Unruly-mob reform.

Look, anyone who thought "flagship project" were magic words that would somehow streamline public procurement in Kenya needs a refresher course in cowboy contracting and the tenderpreneur moment. The children may yet get their laptops - all that remains are the right signatures on the right forms and the right political constituencies mollified when the tender goes to one of their own without their participation. That's it. And if you think the situation is any better in the United Kingdom or the United States, look at the way BAE Systems skidded past the law when dealing with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Reforming public procurement in Kenya must be done in the full glare of the hypocrisy that defines public procurement all over the world. No nation has a completely graft-free tender process. Not the vaunted Singapore, the draconian China, the lily-white United Kingdom or the nannying United States. To expect angelic fidelity to the law from Kenyans is raising the bar to a height no nation has ever attained.

This is not to say that we should wring our hands in despair and mumble piteously about how everyone is doing it. far from it. It means taking a pragmatic approach to reducing graft and the wastage that accompanies it. Imprisonment and hefty fines have not reduced it; clearly, pain is not a disincentive in Kenya. We need an alternative means of promoting higher levels of honesty in the system. It could be as simple as a national black list of offending firms and instant dismissal from service for public officers on the take.

A pragmatic approach will acknowledge that regardless of the sanctions that a breach of the procurement law will attract, there must be consequences for such breaches. The consequences must threaten not just the freedom or property of the offending parties, but it must also jeopardise future opportunities to benefit from the system in more substantive ways. Such jeopardy should also include the possibility of foreign opportunities for these parties; it is only when an established way of doing business is jeopardised that the incentive to be cleaner becomes more attractive.

Lists of shame are a cost-effective way of starting the reform process. In Kenya, our habit of doing everything in our power to avoid embarassing the high and mighty should be ditched; it has contributed significantly to the re-emergence of shady cowboy contractors as private developers in scandal after scandal. Publish the list of every tender ever given by the State, publish the list of all those that won the tender, publish the list of all those who won the tender using dubious connections or brown envelopes - publish and let the people know. Knowledge is power and that power is best exercised by an unruly mob when it comes to reforms in the public sector.

Unruly mobs, if one cares to think about it, gave us the French Revolution, the Quit India Movement and the slinking out of Bechtel from Bolivia over its intent to privatise water. We have been too obsequious of the public personalities for our own good. It is time we pitch-forked and burning-torched them in loud and humiliating ways for their graft tendencies. It is the only way that we can get the system we want - and deserve.