Majority of Kenyans satisfied by fight against corruption – Infotrak poll

A newly-released opinion poll shows that more than half of Kenyans have given the government the thumbs up for the renewed war on corruption.

The poll by Infotrak shows that 52 percent of Kenyans believe that the government is serious on the fight against graft.

The respondents cited the arrest and prosecution of high ranking individuals being led by Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) George Kinoti and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji.

According to the survey, 43 percent of Kenyans felt that the government is not doing enough to fight corruption due to what they termed as “no action taken against the corrupt and lack of high profile convictions.”

They further recommended that stolen assets be recovered, in a bid to fight the long-time national problem.

The report further showed that most Kenyans rated the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) as the highly performing government institution over the last one year followed by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Judiciary.

The National Assembly, Senate, National Police Service (excluding the DCI) and the IEBC were the bottom rated institutions.

Overall, 48% of surveyed Kenyans rated the performance of the President Uhuru Kenyatta as good, 40% rated his performance as average while 12% felt his performance was poor.

The top three reasons given by Kenyans who cited the President’s performance as good are; improved education (36%); infrastructure development (33%) and his sustained fight against corruption (23%).

Those who felt the Head of State had poorly performed cited; high cost of living (29%); unfulfilled campaign promises (24%); and rampant corruption in his government (22%).

The survey also showed that eight out of every 10 Kenyans support the handshake between President Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga for bringing peace and unity, cooling political temperatures and reducing tribalism.

Support for the calls for a constitutional change is split almost at the middle with 44% of Kenyans supporting it and 45% against it.

“Main reasons for those supporting the constitutional referendum is the need to reduce the number of elected representatives so as to cut on public expenditure, to fill gaps identified in the current constitution and to bring equality and inclusivity,” reads part of the report.

Those of contrary opinion thought the referendum as pointless, expensive and an initiative of self-interests of the politicians.

The Infotrak survey was conducted from November 29 to December 1, 2018, covering 24 out of the 47 counties of Kenya and indicates a 95 percent degree of confidence.