You wonder how a grown man (or woman) can wake up in the morning with nothing else on his mind but reaping where he has not sown. This is the image that many no doubt have when we see poor villagers on our TV’s looting from an overturned vehicle with no care of the consequences to life or limb should the cargo being looted be a consignment of highly flammable fuel. It is probably the same thought we have when we see people armed with machetes and knives hacking away at the dead carcass of a hippo or any other wild animal unfortunate enough to have been killed in a populated area.
So KDF soldiers have supposedly been caught on camera and CCTV looting Westgate Mall as the operation to free the mall from the (innumerable) terrorists and to locate any surviving hostages continued into the fourth day in September 2103. What’s the big deal about that? If the recent report of the unaccounted for billions of Kenya Shillings by the Auditor General in the last financial year is anything to go by why aren’t we as incensed with this looting of public funds (about a quarter of the annual budget) as we are with what happened at Westgate? Is it because the theft of the Kshs. 300 Billion was not captured on camera and on CCTV and therefore remains just a dubious report by the Auditor General?
Without seeming to sound callous about those business people whose livelihoods have now been lost forever forcing many to start from scratch, what is so different between the looting at the Westgate Mall and the systemic and systematic looting of public funds that has taken place in Kenya over the last 50 years?
The history of Kenya is replete with incidences of public looting at a scale that would put the Westgate looting to shame and even more callously by those entrusted as custodians of the public wealth, some of whom still hold public office as well as some whose presence is no longer evident in the public eye but who still continue to flout their ill-gotten wealth from the proceeds of the public purse.
It is just scandalous how people who were struggling to make a living before entering politics and public service are suddenly awash with cash and unaccounted for billions in assets in their portfolios while the ‘hoi polloi’ continue to suffer the indignity of lack of schools and hospitals and other indicators of economic well-being that should have been paid for with their taxes but which have been diverted to someone’s pocket. Many of the past scandals have had a severe knock on effect on the economy of the country as it is today and to date no one has been punished for their gluttony and unbridled looting of public funds. In China lesser scandals would have resulted in public executions!!
It is my view that the alleged looting that happened at Westgate (that has so vehemently been denied by the army top brass) is nothing but a microcosm of what we as Kenyans have been witness to in the last 50 years. Those at the top, who have benefitted from the largesse of the public, have always no doubt considered themselves a sophisticated lot, plotting to steal from the public coffers through dubious scandals and inflated allowances but all along believing that they are not thieves as they have not been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. When such criminal deeds go unpunished for such a long time why wouldn’t the same attitude trickle down to the masses to loot something every now and then when the opportunity presents itself secure in the knowledge that you will not be caught?
I am with the army top brass on this one, their soldiers did not loot and that CCTV footage is just a photo shopped video being circulated by Al Shabbab to discredit the KDF further……….or I just need my eyes examined!! But seriously though we should be more outraged at the blatant looting of the public purse that has been going on for the past half century then with an isolated and unverified incident that happened at Westgate because we have been consigned to the unenviable tag of a third world country when we should have long ago been a BRIC(K)S country if only we had not hired looters and plunderers to manage and control our public coffers.
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