• Oginde cited societal culture, saying people, especially those holding public offices are forced to become corrupt due to public pressure.
• "There is that societal expectation that when you hold a public office, you have suddenly got into money."
Image: EACC
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission chairperson Bishop David Oginde said he has realised a trend with the people involved in corruption.
Speaking with TV 47 on Monday, Oginde said among the reasons he had hypothesised as to why people turn to fraudulent ways of amassing wealth, is greed.
"I have looked at some cases that we are dealing with and you are looking at a person who is already filthy rich and I mean.. they are rich," he said.
In some of those cases, he added, the persons are linked to some big corruption cases and at times, to small corruption cases.
He regretted that they were not stealing because they lacked, but they were doing so to satisfy their greed.
"He is not stealing because he is hungry. There are people you can excuse they took your bread because they were hungry. But these people are already super rich, but they want more," he said.
"That is called greed. Kenyans, we have not learnt how to say 'I have enough'."
Oginde also cited societal culture, saying people, especially those holding public offices are forced to become corrupt due to public pressure.
He said there is a culture of expecting someone to suddenly become wealthy because they are public officers and so they resort to enriching themselves through fraudulent use of public funds and theft.
This is to satisfy the demands and expectations burdened upon them by the society.
"There is that societal expectation that when you hold a public office, you have suddenly got into money and therefore we should get portions of it," he explained.
Oginde said this leads people who are not corrupt in their disposition to become so.
"So people sometimes steal because of that. And I'll say people like MPs sometimes get themselves into shady deals because of the demand that we as Kenyans have placed on them."
The Bishop said the society's expectations that an MP should be able to attend harambees, weddings, burials and other ceremonies, and contribute huge amounts of money is too much pressure for them.
"Where can a person possibly get all that money? This is where we as a society need to change our thinking and our way of looking at leadership," he said.
"Leadership is not about getting money to give to you but it is facilitating us so that we can have an environment where each one of us can do the work that we need to do."
Further, Bishop Oginde said another driver of corruption, is the fear of God, or lack thereof.
"There is a time when this country just the fear of God restrained people from doing certain things. Just because you are a religious person of whichever kind stopped you from doing certain things," he said.
He said that fear, "seems to have really gone down" and people chose to act in ways that do not reflect their Christian or Islam walk.
"But they do it because God has become a theory."
Oginde regretted that even though a high population of Kenyans are religious, the country ranks high in corruption.
"So those are areas that I have hypothesised and need to be tested," Oginde concluded.