EACC at the Forefront to Prevent Corruption in County Governments

By Alain Christian

EACC at the Forefront to Prevent Corruption in County Governments
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has launched Guidelines for the Establishment of Corruption Prevention Committees (CPC) to prevent corruption and promote ethics and integrity among public officers in county governments.

Speaking during the launch at the Bungoma County Government offices, the EACC Commissioner Dr. Cecilia Mutuku, said that the Committee aims at strengthening systems, practices and processes in operations for effective and efficient delivery of services to citizens, noting that the commission is keen at supporting and strengthening corruption prevention initiatives in county governments.

“The commission will partner with County Governments in ensuring they focus on areas such as capacity building, development of codes of ethics and conduct, system reviews, corruption risk assessments and advisories on corruption prevention,” she said.

She said it is important to operationalize the CPC to prevent corruption in both public and private sector institutions.

“There will be guidelines which will provide a systematic approach to public entities by standardizing the establishment, operation, composition, roles and responsibilities of CPC in public and private sector institutions,” she added.

She mentioned that the guidelines will also provide a road map for the appointment, training, roles and responsibilities of the Integrity Assurance Officers (IAOs).

Dr Mutuku added that the CPC will be responsible for the development, implementation, reviewing and monitoring corruption prevention framework in the counties.

“The CPC framework includes Corruption prevention policy, whistle-blowing protection mechanism, gifts and conflict of interest registers, codes of conduct and ethics and reporting mechanisms,” said Mutuku.

She added that the CPC training manual, which is designed to build institutional capacity in corruption prevention, will be implemented in three days and the commission will continue to monitor and evaluate its effectiveness.

“The training of CPC is designed to build institutional capacity in corruption prevention, impart knowledge on ethics, integrity and anti-corruption for attitude change, mainstream corruption prevention and to enlist support of staff in public and private institutions in the fight against corruption,” said Mutuku.

She commended the county government of Bungoma for accepting to host the meeting by conveying gratitude to Her Excellency the Deputy Governor, Pastor Janepher Mbaiteny who officially received the guidelines on behalf of the governor.

“This is indeed a clear indication of your commitment to collaborate with the commission in the promotion of ethics and integrity in your county,” she said.

About The Author