Corruption is one of the biggest and most serious societal challenges in Kenya that has been deeply entrenched in politics and public service. It undermines efficiencies in the public sector and hinders the achievement of Kenya’s development goals. Embezzlement, extortion, kickbacks, and bribery are some of the most prevalent forms of corruption that occur at every level of public service delivery.
Misuse or theft of public funds drains resources that could otherwise be spent on key public services such as education and healthcare. It increases public spending and contributes to the rising national debt.
Currently, it is estimated that Kenya loses about Kshs 2 billion every day to corruption. Based on this figure, the country loses Kshs 780 billion annually to corruption. However, in light of the massive corruption at the national and county level, the value of recovered assets by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) remains significantly low. Since 2003, EACC has recovered assets valued at Kshs 34.6 billion. This means it only takes 17 days for the country to lose funds equal to assets recovered by EACC over the past two decades.
Addressing the issue of massive corruption in Kenya calls for a change in the anticorruption system.
The Kenyan government should tap into artificial intelligence (AI) to crack down on the misuse or theft of public funds. Artificial intelligence (AI) serves as an unbiased tool for detecting, prosecuting, and preventing corruption.
Potential of Artificial Intelligence in fighting corruption
Artificial intelligence, a system that can analyze large amounts of data, solve complex problems, and untangle hidden patterns, offers the opportunity to fight corruption more effectively. Unlike static information and communication technologies (ICTs), AI involves systems that display intelligent behavior by analyzing data and making recommendations with a certain degree of autonomy. The unrelenting increase in computer power and availability of data spark hope that AI can offer more effective anticorruption tools.
The AI-based anticorruption tool has the potential to fight corruption in different areas including public procurement, public audits, fraud dection, and human resource management.
Public procurement
AI can prevent corruption in public procurement by predicting conflicts of interest for public officers. The tool can monitor tender cross-reference public officers’ personal data, identify anomalies, and flag them for review. Tailor-made tenders meant for specific companies will be averted. AI can review public contracts and identify illegal claims or terms.
Audit of public expenditures
Artificial intelligence conducts real-time monitoring and analysis of expenditures by all public offices at the national and county levels. In this way, the AI-based anticorruption tool can identify unjustified expenditures or irregular expenditures almost instantly and share the information with investigation agencies. The tool will have standardized data, including the average price of office stationery. In this case, public offices will be required to submit all their expenditure to the central. Any figures with deviations from the average prices will be flagged for investigation and potential prosecution and recovery of funds.
Detection of fraud
The government can deploy AI as a detective tool to indicate fraud in contracts and financial transactions. Text analysis and AI image processing when reviewing documents can reveal suspicious patterns that can indicate fake supplies.
Management of public service personnel
Kenya continues to lose money to ghost workers who receive hundreds of millions of shilling, thus inflating the wage bill. Artificial intelligence can help to clean the payroll system by identifying workers who receive fake compensation and multiple salaries or continue to receive salaries while on leave. Furthermore, the AI-support tool can detect irregularities in the recruitment process, sways, or promotions. Creating an AI monitoring system in the Public Service Commission can help verify the accuracy and authenticity of documents submitted by individuals during the hiring process, avoiding forgeries.
AI in use
In recent years, experimentation and adoption of AI anticorruption tolls have been growing across the world. In 2015, Brazil created the Alice System, which uses artificial intelligence to fight corruption in public procurement by analyzing tenders and contracts. In Ukraine, the government created the ProZorro system, an AI monitoring tool that detects violations and inconsistencies in public procurement and prevents misuse of public funds. Between 2017 and 2021, Prozorro helped Ukraine to save about $6 billion in public funds.
Other benefits
The adoption and use of the AI anticorruption system can help fast-track the investigation and prosecution of graft cases, as well as the recovery of stolen public funds. One of the key challenges in our fight against corruption is that high-profile graft cases take too long due to a lack of thorough investigations. However, AI can eliminate this challenge as it can filter, analyze, and summarize data quickly and accurately. In addition, the AI system eliminates potential collisions between auditors and civil servants because audits will be conducted remotely.
Concluding thoughts
Kenya’s continued struggle to fight corruption demands a complete overhaul of strategies and systems for fighting corruption. Artificial intelligence can successfully contribute to our fight against corruption. Implementing the AI anticorruption tolls can guard against wasteful spending at the national and county levels. Of course, using AI systems in government comes with multiple challenges, including high upfront costs, the requirement for large amounts of accurate and standardized data, and ethical concerns.
Thus, regulations and policies are needed to ensure the AI system is designed, developed, and implemented in a responsible manner. Cutting the loss of public funds by just 80% would save the nation close to Kshs 600 billion every year or a whooping Sh 6 trillion in a decade. Thus, the investment in such a system is worthwhile.
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