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It’s time to reduce constitutional commissions

By Moses Kuria

About 20 constitutional commissions have been set up since 2011 under the 2010 Constitution. In the Budget presented by Cabinet Secretary for Treasury this week, over Sh3 billion will be spent on paying salaries and allowances for these few privileged Kenyans. Not to mention other luxuries that go with that territory like fuel guzzling four wheel drive vehicles, free education for children and personal insurance schemes that would be the envy of even the best paid corporate executives in Kenya.

These watchdog bodies have quickly become a barking waste of money and time. Increasingly sick and tired of the commissions, millions of Kenyans are wondering whether their nit-picking procedures and often hopelessly overlapping mandates are any use to anyone at all.

Take for example; the Charles Nyachae led Commission for Implementation of the Constitution. Why do we need that when we have the Supreme Court that is idle most of the time and which can safeguard the implementation of the new Constitution? Can we not task the drafting advisory service to the Kenya Law Reform Commission?

What value does the Otiende Amollo led Commission for Administration of Justice add to the mwananchi? With the plethora of donors literally walking the streets hawking their money to any willing taker from the so-called civil society, why should we continue using tax payer’s money to support the latest VX vehicle for the commissioners at the much maligned Kenya National Commission for Human Rights? (KNHCR).

Was it necessary to split the national gender commission from the human rights one? One would presume that women constitute 51 per cent of the humanity that KNHCR purports to represent.

Commissions and committees were once described as teams of incompetent people, appointed by the unwilling, to do the unnecessary. Nothing illustrates this description better than our constitutional and even administrative commissions.

Remember former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, appointing Gen (rtd) Koech to head the poverty eradication commission? Now do not laugh. Koech is a man of amazing competencies and capabilities but how he was to single handedly eradicate poverty remains mystery to me. It is high time that the populace demanded full disclosure and forensic auditing of the commissions, which are guzzling billions of shillings as if Kenya currency were going out of fashion.

The five Ws of good analysis plus one H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, With What Result & How) must be answered as comprehensively and as urgently as possible with regard to each and every one of these entities.

At the end of the audit, Kenyans will be outraged to discover that they have been taken on an elaborate ride by a bunch of busybodies from the extended civil society sector, operatives who literally pluck money out of thin air. What’s more, the conceited commissioners of the constitutional commissions are invariably in holier-than-thou mode.

Their stance and posture is permanently threatening and completely devoid of wit, humour, intelligence, wisdom, nuance and common sense.

Kenyans have been seriously hoodwinked. The implementation of the Constitution does not need a plethora of commissions as if Kenyans were somehow constitutionally paraplegic. We are getting an extremely raw deal and are fast becoming the laughing stock of our regional neighbourhood and the wider world.

What is happening in Kenya is a very bad case indeed of the emergence of a Nanny State from within the ranks of civil society to the frontlines of the political and other public sectors. The Collins English Dictionary defines a Nanny State as a term of Government, Politics & Diplomacy denoting “a government that makes decisions for people that they might otherwise make for themselves, especially those relating to private and personal behaviour”.

Kenyans have had their intelligence and other attributes insulted and scorned many times over the years by all manner of holier-than-thou charlatans, quislings and clowns, including colonials who assured us we were little better than monkeys, but our commissions are runaway trophy holders.

Our Members of Parliament need to waste no more time. I cannot wait for the constitutional amendments to be taken to the House to eliminate, reduce or rationalise these perfidious commissions. This will be the first step in reclaiming this country from the civil society and giving her back to the rightful owner-Wanjiku.