Book Review: It’s Our Turn to Eat

It’s Our Turn to Eat is a book written by Michela Wrong about John Githongo.  John helped lead the Kenya branch of Transparency International, and in 2002 when Kibaki became president was invited to participate in the government by advising the directly advising the president on how to fight corruption.

During his time in State House (the president’s office, where John’s office was also located), it came to light that the government had continued to sign contracts with companies that had not bid on the contract for “nearly three and a half times as much as the lowest bid.”  In all, there are 18 of these contracts were estimated by the auditor general to be worth a total of $751 million.  Further, they the contracts specified that they be paid using irrevocable promissory notes to ultimately unknown sources. 

6 of the contracts were signed during 2003-2004.  During this period the foreign aid to Kenya was $521 million.  Another comparative statistic is that the money paid on the contracts “would have been enough to supply every HIV-positive Kenyan with anti-retrovirals for the next ten years.”

John Githongo used a wire-tap to record conversations of ministers and high-level government officials talking about the corruption they were participating in.  He started to get threats from the top of the government on his life, prompting him to take political asylum in Britain and release his evidence from there.

This man dedicated all of his energy into trying to stop Kenyan corruption.  He released the evidence to newspapers and offered it to the Kenyan government several times.  In return, nothing has changed.  None of the officials implicated have been prosecuted.  Instead, the same officials continue to steal.

Another Peace Corps volunteer wrote a blog article about How Does Corruption Affect Volunteers.  In it, he cites an article stating that the British government is withholding $30 million that was supposed to go towards education because of evidence that officials in the ministry for education are stealing the money.  That is money that could send students to school, improve classrooms, bring electricity to schools, or provide hygienic toilets for the students.