Politicians put their photos in your face

When Siaya Governor Cornell Rasanga put his picture on evaluation examination papers, it brought to the fore the extent politicians are willing to go in drumming up support for their respective 2017 bids.

While he received widespread condemnation on social and mainstream media, Mr Rasanga is not alone. Many politicians want to put their faces on every little project funded by public funds they oversee.

Mr Rasanga, a former procurement officer with Masters degrees in land law and another in public finance and procurement — splashed Sh1.7 million to put his face on county mock examination papers for Class Eight pupils.

The county said this was to enable the pupils know their governor and associate better with him. But the no-nonsense Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i was not amused.
Dr Matiang’i not only stopped the examinations, he ordered the interdiction of seven top county education officials and disbanded the County Education Board for what he said was gross violation of regulations.

From toilets, maternity wards to street lighting, the county bosses have been splashing their pictures on most projects in their counties.

Mr Martin Wambora’s picture sits on huge billboards looking down on public-funded projects in Embu. Tana River Governor Hussein Dado has success cards and geometrical sets bearing his pictures. In Murang’a, Term Two examination papers bore the name of Mr Mwangi wa Iria, and the county emblem on its first page.

Even those that have not put their pictures on billboards have erected project boards with the tag “His Excellency’ prominently featuring on each of them.

The governors have also made sure that coloured plaques are prepared for them to open, launch or initiate projects, however mundane they might be.

Despite all the evidence, Council of Governors chairman Peter Munya told the Sunday Nation that the accusations against the county bosses are unwarranted.

“It is completely unfair to ask governors to take blame for failures in devolution, but not take credit for its successes. When our opponents complain that a road was done badly, why should I not take credit for a road well done? Or why will I not remind people that it is me who brought water to them?” asked Mr Munya. He said that governors cannot separate themselves from the successes of devolution.

“Projects in the national government have always had the portraits of the President. And you cannot separate those two. I do not know how you want to separate the governor, the head of the county and the governor, the aspirant,” said Mr Munya.

The billboards can be quite expensive, and sometimes might cumulatively cost more than most projects.

Embu MCAs had in June claimed that each billboard with Mr Wambora’s picture cost Sh100,000, a claim the government denied but which suggests just how much it might be hurting Kenyan taxpayers’ pockets.

This expense, devolution expert Mutakha Kangu said, should be recovered from the governors’ personal accounts.

“We have seen projects opened by the President before, but it has never reached this level of governors erecting billboards to shout to us what they have done. Is this money from public coffers? Is it part of the project?” asked Dr Kangu. But the council of governors Whip, Ukur Yattani, says they have done nothing wrong.

PUT FACES ON PROJECTS

“It is a matter of personal choice. Though I have never done it myself, I do not think that it is a crime for those doing it,” Mr Yattani told the Sunday Nation. And it is not only the governors who have personalised and put their faces on projects.

Sitting MPs and aspirants for various seats are putting their faces on anything they have done, including lesos, school buses, roads, and even maize flour donations.

In Kisauni, MP Rashid Bedzimba has erected a huge billboard with his image on a classroom block, walkway and dormitory project at Shimo la Tewa School done in the 2014/15 financial year using constituency funds.

In Kisii, South Mugirango MP aspirant Sylvanus Osoro sponsored the mock examinations at Sh500,000 with his name on the cover of the papers.

And, as the country heads to 2017, the fight by the governors to have their smiley faces on every project will not only be more alluring, but may be the contractor’s first and most important task.

But an analysis of what the national government does, however, reveals that the governors and other leaders had only inherited the idea from their big brother.

In February, Governor Rasanga irked many in the national government when he removed all portraits of President Uhuru Kenyatta and replaced them with those of his party leader Raila Odinga.

He argued that counties were independent and that governors could put portraits of any of their heroes if they wanted.

Mr Odinga is the leader of opposition and fought for the 2010 Constitution and has ably defended devolution, Governor Rasanga told journalists after his action attracted condemnation from Jubilee leaders led by National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale.

Though State House through Spokesman Manoah Esipisu would later say that there was no legal requirement to have the President’s portrait hung in every government office, it has been a tradition that has been with Kenyans for ages.

Kenyans have been taught from childhood to revere the men on the wall, with intimidating stares lurking in in every home, and office.

Those of the founding president Jomo Kenyatta, his successors Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki and now President Kenyatta have all hung from offices, with the new kids on the block- the governors- now adding more pair of eyes in each county office.