Supremacy war masks bigger problem of wasteful spending

Members of the National Assembly need to take time off from their current battles on which chamber is superior to the other and ensure the bulk of the Sh1.6 trillion budget presented to the House last week is used in areas that will give the country a better return on investment than it has been getting over the past fifty years.

Every day the country’s leadership fails to do this it denies Kenyans the new beginning they desperately yearn for after years of neglect.

Trail of spending

The need for unity among leaders, irrespective of their political affiliation, has never been more urgent than today considering the grave danger the economy faces if the Sh329 billion borrowed from domestic and external sources is spent in cavalier fashion.

It should not be forgotten that individuals and cartels that in the past benefitted from Parliament’s pre-occupation with politics to the exclusion of all else—including scrutinising how the funds they voted for are spent — could be the same busy-bodies funding and promoting the endless turf-wars with this year’s huge budget proving particularly irresistible.

The first step should be to require that the Cabinet secretaries, already sworn into office, present the work plans to the National Assembly before they draw development and other monies from the Consolidated Fund. The plans should clearly show the priorities for each ministry and department and expected timelines.

This would ensure the projects and programmes started would be completed even in the event the expected foreign in-flows of capital do not materialize. Instances where work stops before completion because the expected funds were not disbursed should be a thing of the past.

Whereas this should not present any problems to the Cabinet secretaries drawn from the private sector, some of whom were chief executive officers, the others should be prevailed upon to follow suit. Drawing up clear guidelines and sharing them with the national assembly members — and by extension the public — will make it easier to follow the paper trail of how money is spent.

Given the widespread failure of the Auditor-General to curb corruption, despite the large number of damning reports produced in the past, perhaps, time has come when the aim should be to stop the perpetrators before they commit their cancerous vice. 

Yet another area worth considering is ensuring the taxpayer gets value for money. All too often, the practice has been for the government to pay good money for sub-standard goods and services. The result has been all too obvious on roads where repairs are required even before the actual construction is completed.

Most dangerous

But, perhaps, the most scandalous cases are found in public hospitals where there are credible reports of massive amounts of drugs supplied being counterfeits that pose more danger to the patients than the disease.

Fortunately for the country, President Uhuru Kenyatta is alive to the challenges the country faces in dealing with corruption as his recent public statements have demonstrated. Let it be hope that the President, and his deputy, will continue to demonstrate the same leadership when the integrity of their nominees for any public office is brought into question.

The right thing to do would be to withdraw the nominee and substitute his or her name with another one. After all, Kenya has a wide variety of qualified and able sons and daughters willing to serve.

Let it be hoped, too, that in the event that a public servant’s conduct is brought into question, the President will swiftly relieve the individual of his or her office and institute a thorough investigation.  The results of the investigation would then determine whether the individual is brought back to the office or is dismissed and taken to court, as the case might be.

All the people who vie for positions of leadership need to accept that like Caesar’s wife they should not only be innocent but should appear to be so. Kenyans will settle for nothing less.