SAM MWALE: Let us build trust in our institutions for posterity

A key unintended outcome of the ongoing negotiations on the future of IEBC, and the recent retirement cases at the Supreme Court, is the observation that trust between Kenyans and with their institutions is at an all time low.

We no longer trust each other to act in good faith and we also don’t trust our institutions, which is a very sad place for a country to be in.

It is especially poignant when one remembers the day the Constitution of Kenya 2010 was promulgated. As one who was deeply involved in the arrangements, the memories of the preceding days are of hope, faith, and certainty that we had finally passed one of the darkest phases of our country’s history, and with the new Constitution and the Kenya Vision 2030 Blueprint, the future of the country could only be brighter.

Today, a mere five years after promulgating it, and without even giving the Constitution 2010 and all the institutions that were created from it time to grow to maturity, we are grumbling at every turn.

Yet, in my opinion, it is too early to pass judgment on any of the institutions because we do not know yet or have sufficient empirical evidence to make a judgment as to whether what we now observe as possible failings are the result of flawed institutional design or the installation of flawed individuals in the institutions.

This is why historical nations do not rush to change founding documents and institutions without reflecting on what is the real cause and need for change. Five years is simply too short to know the answers, and surely we should at least wait for a generation, so that we are finally clear on whether it is institutional design or individual failings, or a combination of both that is the problem.

For our society to come out of the current woods, we must abandon our society’s low tolerance for perceived failure in new institutions. The urge to change institutions and individuals at the first signs of perceived failure runs very strongly in our society because of the low trust we have among ourselves and in our institutions. It may also lead us to make wrong and expensive decisions.

In a high trust society, perceived failures would be well received because they would indicate what sort of deficiencies in institutional design and the individuals placed to run them have.

The next course of action would be to fix them, initially by choosing individuals with greater competencies to make the institutions work better. If this fails, and it turns out there is genuine need to restructure the institutions, long and careful thought is given to potential institutional changes before they are implemented to ensure that the outcome is good for society.

POLITICAL DYSFUNCTION

More importantly, such nations would studiously avoid bypassing existing institutions because they are perceived to have failed or are not trusted. This is because they know that such short-term thinking and solutions is a recipe for long-term institutional failure and political dysfunction.

For us, it is time to kick our habit of bypassing existing institutions because we don’t think we trust them, and either creating new ones (duplication) or conducting public affairs in other arenas (side stepping).

Both are wasteful activities, and in the long term they create a structure of informal and unstructured politicking that neither builds lasting national institutions or trust among the people of Kenya in their institutions.

So, as we consider the state of the current constitutional dispensation, could we give sober thought as to whether what we are experiencing is truly institutional failure of the type that cannot be resolved by any other means other than redesigning the institutions fundamentally, or of normal teething problems experienced by any newly fangled institutions anywhere else in the world?

Furthermore, we should also consider whether or not we have the right people running these institutions, and if not, how we can elect or get appointed the right ones, before resorting to institutional redesign.
Then we will be able to make changes for posterity, instead of indulging in temporary fixes, what one may call the “kiraka (patch) mindset”. It is this kiraka mindset that is draining all the trust away from our institutions, because such a “patch” is always meant to benefit one side and disadvantage the other.

Kenya’s future will be anchored by sound and well-run institutions that have the trust of all its people. For these institutions to emerge, they must be tested over time, and given the opportunity to mature. If we keep changing institutions and constitutions every five years, the country will not stabilise, and this generation will have poisoned the well for its posterity.

The writer is a commentator on social and public policy issues.