David Wanjala, Lawyer/HANDOUTToday, August 27, 2026, the country is marking 16 years since the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. Katiba Day offers an opportunity to celebrate its transformative promise while taking stock of what that promise has delivered, and what remains unfinished.
Few areas provide a more revealing measure of that transformation than the fight against corruption.
Before 2010, Kenya had established several institutions and initiatives to combat corruption, including the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority (KACA), the Anti-Corruption Police Unit and, later, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC).
Yet these institutions operated within a framework characterised by institutional instability, limited independence, inadequate resources and weaknesses in the legal framework. The dissolution of KACA following constitutional challenges in 2000 illustrated the vulnerability of an anti-corruption institution without a firm constitutional foundation.
The enforcement chain also presented formidable obstacles. Anti-corruption agencies had limited prosecutorial and enforcement powers and depended heavily on other institutions, including the Attorney-General and the courts, for the progression and determination of cases.
Lengthy judicial processes, weak implementation of prevention recommendations and an entrenched culture of corruption further undermined enforcement. At the leadership level, there was no comprehensive constitutional framework comparable to today's Chapter Six on Leadership and Integrity.
The 2010 Constitution
Article 79 provided for an independent Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), while Chapter Six placed leadership and integrity at the heart of the constitutional order.
Parliament subsequently enacted the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2011, establishing EACC on September 5, 2011, to replace KACC.
Sixteen years later, the significance of that shift is evident in the breadth of EACC's work. The Commission is no longer confined to investigating corruption after it has occurred.
Its work now encompasses investigation, prosecution support, asset recovery, prevention, integrity monitoring, public education, research and proactive intervention.
One of the most consequential gains has been the establishment of EACC as a constitutionally anchored institution with greater institutional, financial and administrative independence. This has provided a more stable foundation from which to discharge its mandate and enabled the Commission to grow in capacity and reach.
EACC now has 11 regional offices and a larger, more specialised workforce covering investigations, asset tracing and recovery, corruption prevention, ethics and integrity, public education and field operations. This expansion is particularly significant in post-2010 Kenya, where devolution created 47 county governments and substantially increased the number of institutions and public resources requiring oversight.
A wider regional presence brings the anti-corruption mandate closer to citizens and public institutions.
The constitutional change has also been accompanied by an evolving legal framework, including the EACC Act, 2011 and Leadership and Integrity Act, 2012, as well as subsequent legislation relevant to corruption and economic crime, including the Conflict-of-Interest Act, 2025.
The impact is perhaps most visible in enforcement
In the 2024/25 financial year alone, EACC forwarded 175 completed investigation files to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, with 161 recommended for prosecution. There has also been improvement in the outcomes of corruption and unethical-conduct cases.
EACC's end-term review of its 2018–2023 Strategic Plan recorded an increase in the conviction rate from 51.5 per cent during the 2013–2018 strategic period to 53.7 per cent during 2018–2023.
Yet the anti-corruption fight is about more than arrests, prosecutions and convictions. Increasingly, it is also about recovering what corruption has taken and preventing what it might take next.
In 2024/25, EACC recovered assets and unexplained wealth valued at approximately Sh3.4 billion and instituted 79 new civil recovery cases targeting assets worth approximately Sh4.8 billion.
In September 2024, the Commission handed over to the State corruptly acquired assets including 35 title deeds covering 18.71 acres and valued at approximately Sh5 billion, together with cash assets totalling Sh511.4 million.
The recovery of a five-acre parcel of University of Nairobi land valued at approximately Sh2 billion provides another illustration. Following a complaint by the University in 2015, EACC investigations established that the property along Galana Road had been irregularly allocated to a private company. The property was subsequently recovered and formally handed back to the University in January 2019.
Even more significant is the growing emphasis on prevention. In 2024/25, 14 proactive investigations helped avert a potential loss of approximately Sh16.5 billion in public funds.
One intervention stopped the proposed award of a tender for the Kitale Prison Affordable Housing Project, averting a potential loss of about Sh5.6 billion, while another concerning proposed infrastructure works by the Coast Water Development Agency helped forestall a potential loss of approximately Sh5.5 billion.
This represents a fundamental shift, from responding to corruption after the fact to identifying vulnerabilities and stopping losses before they occur.
That preventive approach is also reflected in more than 60 systems reviews and advisories undertaken by EACC in public institutions, including the Judiciary, Public Service Commission, Teachers Service Commission, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development and Kenya Power. These interventions seek to identify weaknesses, strengthen internal controls and close opportunities for corruption before they result in losses.
Chapter Six represents another defining achievement of the constitutional order. It elevated leadership and integrity from matters of administrative expectation to constitutional obligations. Integrity is no longer merely an aspirational value; it is a requirement attached to the exercise of public office.
EACC has given practical effect to this framework through integrity monitoring, vetting, compliance advisories, cautions and investigations, as well as guidance to State and public officers on their constitutional and statutory obligations.
The significance extends beyond individual cases. It is an attempt to ensure that integrity is considered not only after misconduct occurs, but before and during the assumption and exercise of public office.
The Commission's work has also become increasingly evidence-driven. Its national and sector-specific surveys on ethics and corruption, health-care projects, gender and corruption, public officers' integrity and corruption in businesses have generated evidence to identify vulnerabilities and inform targeted interventions.
The 2025 Gender and Corruption Survey, for instance, highlighted the disproportionate exposure of women to sexual bribery, while the health-care study identified procurement, budgeting and project costing as significant areas of vulnerability.
Public education through media campaigns, forums, training and outreach has complemented this work by seeking to make the fight against corruption a shared responsibility.
Yet 16 years of constitutionalism should not be mistaken for 16 years of victory. The fight remains unfinished.
This is perhaps the most important lesson of the 16 years. A Constitution can establish institutions, powers and standards; it cannot, by itself, create an ethical society.
Laws can criminalise corruption, but institutions must enforce them. Chapter Six can prescribe integrity, but public institutions must uphold it. EACC can investigate and recover assets, but citizens, businesses and public officers must reject the normalisation of corruption.
The writer is a Lawyer and passionate about governance issues
