A virtuous, idealistic and elegant woman who captures the
eye of every man in the hands of uncaring, brutal, torturous and unfaithful
husband is what would be likened best to some of the government initiated
projects. And just like relationships they are very fast initiate, iced with
every good available wording and at last we fall for them, the blindness that
comes with every package of love for anything sets upon us so that as we pass
the projects to the implementers and barely perceive the unanticipated malice
behind the scenes. At the end, and with tones and tones of taxi-man money
invested into them, they crumble down with a vehement explosion that can barely
be concealed and the only option left is washing the dirty linen in public. Denunciations
follow and the old games of paint-me-ugly, lastly the reality dawns to us that
it was may be another ‘quail’s egg venture’ or the infamous ‘pyramid scheme’. Commissions of inquiry that further drain the
public coffers and subject our government to mockery from all quarters then
becomes the last desirable option, as if that not a torture enough we wait for
years to get the reports of such commissions and lastly what we get is a
document that could be written by any lower prime kid if the whole story was
comprehensively narrated to them. So, the whole thing becomes a no return liability.
The biting part of the entire story
maybe isn’t only the fact that we were not able to propagate the projects from
the good visions they were to an equally good if not best economic boosters to
push us out of the economic quagmire we have been stuck into for years as a
nation, but the fact that the ventures were financed by some international
financial institutions and courtesy of every credit facility the interest is ever
gradually building up and still our responsibility. This reminds me of one
Ronald Reagan who during his inaugural address back in 1981 said,”…You and I,
as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a
limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a
nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to
preserve tomorrow….”
I wish to distance myself from any assumption
that we can sufficiently support our economy devoid of such borrowings or in a
way appearing to demonize such credits because as a developing country we are
somewhat fettered by such until when we actualize an economic stability. But where and how we spend
such resources is the holistic cause of the probable steady demise of our
economy. People in responsibility however seem to be suffering from a condition
medics would call Dementia that leaves people unaware that they are compromised
by an illness, and maybe that’s why such failures will occur time and again,
some are even in records and yet we don’t seem to be privy to them, so that we are
now into business of doing one thing the same way and expecting different
results what one once called madness, that what we are!
The regime of the second president of Kenya is possibly one
of those that was hit by substantial projects of this caliber. They range from
fertilizer Production Company, Nyayo bus project, acetylic acid and animal feed
production company whose major raw material am told was supposed to be maize
combs, abattoirs and the infamous motor production unit whose remains still sit
at the University of Nairobi, just to name but a few. Most of such projects,
actually all, if they were handled in the right manner are projects that could have perchance pushed us
to the level of Singapore at per capita income of more than fifty thousand US
dollars, but here we are straining to feed even our own population. Instead of
contributing to the good of the state, most of them wringed and kneaded us dry
our resources and all we have today is idle capital that is constant reminder
of our past bladders. I bet, just like any other young nation we were that
visionary though our ideas could not see the light of the twenty first century.
We may pile all blames on the KANU regime Moi and anybody else we can imagine
of but the nude reality is that we yet to learn sufficiently from such booboos.
For any sane and prudent mind, whom I suppose we are, past failure should
provide us with such a comprehensive and ultra-effective learning platforms so
that we never fall victims of such again but we seem to harbor a totally
different religion that persuades us otherwise.
Fifty years after independence we got a constitution drafted
by our own and no longer guided by what I like to call the colonial
constitution, this was a commendable milestone. However, we need to be pretty
cautious in our maiden steps into instituting this constitution because, I
believe a country operating on new procedures is like a new born country and
prune to challenges that were glaring at us during the crawling stages. Thus,
if we are not careful enough, years later we likely to have a newspaper
headline similar to one I saw in the previous year detailing on a list of
projects that were crumbled down in the process of their execution.
I would wish to draw your attention on the chapter eleven of
our constitution, it’s a portion of the constitution I constantly find myself reading
whenever I lay my hands on that booklet, not because it bears any fairytales
but because it’s a new clause to me and I guess you too, and which has elicited
debate constantly on the political arena. You may tag me a dooms clairvoyant or
not, but I believe if devolution is not intensely scrutinized and handled it
likely to be the next big catastrophe in Kenya. One is likely to ignorantly dim
the current craze and weirdness in the county governance as the usual show we
get from plutocrats and politicians who we put in office in the name of leaders,
but I plead to differ. This lunacy about differences between senators and
governors, insensitive taxation, claims of embezzlement of county funds,
regionalism and the whole fallacy of wanting to be at the level of central
government in just a year of operation among other things is what is likely to
take the counties and consequently Kenya to the kind of nation it was in 70’s
to 90’s, and with the similar brand of dwindling projects that punctuated that
era.
Get me right, have nothing against this constitution that
Kenyans voted for unanimously long before I had my voter’s card or the national
identity, being a believer of democracy I respect and not abhor the decision of
the majority, however, this does not bar me/us from questioning and criticizing
where necessary and I guess thus why we have CIC (Constitution Implementation
Committee) in place. The opposition is
there to keep the central government in check, non-governmental organization
and unions also do, who then will do it at the county level and ensure they
deliver effectively if we don’t? Luckily and conveniently enough the
constitution avails adequate avenues to do this so let not be too buttoned up
in our endeavors to allow them to serve their political camps and fulfilling
their ego at the expense of service to the people, for this where trouble
emanates.
