Rampant graft denying the poor food, services

For the first time in Kenya’s history, a Cabinet Secretary has been arrested. Alongside are 27 other officials facing corruption charges. For a country wearied by talk and slow on action, arrests of this sort are old hat.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating; when, if ever at all, convictions are secured against those charged.

There is a correlation between corruption and economic subjugation. For a nation that was once considered at par with highly industrialised countries like Singapore, Kenya has lagged deplorably.

Instead of a burgeoning middle-class that produces for export, the country has most of its population subsisting below the internationally accepted poverty line.

The “kadogo economy”, where basic household goods are sold in minute quantities, is the preserve of the indigent. To get by, items such as sugar are sold in teaspoonfuls, cooking oil in cupfuls and soap in cubes.

Author David Mugun posits that the poor are deliberately kept so for political expediency. He says, “over 90 per cent of Kenya’s population are permanent residents in Maslow’s basic needs section of the pyramid. These are people who struggle with everything. Anything that comes by way of hand outs, makes life bearable and moves their span on issues from 12 hours to 36 hours.”

Mr Mugun further says that because for those in penury, just staying alive for a day is a huge sacrifice, thinking ahead, more so in five-year spans, is expecting too much from them. 

Punguza Mzigo

Which is why the “Punguza Mizigo” initiative by Ekuru Aukot resonates well with the economically marginalised but has found some resistance among sections of the political elite.

Literally meaning, “reduce the burden,” the initiative proposes to have constitutional amendments geared towards reduction of government expenditure and elimination of corruption.

It also seeks to increase the percentage of national funds devolved to county governments, thus bringing public spending closer to the people who need it the most.

In a nation where most things are defined by reference to food, Dr Aukot’s proposals would take away the right of politicians to “eat” the national cake.

This goes to show just how far the democratic experiment has floundered in Kenya. That the election of national leaders should be dependent; not on ideological principles, nor on compelling vision of national development, least of all, that it should be based on cogent arguments intended to foster peace and well-being for all Kenyans.

But that leaders are curated on their ability to give hand-outs so that the indigent can think just a day beyond their predicament.

That pseudo-ethnic pride is only fostered to allow a select few at the national feeding-trough, leaving the rest dependent on food-aid, in a nation that should be food self-sufficient by now.

Debt-laden

This clientelist approach to national issues is reflected in different outcomes. The current state of Kenya’s iconic institutions informs the culture of paternalism that drives the country’s leadership.

For instance, Kenyatta International Convention Centre has moved from being an architectural masterpiece renowned across the continent to a debt-laden parastatal.

Kenya Airways, once truly the “pride of Africa”, remains in the red even as conspiracy theories abound that it is deliberately kept so to be sold off to shadowy operatives with State ties.

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has been procured at a cost considered exorbitant compared to our regional neighbours.

The SGR is not a favourite for importers, nor does it serve the travel needs of most of the country’s  poor.

The testy relationship between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto threatens the corruption fight in Kenya.

Premised on ethnic support, fault lines are emerging even as the President is suffused with warmth towards his erstwhile enemy, Opposition leader Raila Odinga.

In a country riven by ethnic proclivities, this has been deemed to be to the exclusion of a significant support base. Kenyans wonder whether those arrested are getting their just desserts or merely being expended to make room for others at the feeding trough.

They wait for the denouement that will tie all the strands and reveal the President’s legacy that should improve the plight of the needy.

This outcome must come to pass or else, as Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau once said, “when the people have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”

Mr Khafafa is vice chairman, Kenya-Turkey Business Council