Despair pushing us to breaking point

Every time I think we are on the right track with the Constitution, we take a direction that makes me question the wisdom of devolving governance.

Kenya's 47 elected senators have for a while been pushing for a Sh1 billion allocation to monitor and evaluate how governors are managing counties. Apparently, the Treasury CS has now gone ahead and agreed to allocate Sh300m for what is left of this financial year, subject to approval by the National Assembly.

Yes, they are going to be allocated funds to babysit governors for the role that you elected the latter to perform in the first place. I do not contest that continuous evaluation needs to be carried out to ensure that all public officers in the country deliver on their mandate.

What I strongly object to is creating a scheme that encourages loopholes and opportunities for duplicity, inefficiency and complicity instead of setting up systems, checks, balances and performance contracts.

Kenyans, make no mistake, everyone is out for a slice of your pie. When it is not senators, it's MCA's falsifying mileage and sitting allowances, while hopping off to destinations they had only previously seen in magazines in the name of 'benchmarking'.

Just in case you're wondering, these foreign trips and sitting allowances cost you, the taxpayer Sh 8 billion, and that is just the two frequent flyers' offices. Allow me to make this figure a little less mind boggling for you. In a nation where a large portion of the population lives on less than two dollars a day, this money can be disbursed to 161,600 micro-businesses that need Sh50,000 as capital.

And when they are not passing nonsensical laws in a thinly veiled attempt at puffing up their egos, lawmakers are increasing their already hefty pay packages with even more perks at your expense.

Then they zoom past you as you gnash your teeth in endless traffic, their custom-made plates and loud sirens demonstrating just how worlds apart they are from you, just in case you believe them when they tell you in rallies that 'tuko pamoja'.

Continue to believe them at your own risk. And then, maybe when you get tired of the antics, we can talk about change. The revolutionary kind of change. "A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability."

This quote, by Robert F Kennedy at the United States Senate in 1966 came at the heart of the biggest struggle for equality that the United States had been through, and 2 years before Martin Luther King was assassinated.

Every time I come across it I cannot help but have a chill run down my spine. We are at the cusp of a revolution, its inevitability is undeniable. What is frightening is that it unlikely to be peaceful or compassionate.

A revolution that comes from pushing a people who are past their breaking point, people who are hanging on by a thread.

It is not empty rhetoric. When I write about the state to which our country has degenerated most of the readers who I presume (I hope accurately) to be youth are clear that we need a Wanjiku revolution, that that is the only action that will right the wrongs. They are angry, and soon the anger will turn to rage.

These are the youth who are largely accused of being idealistic, unrealistic, of seeing things in black and white. The same youth who we are so eager to corrupt that they have started to believe in the end justifying the means, sleaze and larceny fair game. As long as you do not get caught.

And even if you do get caught, just make sure you have looted enough to buy yourself some 'justice'. Prosecution in this country is for those without money, the proof is everywhere you look.

I recall when I was in employment every month after the payroll was ran, the human resources team would faithfully print staff pay-slips only to have 95 per cent of them lie in the drawers for months on end. In fact, the only time staff would heed the call for collection was when trying to apply for a credit facility.

Now I understand why people have scant interest in looking at their pay-slips, at least until mid-year when the revenue authority forces us to contend with what in most cases feels like theft in broad daylight.

It is simply that the sheer amount that we pay in taxation is excruciating.

It would not be so painful if our taxes took care of basic amenities like health care, education, infrastructure.

But when we still have to go back to what we consider our disposable income and pay more taxes in the form of exorbitant levies, excise duties, VAT on the most basic purchases, it is hard not to feel despair.

And you still think that revolution is far off? Think again.