New set of laws promises free services to every poor citizen

• Draft places huge burden on State to ensure that Kenyans enjoy their ‘rights’

The government faces an uphill task of providing all its citizens with the numerous social services guaranteed by the proposed constitution.

The draft has placed a huge financial burden on the State in the Bill of Rights by requiring it to make sure that all Kenyans enjoy the rights irrespective of their financial or social standing.

On the flipside, this could see Kenya accelerate its pursuit to meet the Millennium Development Goals that promise to cut global poverty by half by 2015.

“The State shall take legislative, policy and other measures to achieve the progressive realisation of the rights guaranteed under Articles 61 to 66,” the draft says in Article 30 that spells out the mode of implementing rights and fundamental freedoms.

Article 64 provides that every person has the right to accessible and adequate housing and to reasonable standards of sanitation. The government estimates it would need Sh880 billion — more than this year’s national budget of Sh866 billion) — if it is to eradicate slums and informal settlements.

Article 65 seems to legislate the current government programme to provide food vouchers to the poor in major slum areas. The article proclaims that every person has the right to be free from hunger and to adequate food of acceptable quality.

Nine out of 10 poor families are said to have reduced the amount of food they eat as a result of the high prices of staple foods such as maize.

Article 66 talks of the right to clean and safe water in adequate quantities. The country will need to invest Sh300 billion (2004 estimates) to ensure that all Kenyans access clean and safe water.

The government will have no excuse. Where it is unable to implement the rights, the draft puts a constitutional responsibility on the State to show that the resources are not available.

The risk is on how the poor will interpret the provision — whether as a promise upon which they should wait or an entitlement which they should demand.

In South Africa, whose constitution has similar provisions, the going on is nothing promising.

Fulfil promise

In a feature done by BBC last week, an organisation called Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, made up of electricians who believe it is the people’s right to have free power, is giving Eskom, the country’s electricity supplier, a hard time.

The organisation says that it has been reconnecting power to about 40 houses every week. Houses that Eskom has disconnected either because the owners have not paid their bills or whose connections are illegal. The group says it is only helping the government fulfil the promise it made to its citizens.

“We are fighting for what government promised in 1994…. we shall have all the resources free of charge. Water, electricity, schooling and health,” BBC quotes one of the electricians as saying.

It is the thin line between the ideal and the reality.