent election … I believe in inclusivity and I will speak with everybody. I do not believe in people walking out when there is a disagreement. I believe in sitting down and hammering out whatever is the problem. Not the media will try our problems, we will have to determine our problems.

Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, Chair of GECOM

Kenya’s Minister of Finance was charged based on allegations of corruption involving over a US$450 million contract to build two dams. He is accused of flouting the relevant regulations in the award of the contract to an Italian company. Zimbabwe’s Tourism Minister was also detained for questioning over the abuse of the US$1 billion  state pension fund when she was the Labour Minister. Kenya’s local chapter of Transparency International believes that arrests are not enough and that convictions and the return of stolen assets are needed. As indicated in last week’s article, throughout Africa, most people believe that corruption is getting worse, and governments are doing little or nothing to address the problem.