Corrupting the Whistleblower
More than a decade ago, David Munyakei was a young clerk processing slips at the Central Bank of Kenya when he noticed an unusual number of payments – for unusually high sums – going to a company called Goldenberg.
He dug around and discovered the company was being paid for exporting gold and diamonds – two things Kenya doesn’t have. The company turned out to be a shell, a pipeline to the pockets of politicians and well-placed businessmen. It became Kenya’s biggest corruption scandal, costing the public purse an astonishing $600 million (US).
For his role in it, Munyakei was fired, arrested and harassed. He received death threats, was forced to leave the capital and for a brief time even changed his identity. For more than 10 years he has lobbied to have his job reinstated, without success. Instead of a stable, well-paid government job, with benefits and pension, Munyakei has mostly pleaded poverty.
The Goldenberg scheme is a complicated one, but it essentially created an account for gold exporters to deposit U.S. dollars. In exchange, they would be paid out of the account in Kenyan shillings, plus 20 per cent. It was a way of both attracting foreign investment and reducing the country’s reliance on foreign aid.
The hitch was that the gold was likely smuggled from the Congo and the “exporters” were claiming 35 per cent above the export price from the government.
The investigations have so far revealed that the corruption involved dozens of judges and journalists, senior officials at several banks, handfuls of businessmen and scores of politicians – possibly even former president Daniel arap Moi.
Everyone, it seemed, but the young clerk who stayed late to work through the book of transfer orders.
I thought Munyakei would make a good hook for a story on the latest round of corruption scandals currently plaguing Kenya. I pictured him as clever, soft-spoken and patient. I figured he would have the confidence of someone who knows he has done exactly the right thing and the humility of a man who has been martyred for it.
I reached Munyakei through Transparency International, an anticorruption watchdog agency, who awarded the whistleblower a medal in 2004.
When we met, Munyakei began by asking if Transparency International had told me about his “arrangement,” something about an allowance and money for accommodations. I was confused, but it soon became clear he wasn’t telling me about Transparency International’s generosity, he was saying he wanted compensation from me.
He told me he had come into the city from the famed Masai Mara game reserve and now had nowhere to stay and no means to get home. He looked like a young man, with springy black curls and the light skin and Arabic features of Kenyans born on the coast. The clerk position was his first job.
I asked him how much he needed.
Two hundred dollars, he answered, without hesitation.
That’s a lot of money, I said. Nairobi has a rough after-dark reputation, so I had less than $9 in my pocket, enough to pay for our drinks and a taxi ride back to the hotel the airline had put me in for the night.
Besides, it’s unethical, I told him. I don’t pay for interviews and most reputable news agencies have a strict policy against the practice.
Selling a story makes it vulnerable to manipulation since people are tempted to make the details juicier so there’s more of a payoff. It makes it difficult to trust the details.
It sounds cold-hearted, but I’ve interviewed street kids, orphans, women dying of AIDS, destitute farmers starving during the country’s drought and I haven’t given money to any of them.
I feel strongly that people should tell their stories because they want to, because they see the value in giving voice to an issue or cause, not because it’s something they can sell.
When I chafed at the idea of paying $200 to hear his story, Munyakei became wheedling and insistent, asking me how much I could give, saying it was negotiable. Like a carpet salesman or a tout trying to sell me a safari, he told me he had a family to feed. There was no protection for people like him, he said, and no one cared whether he was starving.
I said I had read that he was working in the city.
That’s a myth, he told me. Okay, he does have a job, but the salary is so small it can hardly be considered work, he said.
(I emailed Transparency International later and they confirmed Munyakei is indeed working in Nairobi – in the Office of the President. A spokesperson for the organization said they were “shocked and disappointed” by Munyakei’s request for money. She also said they sometimes pay his travel expenses if he attends TI functions.)
When I finally stood up to leave, Munyakei told me I’d misunderstood. I wouldn’t be “paying.” He was kidding when he said he wanted $200. “Forget I said that. I was joking,” he said. “Can’t you take a joke?”
Most Kenyans consider him a kind of public hero and many have sympathy for the turn his life has taken. An education fund for his three daughters was even established through a legal aid clinic.
I shut my notebook. Munyakei said he would settle simply for money to get home, telling me he lived in Narok, a dusty trading town about five hours from Nairobi.
Although the fare costs about $5, Munyakei told me he would need $25.
The more he talked, the faster I gulped down my soda. I was beginning to really dislike this man and just wanted to get away from him.
Finally Munyakei lowered his voice and repeated that he had nowhere to go and no way to get home. I could just pay for a hotel room now and submit it as part of my regular expenses later.
I paid for our drinks, told him it had been interesting to meet him, then walked out to a taxi.
I’m not sure I did the right thing. I felt guilty watching him walk into the shadows of the bus stand and wondered where he would spend the night, if he really had nowhere to go.
It made me angry that a man who was supposed to represent everything that is good and fair and decent about Kenyans had proven to be just the opposite.
I wasn’t sure which side of Munyakei’s life showed the greater need for whistleblower protection: the good deed that had reduced him to a pauper, or the fact that the lack of protection had turned him into the very thing he was fighting against in the first place.
He dug around and discovered the company was being paid for exporting gold and diamonds – two things Kenya doesn’t have. The company turned out to be a shell, a pipeline to the pockets of politicians and well-placed businessmen. It became Kenya’s biggest corruption scandal, costing the public purse an astonishing $600 million (US).
For his role in it, Munyakei was fired, arrested and harassed. He received death threats, was forced to leave the capital and for a brief time even changed his identity. For more than 10 years he has lobbied to have his job reinstated, without success. Instead of a stable, well-paid government job, with benefits and pension, Munyakei has mostly pleaded poverty.
The Goldenberg scheme is a complicated one, but it essentially created an account for gold exporters to deposit U.S. dollars. In exchange, they would be paid out of the account in Kenyan shillings, plus 20 per cent. It was a way of both attracting foreign investment and reducing the country’s reliance on foreign aid.
The hitch was that the gold was likely smuggled from the Congo and the “exporters” were claiming 35 per cent above the export price from the government.
The investigations have so far revealed that the corruption involved dozens of judges and journalists, senior officials at several banks, handfuls of businessmen and scores of politicians – possibly even former president Daniel arap Moi.
Everyone, it seemed, but the young clerk who stayed late to work through the book of transfer orders.
I thought Munyakei would make a good hook for a story on the latest round of corruption scandals currently plaguing Kenya. I pictured him as clever, soft-spoken and patient. I figured he would have the confidence of someone who knows he has done exactly the right thing and the humility of a man who has been martyred for it.
I reached Munyakei through Transparency International, an anticorruption watchdog agency, who awarded the whistleblower a medal in 2004.
When we met, Munyakei began by asking if Transparency International had told me about his “arrangement,” something about an allowance and money for accommodations. I was confused, but it soon became clear he wasn’t telling me about Transparency International’s generosity, he was saying he wanted compensation from me.
He told me he had come into the city from the famed Masai Mara game reserve and now had nowhere to stay and no means to get home. He looked like a young man, with springy black curls and the light skin and Arabic features of Kenyans born on the coast. The clerk position was his first job.
I asked him how much he needed.
Two hundred dollars, he answered, without hesitation.
That’s a lot of money, I said. Nairobi has a rough after-dark reputation, so I had less than $9 in my pocket, enough to pay for our drinks and a taxi ride back to the hotel the airline had put me in for the night.
Besides, it’s unethical, I told him. I don’t pay for interviews and most reputable news agencies have a strict policy against the practice.
Selling a story makes it vulnerable to manipulation since people are tempted to make the details juicier so there’s more of a payoff. It makes it difficult to trust the details.
It sounds cold-hearted, but I’ve interviewed street kids, orphans, women dying of AIDS, destitute farmers starving during the country’s drought and I haven’t given money to any of them.
I feel strongly that people should tell their stories because they want to, because they see the value in giving voice to an issue or cause, not because it’s something they can sell.
When I chafed at the idea of paying $200 to hear his story, Munyakei became wheedling and insistent, asking me how much I could give, saying it was negotiable. Like a carpet salesman or a tout trying to sell me a safari, he told me he had a family to feed. There was no protection for people like him, he said, and no one cared whether he was starving.
I said I had read that he was working in the city.
That’s a myth, he told me. Okay, he does have a job, but the salary is so small it can hardly be considered work, he said.
(I emailed Transparency International later and they confirmed Munyakei is indeed working in Nairobi – in the Office of the President. A spokesperson for the organization said they were “shocked and disappointed” by Munyakei’s request for money. She also said they sometimes pay his travel expenses if he attends TI functions.)
When I finally stood up to leave, Munyakei told me I’d misunderstood. I wouldn’t be “paying.” He was kidding when he said he wanted $200. “Forget I said that. I was joking,” he said. “Can’t you take a joke?”
Most Kenyans consider him a kind of public hero and many have sympathy for the turn his life has taken. An education fund for his three daughters was even established through a legal aid clinic.
I shut my notebook. Munyakei said he would settle simply for money to get home, telling me he lived in Narok, a dusty trading town about five hours from Nairobi.
Although the fare costs about $5, Munyakei told me he would need $25.
The more he talked, the faster I gulped down my soda. I was beginning to really dislike this man and just wanted to get away from him.
Finally Munyakei lowered his voice and repeated that he had nowhere to go and no way to get home. I could just pay for a hotel room now and submit it as part of my regular expenses later.
I paid for our drinks, told him it had been interesting to meet him, then walked out to a taxi.
I’m not sure I did the right thing. I felt guilty watching him walk into the shadows of the bus stand and wondered where he would spend the night, if he really had nowhere to go.
It made me angry that a man who was supposed to represent everything that is good and fair and decent about Kenyans had proven to be just the opposite.
I wasn’t sure which side of Munyakei’s life showed the greater need for whistleblower protection: the good deed that had reduced him to a pauper, or the fact that the lack of protection had turned him into the very thing he was fighting against in the first place.
posted by Palmer in Africa at 9:07 AM
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