Kenya's problem lies with failure to follow rule of law

The Treasury Cabinet secretary will spell out the budget outlook for 2016-2017 financial years in April next year.

But going by what usually follows the disbursement of funds, including devolving units; this will largely be a wasted effort.

The problem with Kenya is not bad politics or tribalism but lack of rule of law.

What this means is that due to lack of enforcement of rule of law, governors, CSs and other ruling elite in positions of power connive to steal taxpayers money with little or no response from law enforcement agencies.

The rule of law has been methodically weakened, on purpose, by the ruling elite so that they can enrich themselves using tax payers’ money without suffering any consequences.

Along the value chain of rule of law, we have the Attorney General, EACC, DPP, DCI , KRA and the Kenya Police. In between them lies the reason why Kenya’s growth suffers a low 5.6 per cent when it could easily be about 7-8 per cent; creating millions of jobs along the way.

Who is supposed to co-ordinate this rule of law flow without taking us back to Moi era? This makes it possible to steal from Government ministries, departments, agencies and counties with impunity.

It also makes it possible for private sector players to steal from the people knowing full well that the criminal justice system in Kenya is on auction.

Were all thieves to reform today, like in the Netherlands where they are closing down prisons, then the system would starve to death and mass resignations from State agencies would follow.

An emerging scandal is that Sh143 billion worth of public land, buildings and vehicles inherited from defunct Local Authorities in 2013 have been stolen by governors.

 

THIEVING SOCIETY

When the Treasury CS stands in Parliament to read the budget, it signals to the thieving elite that a fresh round of goodies is on the way. Kenya’s budget is drawn to benefit criminals.

The budgetary process should be drawn with an intention of raising household incomes to raise Kenya from bottomless pit of poverty.

This can be done, for example, by making an effort similar to rural electrification, to provide arms-length water to all households within five years.

The other way the budget can be used to raise household incomes is to allocate money to build cheap 250,000 public housing units annually. The Government can sell these houses at inflation levels to make them affordable.

This idea of allowing loan sharks and predatory capitalists to feed on and devour gullible, poor Kenyans must be stopped. The Government must have a human face like that of Singapore for example, in providing public housing.

Access to affordable housing is in our bill of rights and it is unconstitutional to organize Government in such a way that this right is sabotaged by predatory sharks operating with impunity.

The budget must also find ways of tackling cost of power so that Kenya may benefit from mass industrialization. So far, the State energy players have ignored President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive that all independent power producers’ (IPP) expensive contracts for producing thermal power be cancelled.

Why is this impunity allowed to go unpunished? Unless Kenya sorts this issue of power predators who kill our industries because of corrupt contracts, then mass industrialization will never happen and unemployment will remain at over 65 per cent indefinitely.