This archive report was first published on 25 June 2020.
Published on June 25, 2020, a proposed antigraft Bill in Kenya seeks to strengthen laws against bribery by imposing harsher penalties on individuals who pay, witness, or fail to report such cases to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
Under the proposed legislation, individuals who pay or witness bribery will face a fine of up to Sh5 million or a 10-year jail term if lawmakers approve the Bill.
The proposed law also requires all Kenyans to report bribery to the anti-graft agency within 24 hours if asked for a bribe. This is a significant expansion of the current law, which only requires State and public officers, as well as those holding positions of responsibility within private firms, to make such reports.
According to the Bribery Act, 2016, any person convicted of an offense under the Act, for which no penalty is expressly provided, shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding Sh5 million or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, or to both.
This means that every Kenyan who witnesses a case of bribery, including the offering of 'kitu kidogo' to police officers, will be committing an offense until and/or unless they report the crime to the EACC.
