Kenya should pull a first to connect EAC

Kenya should pull out all stops to take advantage of the wind of change blowing across the country, region and continent. This is as Washington, Brussels and Peking compete for a piece of Africa’s growing prosperity.

It is instructive that the World Bank and its private sector affiliates (the International Finance Corporation and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency) have pledged to provide $1.2 billion (Sh108 billion) to support infrastructure development and improve competitiveness of East African Community (EAC) States.

It should be noted that the pledge comes only after EAC partners prioritised infrastructure development. Analysts agree that until the emergence of China as a major source of development funds, the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund) tended to be the sole determinants of the developing countries’ priorities and often punished States that refused to follow the Washing consensus.

Power plant

The blackouts we endured for years were as a result of a disagreement when Kenya decided to fast-track the construction of Turkwell Gorge Dam power plant against the advice of the World Bank.

The Jubilee Government’s single-minded pursuit of infrastructure development is commendable because it’s a recognition of infrastructure’s importance in the overall growth of the country’s economy.

A Pricewaterhouse Coopers report released in Nairobi, last week, lends credence to the Government’s decision to brush aside detractors who argue that the money spent on infrastructure development would be better used elsewhere.

The report reveals that every dollar spent on infrastructure generates between five and 25 per cent in economic returns annually. It does not take rocket science to realise the huge economic benefits the country will derive from investing $60.4 billion (Sh5.5 trillion) on infrastructure between 2012 and 2020. Unfortunately, the huge investment projects have attracted all manner of carpetbaggers and opponents from the wood works. These include briefcase contractors who in the past earned billions of shillings from selling air (money being paid for projects that existed only on paper).

Political novices also attempted to gain their people’s trust by promising them compensation and jobs they could not deliver, at least not in the amounts and numbers dangled in front of the eyes of usually gullible villagers. The Government would be well advised to deal ruthlessly with the emergence of these individuals and groups behaving in cartel-like manner to ensure that their greed does not push the public programmes and projects beyond their projected budgets and create unnecessary delays.

But that does not mean that legitimate demands of citizens should not be met expeditiously and transparently. The exercise to determine the true owners of land that is expected to be alienated to build the Lamu Port and its associated road, rail and oil pipeline network, for example, should have been concluded by now and the recipients compensated. The officials charged with the exercise would do well to set aside their personal interests and those of their friends and their work without fear or favour as pledged when they were sworn into office. Failure to move fast should serve as adequate grounds for their removal. The Government should not tolerate any more delays as the country cannot afford them.

Increasing costs

It should not be lost that delaying the project’s implementation drives up costs. Neither should officialdom lose sight of the reality that this is happening in a country scrambling for every shilling to fund its development.

The Government would demonstrate its understanding of these economic dynamics by moving fast to lower the tensions rising among owners of properties that lie on the path of the projected Southern By-pass Road Project connecting Mombasa’s mainland to South Coast.

The Sh20 billion road is expected to pave way for the construction of another port facility in Mombasa while opening up the South Coast region for increased investments. In the face of it, the landowners have a strong case for they are arguing that although they signed declaration documents and provided details of their bank accounts, ostensibly in good faith, they are yet to be informed of the amounts they can expect as compensation.

This is unconscionable because the rates at which the Government compensates landowners when it comes to compulsory  land acquisitions should be in the public domain. Officialdom’s refusal to make them available to the affected landowners can be interpreted to mean somebody, somewhere, is planning to reap where he or she has not sown.

Huge projects

Although this should not be allowed to happen, the sad truth is that the shenanigans going on in the Coast region are not unique. The same sad saga is repeated wherever huge infrastructure projects are undertaken.

Dust has hardly settled in Lokichar, Turkana Country, following the local residents’ demonstrations against alleged wheeler dealers who connived with officials of the defunct county authorities to acquire huge tracks of lands in the area where oil had been discovered in anticipation of huge compensation from the oil companies and government.

The unfolding events in Lamu, particularly in Mpeketoni, where scores of residents lost their lives in what some analysts viewed as crude attempts to clear the ground to facilitate the expected compensation are still too fresh in the public mind. Needless to say, these are events that should not have taken place.

 Government should move with speed to bring the perpetrators to book to serve as a deterrent to other like-minded individuals. It would be in the national interest for the Government to view the on-going insecurity gripping various parts of the country through the prism of self-interest, greed and corruption.

All public servants should go back to the tenets of good governance, transparency and accountability that were once the hallmark of the service. —[email protected]