Jubilee attaches little value to key sectors

With professed 7,000 kilometres of upgraded roads under Jubilee's development belt, President Uhuru Kenyatta still had to apologise to Nakuru residents for a torturous, pot-holed four-kilometre stretch of bad road between Salgaa and Rongai trading centres last week.

The excitement over the SGR, in my view, was premature. Granted, the concept was superb. The execution was excellent. Doubt lies in whether Jubilee can sustain the dream. How well has Kenya Airways been performing since 2013? How efficient has Kenya Railways been under Jubilee? How efficient and reliable are ferry services in Mombasa? These three are the yardsticks with which to gauge Jubilee's success with the SGR. Already, there is political interference. A populist executive directive that not more than Sh700 be charged for third-class travel, down from the costed Sh900, is the first step towards under-performing.

Phineas Taylor Barnum, an American politician and comedian once opined, "The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick." For a government that proclaims unprecedented advancement in the medical sector, persistent strikes by doctors and nurses highlight the inadequacies and deceit therein. For 100 days starting December 4, 2016, medical services ground to a halt after doctors downed their tools.

Mismanaged sectors

This week, nurses began an indefinite strike after an indifferent government reneged on a Comprehensive Bargaining Agreement dated 2013. Already, the death toll is alarming. Doctors have indicated they could still resort to industrial action if the Government fails to honour a signed return-to-work formula that persuaded them to abandon their recent strike. It has dawned on them they were duped.

The Sh38 billion Medical Equipment Scheme, disowned by governors at its launch in 2015, turns out to have been a white elephant project. The lack of trained personnel to operate and service the machinery guarantees that. Jubilee's idea of a revolutionised medical sector is free maternity services. That doctors and nurses are poorly remunerated; that doctors and nurses complain of lack of medicines and other work-related supplies does not bother the Government. Demands for more doctors have fallen on deaf ears.

Unarguably, key sectors of society are health, security, agriculture and education, everything else being secondary. Can we positively say these are the best managed sectors in our country? On security, our brothers and sisters in the National Police Service are expected to give their best, even lay down their lives defending a country whose leaders treat them shabbily. It is dehumanising and demoralising to live in leaking tin shacks that pass for houses more than five decades after attaining self-rule. And the pay that goes with the dangerous work is despicable.

In January this year, President Kenyatta launched 25 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC's) among 525 police vehicles, ostensibly to enhance security, increase police mobility and offer protection to officers deployed in danger-prone areas along the common border with Somalia. Two weeks ago, several police officers died after the open back Toyota Land cruisers they were travelling in ran over Improvised Explosive Devises (IEDs).

It is tempting to ask where the APCs were, but the mangled wreckage of an APC that could not withstand an IED; costing the lives of seven officers, stops one from asking. While provable sturdy APCs from the West can withstand IEDs, landmines and small arms fire, the APCs sourced from China are as formidable as an ordinary car is against a pistol.

It would seem the overriding concern of procurement officers within the NPS is what they can possibly get out of purchases. The safety of police officers is of little concern. At an inflated cost of Sh41 billion, Kenya sought to buy 12 converted agricultural planes from the US to fight Al Shabaab. The actual cost, according to US Congressman Tedd Budd, is Sh21 billion.

Helicopters bought for police use crashed within months of purchase. Between August and September 2016, there were four crashes. One of the copters cost the taxpayers Sh683 million. To ward off the inquisitive who wanted to determine the quality of the helicopter, the explanation for the helicopter crash in Mathare North along Thika Superhighway was 'an inexperienced pilot' who got petrified by a marabou stocr that suddenly appeared in his flight path. Question; which competent agency allows inexperienced pilots to fly, unsupervised, their new acquisitions?

Former US President Barack Obama once said: "Understand our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They've got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law." Indeed they do. The Government can, and should, mitigate the stresses these officers go through. At times we come down heavily on them, but on reflection, they've simply been pushed to the wall.

Mr Chagema is a correspondent at The [email protected]