At the dawn of Independence, the then Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta identified poverty, ignorance and disease as the main challenges of his government. 47 years later, we have made progress education, but nary a step to address disease or poverty. The gap between the rich and poor in Kenya, despite the many statistics pointing to the growth of the economy, keep widening day after day. Poverty is the number one factor affecting access to basic needs, including food and affordable health care. In the past month, the National Hospital Insurance Fund has proposed a raise in the contributions made by employees. It has been opposed, by among others the Confederation of Trade Unions (COTU). The Minister for Medical Services has attempted to conflate the contributions of Kenyan workers with the laudable goal of universal health insurance cover. His is an exercise in willful blindness of the potentates while addressing the needs of the serfs of the nation. In other news, the Kenya Meteorological Department predicts that a significant number of Kenyan districts are at risk of famine and that the Government should put in place measures to counter the famine that is sure to follow with its attendant hunger. This news has all but been ignored, with he Minister for Special Programmes going public with the conflict between the World Food Programme and the government regarding the question of which aid agency will be responsible for the distribution of relief food. Again, the potentates are playing politics with the lives of the poor.
The relationship between the governed and their government has always been characterised by the greed of the latter at the expense of the former. Politicians in Kenya are more interested in the acquisition of power at the expense of the question of governance. Hons. Nyong'o and Murugi are no doubt intelligent people. However, their political lives take precedence over the needs of their constituents who are supposed to be served by their respective ministries. They are symbolic of the role that Cabinet Ministers play in the deprivations faced by the people of Kenya. The Ministry of Finance is more interested in revenue and development targets and has done little to address the question of the gap between the rich and the poor. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology are more interested in re-jigging the education system to meet the Kenya Vision 2030 targets than in delivering services to the millions of students weathering under a regime that does not address their basic educational needs: adequate classrooms, books, and teachers. In the past 12 months, we have been treated to the theatre of the absurd by revelations of millions of shillings siphoned off by well-connected individuals from the Free Primary Education's coffers while the shortage of teachers has received short shrift from the government. Indeed, the Ministry of Education and that of Finance collaborated in hoodwinking the people that the hiring of teachers on contract terms that are barely fair was a step in the right direction.
The day when politicians no longer serve in government cannot come soon enough. No one can deny that the likes of Prof Anyang' Nyong'o, Esther Murugi, Dr. Noah Wekesa, or Mutula Kilonzo are intelligent men and women as are the rest of the members of the Cabinet. But no one can deny either that their presence in the Cabinet has not been a boon to the people of Kenya. They have played politics with the basic questions affecting Kenyans and in the end disappointed the millions of people who rely on what should be their sound judgments. As a result, millions of Kenyans will be shown on our TVs starving to death; children will attend schools that do not have classrooms, books or teachers; workers will sacrifice more funds for the operation of a health system that will continue to fail to deliver. It is easy to blame the mandarins in charge of implementing the policies of government, but the Permanent Secretaries and their staffs operate under the draconian direction of their ministers. This is how it has always been and the day the politicians are shown the door will be a red letter day for all Kenyans.
The Committee of Experts, for all their faults, hit the nail on the head when they identified the presence of politicians in the Executive as the primary reason for the failure to deliver services to the people and they rightfully crafted a system in which the politicians would no longer have a hand in service delivery. Today, it is imperative that Kenyans began to get involved in the process of crafting the next Executive, identifying key men and women in government or in the private sector who would be responsible for ensuring that the government functions as it was meant to: as a servant of the people and not as a slave-driver. It used to be that civil servants and other public officers accepted less than favourable terms of office in exchange for lifelong, pensionable employment. That system has been shattered with the introduction of contracted officers at competitive terms in government. This process should be taken to the logical end: all public officers should be on contract at favourable terms and in return they must meet ALL their targets. The performance contracting system that has been introduced must be strengthened to ensure that only the best and brightest serve in government. Anything less and it will be a betrayal of the promise of the new Constitution.
In January 2013, when a new Executive has been created, Kenyans should expect to see professionals, masters of their crafts, serving as Cabinet Secretaries. No longer should the Cabinet be a way for the winning presidential candidate to reward his political supporters or manage a fractious coalition. The place for the Kenyan politician worth his salt is in the Legislature, the National Assembly or the Senate. If he is less ambitious, he should serve in the County Assembly or the local authorities that will survive a review of the law. For the more executive minded, they can contest the presidency or the 47 new governorships. And when they fail to manage their various executives, they should be dropped as swiftly as the next elections can be arranged for none of us is confident that the law on recall will be enough to guarantee an earlier ejection. In return, all politicians must turn their minds to how they can better serve their constituents, providing leadership and advice on the best possible methods of addressing the three problems of poverty, ignorance or disease. Only then can the lofty dreams of Independence be realised.
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