Leaders have lost all their moral sense

Four years ago, we promulgated a Constitution that politicians hardly read and certainly did not like very much.

We called it a people’s Constitution and spoke enthusiastically of creating a society based on social justice and the rule of law.

For the past 18 months, most counties may have been rolling out flagship development projects, but the real winners have not been the Kenyan public, but the political class that has discovered new ways of enriching itself at taxpayers’ expense.

The President recently promised MCAs car grants, offices and ward projects to the value of Sh12 billion — money that has not even been budgeted for — if they support his opposition to the proposed referendum.

Senators, too, are demanding up to Sh5 million per month to do their oversight business. With their ageing profile, they should be renamed Lords of Poverty.

The plans by Cord and governors to amend the Constitution are all about themselves, and wananchi just provide the numbers needed to fill the forms.

The other big winner is, of course, Toyota, with Nissan fast catching up as the preferred vehicles of power.

Maybe the Japanese should create a new 4WD SUV for the Kenyan market and brand it Katiba. This extravagant and ostentatious display of power and waste is disgusting.

LOCKING OUT THE POOR

Who is the conscience of the nation today? While the President courted MCAs with billions of shillings in Kwale, the public hospitals in Mombasa County were locking out the poor and condemning them to an early grave.

Senators made their billion-shilling demands on the day that public schools reopened while the country cannot afford to hire 90,000 teachers urgently needed to give poor children a chance to master the three Rs.

But is there a single senator with an offspring in public education — except maybe an illegitimate and disowned one — or a spouse among the 80 per cent who have no health insurance?

There is absolutely no justification for the extravagance and perks that the ruling classes have granted themselves.

They act and legislate as if Kenya belongs to them and the Constitution passed to ensure the poor are taxed to death to facilitate their trips to the trough and junkets abroad.

Yet, taxes alone cannot pay for the spiralling budget that has led to massive borrowing and increase of the National Debt to $21 billion or 50 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

SPEND AND BORROW

That is worrying because the next generation will be repaying that burden. Since Jubilee came to power, it has been a case of spend and borrow like there is no tomorrow.

What four years has taught is that the progressive Bill of Rights has been ignored by the Executive, largely misunderstood by the Judiciary and treated with contempt by a Legislature that produces Bills, whose aim is to claw back the gains of 2010. The latest such effort is Adan Kenyan’s Media Bill.

What is left of civil society is overwhelmed, choosing to be absorbed by the Cord Okoa Kenya Movement rather than take the risk of starting their own.

They would do well to remember what NCEC and 4Cs achieved 20 years ago, starting from the ashes and the grassroots.

[email protected] @GabrielDolan1