Why overrated Jubilee strategists are a big letdown to party, country

The Executives subjugation of the Legislature has never been in doubt; not with summonses to State House for parliamentary group meetings on the eve of crucial votes in Parliament.

Jubilee’s tyranny of numbers in Parliament has overtly robbed its members their intellectual and conceptual faculties, reducing them to puppets that perpetrate the Executives agenda without a second thought.

Too often, parliamentarians have missed the chance to pass legislation that resonates well with the public because theirs is to push sectarian agendas for the benefit of a handful. Avaricious MPs in the moribund opposition have not fared better either.

Arguably, Kenyans are the most taxed people on earth, yet they still have to endure additional taxation because the government strategists are a disaster whose economic policies have bankrupted all and but mortgaged the country to its major creditor; China.

In my estimation, the only claim most of these strategists have to that exalted title is sycophancy, cronyism, political correctness or a shared dialect with the powers that be.

When renowned economists raised the red flag on the “digital” government’s excessive borrowing, they were derided, branded sellouts and called unsavoury names.

The boyish exuberance that propelled Jubilee in its formative years has dissipated. And while the utopian Kenya UhuRuto envisaged remains a mirage that alarmingly recedes, the passage of time is real and ticking.

After last week’s rancorous debate in Parliament during which a besieged government employed base tricks to get its way, those who still entertained hope that Jubilee would come through for the common man had a second think coming.

If initially tortured Kenyans thought the cost of living had risen exponentially, a rude shock awaits them in coming days.

Diesel adulteration

The government’s excuse for putting the price of kerosene at par with diesel following its erudite strategists’ recommendation was that doing so would stop diesel adulteration.

Reasoning doesn’t get more warped than that. Kerosene consumers have nothing to do with diesel adulteration.

Thus, it is preposterous to rob millions of Kenyans who use kerosene as their main cooking fuel their meagre resources just to dissuade a handful of unscrupulous petrol station owners from chasing dishonest profits. Remember, a sack of charcoal goes for between Sh2,000 and Sh2,500.

A people-centric government would have pursued the concept of giving various fuels a distinct colour and smell, perhaps even introduce chemicals that would make it impossible to mix kerosene and diesel.

Part of the Energy Regulatory Commission’s mandate is to maintain a list of accredited energy auditors “as may be prescribed and to monitor, ensure implementation of, and the observance of the principles of fair competition in the energy sector, in coordination with other statutory authorities”.

Proposed housing

This means ERC must carry out periodic inspections, withdraw licenses of corrupt dealers and prosecute those found culpable of wrongdoing. A government that finds itself in a financial red; incompetence and lethargy within ERC are not enough justification for pushing poor Kenyans further into penury.

If anything, Kenyans have never had value for their taxes, given the level of corruption in a system that is evidently dysfunctional.

And when the same system articulates the Big 4 agenda that is, by all appearances, a fuzzy sketch on paper, you appreciate it is nothing but rhetoric. The reality on the ground leads one to the conclusion that the Jubilee government strategists’ vision is narrow, short-sighted.

Despite the Constitution emphasizing consultation at every stage on anything that has national connotation, no Kenyan worker whose salary stands to be chopped to finance the proposed housing under the Big 4 was ever consulted, neither were the employers.

The most mediocre of all suggestions is the barring of those who bear the burden of taxation to put up the houses from partaking in buying them when they are completed.

The target group in the limited view of the strategists is the low income earners who cannot afford bus fare to work, but someone is delusional enough to believe they can afford to purchase houses.

The government has not come out to specifically state where these houses will be put. And when you consider the mess that is the National Land Commission, it is not clear whether land on which the houses will be erected has been identified, and whether it is free of any potential litigation over ownership.

When one considers that the Slum Upgrade Project involving only 3,000 houses has proven such a challenge to the government over the years, it takes a lot of faith to believe Uhuru’s ambitious 500,000 housing units is anything but a dream.

Beneficiaries of the Kibera slum upgrade project pulled out after only one year, citing high mortgage and, of course, political machinations.

In a system that is rotten to the core, the Big 4 housing project holds no promise.

Mr Chagema is a correspondent at The [email protected]