Leaders should stop playing politics with public hunger

There is one thing about this country that never changes. Government addressing issues from the wrong end.

Does anyone remember the nonsensical survey done a few years back to apparently document poverty in the country?

Like anyone needed to be told through a survey that poverty exists!

Does anyone know what became of that survey or its findings and if it put ugali on anyone’s plate?

Now another sick joke is about to be played on Kenyans. Everyone knows the cost of living has been escalating courtesy of the ever rising fuel prices, that is if the commodity is actually available.

So what nonsense is this about countrywide public forums to get opinions on how to check and cushion citizens from the rising cost of living? Just who comes up with such harebrained ideas?

The government has teams of technocrats in every ministry, whose only duty is to come up with policies and strategies that ensure state agencies and those involved in the private sector deliver goods and services to the public.

High cost

These technocrats are highly trained professionals in their fields and are retained at a high cost at the expense of the taxpayers.

It therefore makes no economic sense to go back to the very “lay” people they are supposed to serve for solutions, and at the people’s cost obviously. Who is fooling whom here?

If these technocrats have failed in their jobs, get rid of them and get people who will give the government the kind of advice and expertise it badly needs.

I totally agree with those in the civil society who see this latest government move as yet another of its ploys to pull wool over our eyes and yet the issues at hand are as clear as daylight.

The oil sector is broken, fix it and move on from there. The food sector is in a crisis, fix it and stop playing politics with public hunger.

I don’t know of any country whose economy is run through public barazas.

Sara Bakata is the Deputy Chief Sub-editor, The EastAfrican [email protected]