The birth of Name and Shame Corruption Networks (NASCON) Campaign dates back to early 2005 when the Permanent Secretary Ethics and Governance, John Githongo resigned from the position while on duty abroad. The resignation of Mr Githongo was a blow to the government, coming at a time when the government's expressed zero tolerance to corruption was being criticised both locally and internationally.

Githongo's departure, given his citation of lack of commitment in fighting corruption at the highest level as the reason for resigning, heightened growing pessimism from many quarters about the government's commitment in the fight against corruption. The action therefore compounded the feeling among the public that there was no political will to move forward the reform agenda including the constitutional review process whose completion was one of the top priorities in the Narc administration.

On corruption, the bone of contention was the non commitment by the government in taking action on ministers and other senior public officials suspected of involvement in corruption. The government has not acted on even the most obvious cases of corruption forcing groups such as the Law Society of Kenya, at one moment, to institute legal proceedings against a minister whose actions pointed to a situation of conflict of interest. In the face of these allegations, the President has acted as if nothing untoward is happening and as a result the government's stated zero tolerance to corruption commitment has suffered legitimacy crisis.

The resignation of John Githongo and the governance crisis occasioned by the many allegations of grand corruption thus created the impetus needed by civil society and other players to speak out and demand action from the government against corruption.

A meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Network [KHURINET] on the 4th February 2005 selected CLARION to be the focal point for civil society anti-corruption networking activities. CLARION is one of the organisations who have, over the years, researched and undertaken public education campaigns against corruption. Since then a civil society network has evolved around the Name and Shame Corruption Networks [NASCON] Campaign. The vision of NASCON is A Genuine, People Determined Zero Tolerance to Corruption Regime.

Working Group

The members of NASCON are organisations that work in the human rights and governance sectors and have their own networks of Community Based Organisations around the country. NASCON has a Working Group of five CSOs - Kenya Human Rights Commission [KHRC], Centre for Law and Research International [CLARION], Kituo Cha Sheria [Centre for Legal Advice], Mazingira Institute and African Women's Development and Communications Network [FEMNET] - who are the steering members of the Campaign, which is part of the wider civil society networking efforts. The working group was selected during a meeting of civil society on 9th February 2005 to lead the Campaign. The network is fast expanding to different parts of the country.The NASCON approach is in line with current networking trends in civil society. A number of networks have evolved during the last few years with different focal points. The Multi-Sectoral Forum/Yellow Movement [MSF] with the 4Cs as its focal point, the Paralegal Support Network [PASUNE] with the Legal Resources Foundation [LRF] as its focal point, the Juvenile Justice Network with its focal point at the CRADLE, are some of the initiatives that coalesce into the KHURINET on a thematic basis.

Objectives

NASCON has several objectives which are underlined below:-

- To sensitize by creating awareness on the existence of corruption in the society
- To create a critical mass of people demanding the governments action on corruption related cases
- To lobby for the enactment of laws that will assist in reducing the level of corruption and protecting whistle blowers.
- To seek ways of stemming corruption within the various sectors in the society by empowering the citizen through trainings and workshops.
- To develop credible IEC materials with anti-corruption messages to spread the agenda of zero tolerance to corruption to various parts of the country.

Activities

Since its inception, NASCON has held a number of activities jointly with its members. Worthy noting is a high and spirited campaign that it steered which led to the sacking of the Ministers and Public servants who were involved in two mega scandals that hit the country i.e. Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scandals. This led to the sacking of two Permanent Secretaries and a Minister and three others stepping aside to pave way for investigations. However as tragedy can befell one, two Ministers have resumed duty even before completion of the cases before court.

A number of high level workshops have also helped shape the current political atmosphere in the country. The NASCON campaign partnered with the Civil Society Umbrella body Kenya Human Rights Network (KHURINET) to petition the President and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which was meeting in Nairobi, on the Parliamentary dictatorship that was manifesting itself in the country. NASCON's campaign has also been steered in different forums i.e. radio and TV talk shows touching on different issues. The campaign is being led by a Coordinator.