Government projects need vision, not hype

In a speech at St Paul’s University recently, Prof PLO Lumumba warned about an emerging political phenomenon he called ‘Sonkonisation,’ which is exemplified in the person of the flamboyant Nairobi Senator, Mike Sonko.

Sonkonisation of society, Lumumba says, is a practice where politicians or individuals accumulate wealth in an unclear manner and use the money with abandon to influence politics. But even as Lumumba decried the sonkonisation of Kenya, he might not have realised that the State is in itself fast being ‘sonkonised’ under the Jubilee administration.

For a decade, former President Mwai Kibaki laboured to systemise national planning for sustainable development and eventually gave the country the Vision 2030 national development blueprint. But in just two years of Jubilee’s reign, Vision 2030 - an elaborate government sessional paper - has been relegated to the back banner.

You no longer hear of the Vision Delivery Secretariat (VDS), the implementing arm of the Vision 2030 blueprint. Mugo Kebati, the former VDS’ Executive Director, was a notable figure in Kenya’s public space. But his replacement, Wainaina Gituro, is literally unknown. The sonkonisation of State planning goes a notch higher when the President not only prefers a party manifesto to Vision 2030 plan, but establishes a new delivery unit under Nzioka Waita. Why then do we have a VDS?

Then there is the National Youth Service (NYS) which in one too many ways is the government’s official ‘Sonko Rescue Team.’ This agency has in less than two years risen from the backwaters to become a force with modern-day army capabilities. With a tenfold budget of Sh17 billion (which has been bumped even hire to Sh25billion in the latest budget)and unrivalled political goodwill, NYS is at the centre of national limelight. It is now an omnipresent feature in Kenyans’ lives; appearing in all national functions, showing up at every scene of tragedy, and now roaming in estates unlocking blocked drains, digging boreholes and dams, constructing roads and cultivating farmlands among other things. The old government juggernaut is rolling!

But even as the NYS shines, other public youth functions are running on empty. For two years, the Directorate of Youth Affairs (DYA) has never been funded and as a result, youth officers on the ground can’t even afford a pen. Government built Youth Empowerment Centres across the country have been turned into churches, dens of crime and others now serve as habitations for bats. The Youth Enterprise Development Fund and the National Youth Council are literally shells.

Thirdly, the Beyond Zero campaign with all its good intentions and amazing results remains a typical Sonko Rescue Team type initiative. And these are the reasons: Its sustainability is personified and can never outlive the office holder, just like the First Lady’s choir became extinct after Lucy Kibaki. It is hugely dependent on philanthropy and is an indictment on the Ministry of Health.

 

Add Office of Deputy President’s G-united and Rachel Ruto’s table banking gospel crusade and you have popular and well meaning initiatives that melt away with the slightest heat of regime realignment and change.

This regime’s appetite for quicksand initiatives as compared to long-term planning is baffling many planners. But whatever the reason, this regime that I work for, support and belong to, is fast turning the country into a Sonko Rescue Team nation.

Arnold Maliba is the Nairobi Representative of the National Youth Council.

Twitter: @ArnoldMaliba

Email: [email protected]