State pours Sh118 billion into black hole projects

The government plans to pour more than Sh118 billion into untested and what could be white elephant projects even as it neglects critical ones with significant impact on livelihoods.

Despite coming up with a nice agenda on how to improve the livelihoods of Kenyans, the government will once again pump billions into unproductive projects such as Galana Kulalu Food Security Project and Konza Metropolis. These projects have, for the last five years, been imbibing taxpayers’ cash but yielding nothing in return.

Investing in these failed projects has resulted into what is known as Concorde fallacy, better known as sunk cost fallacy. Concorde fallacy refers to the fact that the British and French governments continued to fund the joint development of Concorde even after it became apparent that there was no longer an economic case for the aircraft.

The Government of Kenya, just as the British and French governments, has for a while now been crying over spilled milk. It has continued to pump money into projects such as coffee and pyrethrum recovery with no economic value.

For example, the government has completely refused to come to terms with the fact that Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) as is currently constituted cannot be salvaged. Instead, the it has continued to prop up this financially strapped abbattoir. In financial year 2018/2019, the government will, again, give Sh147 million for modernisation of Kenya Meat Commission factory.

The government also plans to spend Sh8.3 billion on Konza Metropolis, a large technology hub, that has, by and large, been a flop.

The proposed technopolis which sits on a 5,000-acre land off the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway, was started in January, 2013. A Vision 2030 flagship project, Konza Technology City (KTC) is expected to create about 100,000 jobs by the time it is completed. KTC has been hyped as ‘Africa’s Silicon Savannah Valley.’ Today, save for a few buildings housing security officers and officials of the Konza Authority, it remains a pipe dream.

Rotich’s Sh2.55 trillion Budget will also see the government invest, once again, in the laptop project which the Jubilee administration unveiled in its 2013 manifesto. The project took long to take off, with the government changing tune to tablets instead of laptops. This financial year, the government will once again put Sh11.9 billion into the Digital Literacy Programmes, popularly known as Laptop project.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, however, insists the laptop project is on course. In 2016, during the State of the Nation address, Kenyatta said the project would be realised in that year.

“Over 1 million class one pupils will have access to a digital learning device, and appropriate curricula,” he said then. He also noted that 60,000 teachers had already been trained to support the digital learning experience.

Moi University and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in February, 2016 won the Sh17 billion laptop tender to supply the laptops.

And for over five years, the country waited for five stadia that Jubilee government promised in its harmonised manifesto of 2013. No new stadium was ever built during this period. Instead, different counties, including Meru and Machackos, have been refurbishing their stadia.

But in 2018/2019 financial year, Treasury has once again allocated Sh250 million for refurbishment of stadia. In the last financial year, the government put aside Sh2.3 billion for Stadia Infrastructure Upgrading and Development. Sh140 million was also put aside for infrastructure upgrading at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

Fertiliser input subsidy

Various experts, including the World Bank, have spoken out against the folly of the fertiliser subsidy programme, noting that it has failed to live up to expectations. Small-holder farmers, who are the ones that are supposed to benefit from the cheap fertiliser, have instead been locked out.

The result is that crop yields for small-holder farmers, who make up the majority of farmers in the country, have been poor. But for the last five years, the government has continued to pour money into this programme.

In the next financial year, it has put aside Sh4.3 billion for the subsidy programme, knowing very well it will only benefit rich farmers. “Targeted input subsidy programmes that can raise smallholder crop productivity remain critical to raising overall productivity in the agricultural sector,” said the World Bank in the 2018 World Bank Kenya Economic Update.

“In Kenya, studies show that the current untargeted and regressive fertiliser input subsidy scheme, apart from being costly, disproportionately benefits large and medium-sized farmers and crowds out private investment in the purchase and distribution of fertilisers.”

These sentiments are supported by Dr Timothy Njagi, a research fellow at Tegemeo Institute, a public policy think-tank affiliated to Egerton University. “We can’t keep on doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

Besides the fertiliser subsidy programme, the government also allocated Sh1.4 billion for the Strategic Food Reserve, another government programme that has woefully failed to help farmers. Instead, the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) has only helped line the pockets of brokers and rich farmers in what has recently degenerated into a scandal.

The programme has also resulted into a distortion of prices of maize in the market, with the Government offering higher prices than the market prices.

Njagi said the money the government has set aside for fall armyworm will only be used in the next season. “Now the damage has already been done,” explained Njagi.

However, by the time the money reaches the coffers of State Department of Agriculture, there might not be army worms to be eradicated.

Then there is the money that is always set aside for slum upgrading programme, with the government keen to see about 60 per cent of the population that lives in squalid, informal settlements given decent housing.

In the upcoming financial year, the government has aside Sh750 million for National Slum Upgrading Project and another Sh200 million for Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project. It is not very clear the difference between the two, creating fears that there might be overlapping of roles.

Unfortunately, nothing of note has come out of this allocation, with the government either shelving the projects due limited resources, or just not following through with them.

There has not been much that has been done since President Mwai Kibaki’s government came up with some apartments for a section of Kibera residents. True, there have been efforts at improving the infrastructure in such slums as Korogocho, or connecting residents of Mukuru slums to the grid, but these have not been convincing.

Echoes of past allocation could also be heard from the government’s intention to shore up coffee and pyrethrum recovery for which Treasury has allocated Sh40 million and Sh20 million, respectively.

Besides putting money in projects that have clearly flopped, the Government has also gone on a fishing expedition with some State departments such as that of energy putting aside cash for Big Four Agenda.

The government has made good its hype about nuclear energy, setting aside Sh415 million for various nuclear energy activities, including development of nuclear curriculum.

Sh130 million has been set aside for nuclear power plant siting. The government will spend about Sh135 million for nuclear fuel resources exploration and development, Sh50 million for curriculum development for nuclear courses, and Sh80 million for crafting of a nuclear policy and legislation.

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