Forked tongues.

Talk, good people, is not cheap. I couldn't believe that for the impending floods, there is a government in Kenya that set aside thirty seven thousand shillings for soap. Soap! But then again another government spent one hundred and nine thousand shillings on a wheelbarrow. The highest officials of the government have declared war on corruption. That, my friends, is not cheap talk. It is thirty seven thousand shillings worth per bar of soap and a hundred and nine thousand shillings per wheelbarrow.

When you see the rich profiting off of our taxes, the first instinct these days is to ask how one can land a big government tender. This is the state of things today; we are all looking for the chance to profit from the government, making millions and billions off of the taxes that we all pay. This is both an indictment of our government and of our private sector.

When Barack Obama finally deigned to visit Kenya, hundreds of millions of shillings were spent to spruce up the place. We were all astounded that fifty million shillings was spent on flowers along highways and roads that Barack Obama eventually did not see. Months later, the flowers are nowhere to be seen. The Pope is coming; I wonder how many hundreds of millions will be spent.

The government has set aside billions to prepare for El Nino. The short rains have been predicted to be especially intense and floods, mudslides and land;slides are expected. So it boggles the mind to discover that twenty million will go towards "civic education" and, here we go again, thirty seven thousand shillings apiece on bars of soap.

There is no shame nowadays in demanding a piece of the public pie. Sunny Bindra quoted those fateful words, the death knell of civilised society: everyone does it. And in Kenya, today, it seems as if everyone with an angle, an in, is in on the let us swindle the government for all its got. The irony is that those with the loudest whinges about the state of the government, the state of infrastructure, the state of public services, the public wage bill or corruption running rife are the ones with the strongest urge to dip long fingers in the public till.

It is hypocrisy, plain and simple, and it is eating us alive. We have all given up. We don't care any more. We are in it for us and our own. In the fullness of time, no matter how much we try and paper over things, even our children will know that we are forked-tongued, speaking out both sides of our mouths, lying to each other and lying to ourselves.