So many laws, so little benefit.

In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous. ~ Tacitus (56AD - 117AD)

Kenya is a major manufacturer of laws and the Constitution has become the principal raw material for some of the stupidest statutes ever conceived by bored lawyers. Under the misconception that every Article of the Constitution that contains the statement "Parliament shall enact legislation...", Parliament, the National Executive and special interest groups have drafted Bills to address matters of such infinitesimal stupidity as who can and cannot fly the national flag, the stoning to death of a foreigner convicted of sodomy, and a ban on county governors from using the honorific "Your Excellency."

When the Committee of Experts sat down to harmonise all the draft constitutions produced since the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission wound up its work, they were under the gun to get the harmonisation over and done with in the shortest possible period. Therefore, rather than act surgically, excising the constitutional detritus of little value, they published a document that runs to almost 90,000 words. It contains every conceivable constitutional conceit that the Committee could think of. In its two hundred and sixty Articles, it tries to reverse the constitutional problems that had bedeviled Kenya for forty years. It is the inspiration for the reckless legislative overreach we are witnessing today.

Legislatures in Kenya have taken this lesson to heart. Nairobi County's assembly has copied, word for word - even with the patently unconstitutional provisions regarding property, liberty, and due process - the Alcoholic Drinks Control Act, 2010. In its desire to raise revenue, the Nairobi County government has looked to the fee-raising provisions of the national law and decided to blindly follow suit. When the Nairobi County Alcoholic Drinks Control Act, 2014, is challenged in the High Court and most of it is thrown out, I have no faith that sanity will prevail among the City Fathers; the county government will look for an alternative route to raising revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages in Nairobi City. They will double down and seek to "address the issues raised by the High Court" or they will mulishly appeal until the Supreme Court slaps them down with finality.

One of the reasons that we are writing so many laws to address our challenges is that we have absolutely no faith in institutions, even the very ones we establish using the numerous statutes we enact. What we want - the only reason we enact statutes with drunken-sailor wild abandon - is the opportunity to siphon public monies from the National Treasury. The number of agencies, corporations, committees and task forces we establish is simply staggering. Even after Uhuru Kenyatta appointed yet another task force to cut down the number of agencies and whatnot, the number keeps growing by the day. What they all have in common are provisions for "appropriations by Parliament" of their funds and such lax financial management provisions it is a wonder we haven't yet bankrupted the state.

Most of these statutory bodies are unnecessary. If we honestly acknowledge that corruption is hollowing out the State, we may yet take the right steps to control it, maybe even eradicate it. Right now the people themselves have a love/hate relationship with corruption. They will say the right things against corruption, but parents will still pay bribes to secure for their children jobs in the public sector. We will enact laws to establish bodies to perform a duty that was being badly and corruptly performed by another body and act surprised when the new body does its job badly - and corruptly. Look at the anti-corruption agencies we have established, all of them with their "integrity issues". John Harun Mwau's Kenya Anti-Corruption Agency, Aaron Ringera's and PLO Lumumba's Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission and Mumo Matemu's Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. Not one of them is or was trusted. And yet they consumed billions in "exercising their mandates." We are corrupt. So we enact laws to pretend that we are not corrupt.