The ‘two-thirds’ gender rule can be implemented – affordably
What you need to know:
- Kenyans are too trusting of people who hold formal titles in the public sector and rarely subject strong assertions to fact-checking.
- While Sh2.4 billion is not pocket change, it is important to measure it against other discretionary spending to show its affordability.
- The Ministry of Education and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) alone could not account for nearly five times the current cost of implementing the “two-thirds” rule.
One concern about the discourse on implementation of Article 81 (b) of the Constitution is the near consensus that this rule is too costly to implement in full.
While consensus between the two arms of government ought to be laudable, it is completely wrong in this case.
Working together with the National Women’s Steering Committee, the Institute of Economic Affairs conducted astudyto estimate the cost of full implementation of the “two-thirds rule”.
The report found that the claims of the implementation being unduly costly are not only untrue but also unsupported by any study. This revelation illustrates the established pattern on the conduct of policy discourse in this country.
Kenyans are too trusting of people who hold formal titles in the public sector and, as a result, rarely subject strong assertions to any fact-checking. So it is enough for an officer to make assertions based on personal beliefs and biases because there is no risk of adverse consequences, even where policy positions are advanced on the back of falsehoods.
It has also become common in Kenya to argue on one side that constitutional implementation is expensive while the public purse is being used to fund projects such as the laptops and a Standard Gauge Railway whose economic justification is not only dubious, but whose costs are demonstrably inflated.
This position takes advantage of the indignation of Kenyans over the pay of legislators. Incumbent legislators, their leadership and officers in the Executive thus hide their hostility to gender pluralism in parliament by making dubious claims.
This patronising attitude is contained in the assumption that maintaining Parliament already entails high costs and Kenyans are therefore unprepared to accommodate more legislators.
The consequence of this pretend seriousness in managing public spending is Parliament's failure to deploy ways of managing public costs, and being hostage to what the Executive thinks is the real driver of a rising wage bill and poor spending.
CLEARLY NOT UNAFFORDABLE
Kenya’s Parliament is also unwilling to take legislative initiatives to respond to the directions of the Supreme Court and ensure adherence to this “two-thirds rule”, ostensibly because the Executive had not prepared and presented the bill for debate. Yet there is no constitutional barrier to Parliament itself initiating laws.
Kenya’s press has carried stories on the points of contention, but addressed them in ways that don’t aid disclosure of facts. For instance, there is more emphasis placed on the fact that compliance with the rule would result in increased expenditure.
The study mentioned above finds that the most expensive, but least likely, scenario would require an additional Sh2.4 billion to pay for an additional seven seats for the Senate and 104 for the National Assembly. That would be equivalent to an additional tax of 1 shilling per week for each citizen.
While Sh2.4 billion is not pocket change, it is important to measure it against other discretionary spending to show its affordability. For context, the maximum sum needed to ensure women’s full representation represents less than half a day of total public spending for 2015.
Therefore, the speaker of the National Assembly and the press were wrong to promote the impression that this spending is inordinately large without comparing it to total spending that is a thousand times larger. To state it clearly, it’s a lie to continue opposing implementation of the “Two-thirds rule” on claims of unaffordability.
SAVINGS THROUGH OVERSIGHT
The study cited above also compared the maximum cost of implementation to recent reports by the Auditor General on spending for which state departments could not completely provide records.
Among other departments, the Ministry of Education and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) alone could not account for nearly five times the current cost of implementing the “two-thirds” rule.
Simply put, if Parliament really wanted to do its job properly, it would ensure that waste and embezzlement in the public sector was controlled. This oversight function, competently performed, would generate sufficient savings to ensure immediate compliance with the two-thirds rule, even without raising any taxes.
For the hardworking taxpayer, the lesson here is that we should be less willing to take claims by arms of government at face value. Failure to question the assumptions behind policy positions of state officers will be expensive.
The good news is that Kenya can afford a properly constituted legislature today without breaking taxpayers’ backs.
Anyone making contrary claims is merely telling tall tales. Truth does not respect status.
Kwame Owino is the Chief executive Officer of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA-Kenya), a public policy think tank based in Nairobi. Twitter: @IEAKwame
