In a report, Enhanced Africa’s Response to Transnational Organized Crime (ENACT), which tracks and investigates cases of organized crime and criminal activities in Africa and across the globe, reveals that on a scale of 1 to 10, Kenya has an average of 7.02 and ‘lower resilience average’ of 5.33, an indication that the country is a significant hub for organized crime.
These averages, the report dubbed “Africa Organised Crime Index 2023” argues, surpass the continental averages for both criminality (5.25) and resilience (3.25). It adds that highest cases of human trafficking, cyber crimes, smuggling, drug trade, trade in counterfeit goods, extortion and protection racketeering as well as arms trafficking exist in Kenya despite regulatory and institutional framework to address such being in place.
“Conflict and economic instability drives up criminality. How do we deal with the criminality problem? How do we put capacity?” poses Rumbidzai Matamba, an analyst who works with Global Initiative.
The report, which is a computation of the levels of organised criminal activities committed within a country and the levels of government resilience in fighting those activities, shows that Kenya falls within the bracket of high criminality and low resilience.
“This means we are not responding well enough on the criminality issues. The result is a continual erosion of our resilience and capacity to respond to crime,” says Dr Halkano Wario, a seniour lecturer at Egerton University.
Dr Wario adds that the ease of doing illicit business in Kenya is high thanks to the fact that “criminal markets” are not only highly lucrative, but also increasing in their pervasiveness.
“We need to understand where we are coming from… we don’t need to push legitimate businesses to a level where they do illicit business. State actors should come in and change things.
According to the report, Kenya’s average criminality score is about 7.02 out of 10, indicating significant to severe influence of organised criminality. Equally, the county also scored an average 5.33 for resilience, meaning only moderately effective resilience measures are in place.
The country also recorded increased cases of cannabis trade, synthetic drug trade, cyber dependent crimes and financial crimes.
“Criminality has increased but resilience is lagging behind. There’s a weak link between criminality and resilience. The space for civil society has also been shrinking since 2019. State actors are also not addressing organised crime, and political class is plays a role in facilitating crime. So there’s complicity. This is quite worrying for the continent and the rest of the world,” says Ms Matamba.
The ENACT Index ranks all 54 countries on the continent according to their levels of criminality on a score from 1 to 10 (lowest to highest levels of criminality) and according to their resilience to organised crime from 1 to 10 (lowest to highest resilience levels).
It however, cautions that the Index is not only an analytical exercise with the evidence presented designed to be used by policymakers and civil society as a tool to effect meaningful, sustainable change.
In East Africa, Kenya is the highest scoring for criminality in the nine-country region, and is ranked fourth in Africa. At the global level, it is ranked 16th out of 194 countries. In terms of regional dynamics, East Africa is the highest-scoring region on the continent for overall criminality (5.88) followed by West Africa (5.44).
East Africa ranks among the top five regions for criminality in the world, as a hotbed of illicit activities and a stronghold for criminal actors, whose influence is aggravated by prolonged conflicts that make the region more vulnerable to the threat of organized crime.
