A case of poor socio-economic policies and starved leadership

By Billow Kerrow

Our medics are on the streets, picketing for better terms of service. Our public health services have shut down this past week. The millions of ordinary Kenyans without the means to the private health service providers are left to literally ‘lick their wounds’ at home and keep healthy if they can. If it gets to maumivui ikizidi uone daktari stage, you could get to the hospital but pass out on the benches without treatment because the daktari are protesting the poor living conditions too.

But even as the poor medics roamed the streets in their dustcoats and precipitated a public health service crisis, the two ministers responsible were conveniently abroad the whole week. That the nation was in crisis and Kenyans were dying in health centres does not prick their conscience.

They have no qualms about watching the sad situation from miles away. Sadly, this is now typical of a leadership accustomed to shirking their responsibility at will.

The principals run a Government where accountability is not demanded of political leaders because of political expediency.

If our ministers are not globe-trotting, attending all manner of irrelevant conferences, they are busy in farcical political campaigns that border on monotony. There is a growing lack of seriousness and commitment by leaders in addressing the myriad issues bedevilling the nation. And when they do so, it is invariably at the roadside, in the middle of political rallies, and as comically as they can to mollify the tired audience.

With this cavalier attitude and patronising culture of our leadership, it is inconceivable that we expect to keep to the Vision 2030 path, which requires discipline, committed leadership, and strict accountability. A display of incompetence and indifference to issues will very likely derail our strategy as people represent the most important resource in the achievement of this path.

Perhaps our major problem as a nation is the failure to recognise our priorities in national development. Quite often, even when our national priorities are clearly defined in our Vision, we divert our attention and resources because of political expediency and patronage. We have failed to walk the talk in our lofty ideals that are so explicitly espoused in our strategies.

Our expenditure this year is Sh1.1 trillion, which is raised by taxing the meagre stipends of the poor Kenyans, and borrowing by mortgaging our future generations. Yet, how much of these resources are being spent on deserving institutions and programmes that can take us on the Vision 2030 path? One institution, the Treasury, determines how this money is to be spent, often based on political patronage and whimsical, rent-seeking ventures that line the pockets of the rulers. This pedigree office dispenses resources where it deems necessary, and denies others even if deemed essential in our national plans.

In a regime where consultation is an abhorred misnomer, it is not inconceivable that such crisis do not get critically discussed and hence the recycled illusionary solutions. The elitist ‘modern’ economy may be growing but for the ordinary person, it is on its deathbed. Inflation and devaluation has reduced most Kenyans to paupers. For instance, a kilo of sugar has risen 150 per cent from Sh80 in January to Sh200 today. Similarly, a 2kg packet of unga is up over 100 per cent in the same period, from Sh65 to Sh135.

It is not just the teachers and doctors who are reeling under the pangs of poverty. The unemployed millions suffer the deprivation even more. But is the regime conscious of the devastation the rising cost of living has on the population? Are they oblivious to the fact that it is their poor socio-economic policies and starved leadership style that aggravates the crisis? Do they really care?

—The writer is a former MP for Mandera Central and political economist