EACC to enhance media partnership in anti-corruption drive

11:04:2025: The media plays a key role in the fight against corruption and in preserving the country’s assets, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC)’s Chairperson, Dr. David Oginde, has said.

Equating his role of combating and preventing corruption and unethical conduct as EACC’s Chairperson to protecting Kenya’s maize farm against monkeys, Dr. Oginde said the media vplays a critical role in ensuring those, like the monkeys, who want to harvest where they have not planted are exposed.

Dr. Oginde (in the photo above) spoke on April 3, 2025, at the EACC-Kenya Editor’s Guild Consultative Forum at Sarova Stanley Hotel in Nairobi. Dubbed Turning the Tide: From Stolen Assets to Public Good, the forum highlighted the crucial link between the Commission’s strategic focus on asset tracing and recovery and utilizing recovered assets for the greater good.

The event was attended by the president of the Kenya Editors Guild, Zubeida Kananu; the CEO of the Media Council of Kenya, David Omwoyo Omwoyo; the president of The African Editors, Churchill Otieno; the president of the Crime Journalist Association of Kenya, Joseph Muraya; the Secretary General of the Kenya Union of Journalists, Eric Oduor; among other senior media practitioners.

The Chairperson reiterated the significance of harnessing collective synergy in recovering stolen assets. “The media plays a public watchdog role through investigative journalism, creating awareness of what may be happening so that action may betaken. We work together to ensure that assets that have been or are about to be stolen are protected from thieving hands,” he said.

The Commission’s CEO, Mr. Abdi A. Mohamud, reiterated the importance of EACC’s strategic focus on asset tracing and recovery and utilizing recovered assets for the greater public good. The CEO said that the rationale behind asset recovery is to ensure that the corrupt do not profit from their corrupt conduct.

This, among others, has informed the paradigm shift by the Commission to focus on the recovery of proceeds of corruption. watchdog in the fight against corruption and promised to strengthen partnership with the fourth estate. The media fraternity emphasized the need to ensure that recovered assets benefit the public effectively and are not re-looted. They also called on stakeholders to ensure the safety of investigative journalists and whistle-blowers.

“One of the greatest risks facing journalists reporting corruption is intimidation, threats, and, in extreme cases, violence,” said the Kenya Editor’s Guild president. She called on the EACC to work more closely with relevant agencies to strengthen witness protection measures, including extending protection mechanisms to journalists covering corruption cases.

In a presentation, Leveraging Recovered Assets for Public Good, Mr Joe Ageyo, Editor-in-Chief of Nation Media Group, called on all stakeholders in the anti-corruption war to play a role in media sustainability. Mr. Ageyo said independent media faces financial struggles and threats to its freedom. As a watchdog in exposing corruption and ensuring accountability and transparency, he invited EACC to support investigative journalism.