DNA politics should simply not determine public appointments

By Angela Ambitho

“They have burnt my hut. Not strangers, ..It is my friends. For shall I not call them friends…We mourn with them their deaths; they cheer our weddings; Always it has been so. But now, they have burnt my hut. One brand into the thatch, nothing is left of my roof… Chairs and tables are burnt, a saved blanket covers me. Now, they have burnt my hut!” I‘ll never forget how our English teacher in Loreto Msongari made us illustrate what this poem by JH Chaplin meant to us.

For me it signified painful betrayal and resonated with the experience a close friend recently narrated of how his board turned coat on him in the last minute refusing to renew his contract which they had assured him was safe. With tongue-in-cheek, they intimated that while his tenure had yielded immense success, orders from above dictated that a new broom was now required to sweep. 

Not even his humorous nature or his calm demeanour could mask the pain in his voice and the hurt in his eyes. Having given his all and largely succeeded in his tasks, he felt betrayed by the board he worked so diligently and amicably with and the government he had served so dutifully and loyally. Someone jokingly quipped that his ‘DNA’ just like that of his kith and kin from Lower Eastern was no longer concomitant with the status quo.

Indeed recently several parastatal chiefs have felt the heat of power shifts with some already falling victim of the axe. While it may be purely coincidental that most of those ‘axed’ hail from opposition strongholds, many perceive that witch hunting and not ineffective performance has led to their sacking.  The fact that successive governments continue to target parastatals as the quickest avenue for rewarding cronyism makes one doubt whether meaningful gains have been attained in social justice over the years.

And while parastatals and government ministries remain the biggest culprits, this scourge is equally rampant in the private sector.

Three years ago, I was horrified to learn from a friend who had lost her job in a respected corporate that she had been victim of a clean-up exercise codenamed, “Project eliminate Channel O!”  The CEO felt the need to reduce the number of staff from her community whom he described as overbearing. Even more flabbergasting was the emotional revelation from a respected doctor whom I met recently of how a family member was years ago hounded out of her unanimous entitlement to a chief nursing officer role in a leading hospital due to petty ‘DNA’ politics. It angered him that the country continued to lose competent professionals like her due to greed and short sightedness.

I’m sure that as you read this, you’re probably wondering why our Constitution, which heavily hinges on social justice wouldn’t rid incidents like those narrated to the dustbins. Yet, having been a victim of contrived DNA politics and attempted to seek recourse from relevant mandated institutions myself, I can confirm that our supreme law is yet to fully bear sweet fruit for its citizens.  And as these relevant institutions struggle to find their footing, how refreshing it would be to see a vibrant opposition relegate public and private sector ‘DNA’ politics to the annals of history!

 

The writer is the founder and CEO of Infotrak Research and Consulting