Timing of funding suspension raises serious questions

What you need to know:

  • The suspension came as a political windfall to the Opposition.
  • National Super Alliance presidential candidate Raila Odinga issued a statement from Israel calling on the government to arrest and prosecute architects of the corruption scandal in the ministry.

In April 2006, when Noam Chomsky released his book Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, the future of the American Empire looked certain and bright.

America’s self-image was still that of a beacon of freedom and democracy and the shining city on a hill. Anders Stephanson extolled the virtues of America’s moral empire in his book: Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (1995).

However, Chomsky’s book turned the tables. It showed how America itself shared the features with other failed states suffering severe “democratic deficit”.

Nearly a decade later, Francis Fukuyama declared “America in Decay”. With Donald Trump in the White House, scholars and journalists are liberally speaking of America as “a failing state”. “Is America a failing State?” David Rothkopf, the Foreign Policy columnist, poses.

Declaring that “America is at a crossroads,” Rothkopf insists that the “right path forward for America must not include Donald Trump as President”. There is a reason for this.

The bizarre policies of Washington’s new president are seemingly hastening the decline of the American moral empire.

BOOST SPENDING

In March, he made proposals to slash the budget of the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAid) by 31 per cent. The proposed cuts, included in a 2018 budget blueprint, are part of his pledge to boost federal spending on the military and cut foreign aid, reflecting the new administration’s preference for “hard” military power over the “soft power” associated with aid in its foreign policy.

It was clear from last year that under the Donald Trump presidency, America was likely to slash the multi-billion-shilling annual aid to Africa.

America is Africa’s largest bilateral official aid benefactor. In 2015, the US inflow of aid to Africa stood at about $9 billion (about Sh918.90 billion), well above that from the UK ($4 billion or Sh408.40 billion) and France ($2 billion or about Sh204.20 billion).

In Eastern Africa, Ethiopia received the lion’s share of American official development aid amounting to $3.5 billion (about Sh357.35 billion). Kenya comes second with $2.5 billion (Sh255.25 billion) while inflows to Tanzania and Uganda were estimated at $1.5 billion (Sh153.15 billion) each.

It is against this backdrop that on May 8, 2017, USAid suspended its funding for the Ministry of Health in Kenya totalling Sh2.1 billion, citing “major accounting gaps”.

NOT FIRST

To be sure, this is not the first time America is suspending aid to a Kenyan ministry on political grounds. On January 26, 2010, Ambassador Michael Ranneberger announced that the United States had suspended a $7 million “capacity building” programme for Kenya’s Ministry of Education citing corruption.

While withdrawing funding is intended to give teeth to the war on corruption, it also comes as a warning to Kenya to wean itself of dependence on aid.

The timing of the withdrawal of funding citing corruption – a main election campaign plank of the Opposition – ahead of the General Election raises serious questions.

The suspension came as a political windfall to the Opposition. Opposition leader Raila Odinga issued a statement from Israel, calling on the government to arrest and prosecute architects of the corruption scandal in the ministry.

While Health Principal Secretary Julius Korir accused the US of acting in bad faith by cutting funding, Kenya has been hailed as doing well in the management of funds from donors.

In a February 2017 report to the Congress by the US Global Aids Coordinator, Kenya was hoisted as a success story in fighting HIV-Aids in using US funding. It has managed to reduce HIV-related deaths from 100,000 in 2003 when the US funding under the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief started to 35,754 by 2015.

KENYA'S RESILIENCE

Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu revealed Kenya’s resilience when he declared that the withdrawal of the US funding would not affect Kenyan citizens seeking medical care.

Since 2003, Kenya has reduced its vulnerability to aid cuts by external partners. Today, the country is financing its annual budget mainly from taxation revenues. In the 2016 financial year, estimates by the National Treasury indicated that taxpayers funded 65.84 per cent (or Sh1.33 trillion) of the Sh2.02 trillion budget. Only an estimated Sh67.27 billion came as loans and grants from foreign governments and international organisations, including Sh50.45 billion in loans and Sh16.82 billion in grants.

Both the Kenyan government and US diplomats are clear that the suspension of the funding will not strain the Kenya-US relations.

Early this year, Presidents Kenyatta and Trump held a phone conversation on how to deepen US-Kenya relations. This signifies Kenyatta’s long walk from a near-pariah status before the 2013 elections to one of Africa’s topmost strategic partners of the world’s powerful nations by 2017.

The Kenyan leader has been invited to address the 2017 G7 meeting in Sicily, Italy, on May 26-27, 2017, where he will most likely meet Trump and other leaders of the world’s most powerful nations.

MAGISTERIAL STANCE

On its part, in the run-up to the August 8, 2017 polls, America has taken a more magisterial stance compared to 2013 when its senior official warned Kenyan voters that “choices have consequences.” “The US does not have a candidate nor support any political party”, Ambassador Robert Godec said.

The US State Department appears keen on supporting peaceful, transparent and fair elections. Despite suspending aid to the health sector, the US has donated Sh3 billion to enhance the capacity of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to conduct transparent, credible, free and fair elections on August 8, 2017.

Washington has also supported Kenya’s military capacity to deal with terrorism and violent extremism. In January 2017, the US State Department approved a possible Sh43 billion ($418 million) military aircraft and technology sale to Kenya, now pending Congressional approval.

Last year, America donated eight helicopters to the East African nation valued at Sh11 billion for use in ferrying soldiers and medical and casualty evacuations.

Prof Peter Kagwanja is the chief executive of the Africa Policy Institute and a visiting scholar at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies at the University of Nairobi.