The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has signed an MoU with cooperatives, set to streamline ethics and integrity and deal with graft in the sector. The deal will help in combating economic crimes and pave the way for lifestyle audits of Sacco owners and managers, and integrity testing. EACC CEO Twalib Mbarak said they look forward to doing a collaboration mainly on prevention mechanism, “We’ll be conducting yeh corruption risk assessment, advise you on the risk areas, we’ll try to show you how to promote ethics and integrity,” adding that they’ll also seek to raise public awareness, and sahre complaints EACC receievs with the co-operativbes so that they know the udnerlying issues facing Saccos.
On the lifestyle audit, Mbarak said people who have been misusing Sacco funds would’ve been found out by the members and officials in the cooperatives, if they were monitoring his lifestyle at an early stage, “By the time the damage has been done you’ve also been affected.” He said they’ll give cooperatives the tips on how to do a lifestyle audit, and what they need to monitor at the top management.
EACC will also help the Saccos to deal with misappropriation of funds by leaders, and they’ll help them with asset tracing and asset recovery. Chairman Eliud Wabukala said evidence has shown that there is massive corruption and unethical conduct within the cooperatives sector which has resulted in the loss of millions in members’ property. He urged the involved parties to actualize the content they have developed, “Let what we are doing not remain on paper, let it become actively followed by all of us.”
