No bang for the buck.

There's a perverse logic in paying such exorbitant and extortionate sums for "administrative services" by the Executive arms of government: if we refuse to pay them what they demand, they are the ones best-placed to sabotage the operations of the Executive arms of government. That is why I have great faith that if the 350 million shillings transferred to the Ministry of Health to fight the Ebola virus is spent as the National Treasury intended it to be spent, a substantial proportion will go to "administrative costs".

The Ebola virus has killed almost five thousand people in West Africa. It has killed at least four in Western Europe and North America. We do not know if the Antipodes have been affected nor do we know whether here have been reported cases among the Asian Tigers, the "R" and "I" parts of the BRICS or in the darling of Africa, China. What we do know is that Western Africa will take, maybe, a generation to recover after the worst is over. And the worst is yet to come according to the World Health Organisation.

What should be agitating the minds of Kenyans is the sneaky suspicion that James Macharia is in over his head and that Dr Hadija Kassachoon is not playing at the same administrative league as her predecessor, Dr James Nyikal. When Dr Sultani Matendechero and members of his medical professionals' union warn that Kenya is unprepared, you also have the sneaky suspicion that Dr Matendechero & Co are angling for a piece of the 350 million shillings Ebola kitty and not really about preparedness for the day the Ebola virus sneaks into Kenya.

The reason we burn a bundle on administration is that we have consistently to pay attention to the development of robust institutions. The Ministry of Health should ideally be the premier public institution, second maybe to the Education Ministry. It is not. It never has. It probably never will now that Kenya is avidly discovering oil and gas deposits, and building or proposing to build power-generating plants. And therefore, in the obscurity of the constitutional transition, the Ministry has become an empire where money determines power or favours.

Look at what the United States has done in preparation for the Ebola virus. According to many American commentators, the US government's preparation has been shambolic and inadequate, and yet, it has only led to three deaths. Kenya has never even set aside funds for specialised suits, isolation wards (remember the brouhaha in 2013 over the sad state of the tuberculosis isolation wards at the Kenyatta National Hospital?) or border-crossing surveillance. When the virus crosses the border into Kenya, not even divine intervention will do us much good.

Mr Macharia seems like a bright enough spark, but he was taken hostage by the Ministry's bureaucrats and long before he knew what hit him he was losing credibility with health workers and users of Kenya's public health facilities. The spectacular public relations gaffes regarding Ebola will not restore confidence in him any time soon. The President loves loyalty; but even he must now start to worry about what his Cabinet Secretaries are doing. One by one they are proving to be more flash and no bang. Mr Macharia is just the latest disappointment.