Some nagging questions amid loud cry for political stability

Kondele, Kisumu County, residents protest the validation of President Uhuru Kenyatta's poll win by the Supreme Court on November 20, 2017. Today, mere mention of a protest rally is enough to put the central business district in a state of paralysis. PHOTO | ONDARI OGEGA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • This society craves the politics of compromise, inclusion, cooperation and proportionality in the allocation of resources.
  • Indeed, fighting graft is difficult because of the symbiotic relationship between corruption and competition for political power.

It is Jubilee’s turn to eat. In the dysfunctional politics we practise, it is all a zero-sum game between greedy arrogant insiders, on the one hand, and equally greedy outsiders, on the other hand, waiting for their turn at the feeding trough.

Admittedly, appointments on the basis of political patronage, where positions are shared between allies and kinsmen of the president, have become a ubiquitous feature of modern politics.

I read somewhere that the United States president has the privilege and discretion to fill hundreds of thousands of plum public positions with members of his party.

CORRUPTION
Yet in most modern societies, being hired to a plum post in the public sector does not allow you to use that position for personal enrichment or to subvert the rule of law for personal gain.

Ours is a closed system where the elite are not accountable to the citizens and in which corruption always goes unpunished.

This society craves the politics of compromise, inclusion, cooperation and proportionality in the allocation of resources.

Indeed, moderate voices are currently shouting their voices hoarse, calling for dialogue.

POWER

It will not happen easily because of corruption and the politics of “it is our turn to eat”.

Indeed, the reason politics remains a high-stakes affair is it is a system where outsiders must be excluded from the eating party until after the next elections.

Once you are elected president, you quickly grab a ladder, climb to the top of the roof, and kick it very far away to make sure that nobody comes near you.

From this vantage point, you start preaching the language of ‘peace’, ‘development’ and ‘unity’.

Anybody who criticises you is dismissed as an “anti-development agent”.

EDWARD OUKO
Independent oversight institutions must be captured or forced to toe the line.

Corruption and the high-stakes of winning elections in Kenya explain why Mr Fazul Mahamed of the NGOs Coordination Board has been exercising powers he doesn’t have under the law.

Does it surprise that Leader of Majority Adan Duale has sent a notice that one of the things his party plans to do when Parliament resumes is to force Auditor-General Edward Ouko, out?

VIOLENCE
Indeed, fighting graft is difficult because of the symbiotic relationship between corruption and competition for political power.

With President Uhuru Kenyatta set to be sworn in a matter of days, the big questions we must now ask ourselves are as follows:

First, what is the immediate future likely to look like in terms of political temperatures, ethnic polarisation, and anger among the political elites?

What must we do to graduate from the ranks of failed states that invariably go through violence and extreme economic volatility and instability at every electoral cycle, and whose economies must plunge into recession after every general election?

DEMONSTRATIONS
When are we likely to see an end to weeks of persistent street demonstrations, violence and agitation for secession and constituent assemblies in some areas?

Nairobi is becoming more and more vulnerable and fragile to street demonstrations.

Today, mere mention of a protest rally is enough to put the central business district in a state of paralysis.

Worse, things are not looking up in terms of the economy.

Yes, we have maintained infrastructure expenditure at a reasonably high level.

ECONOMY

But is has come with a massive jump in debt service obligations.

The wage bill has ballooned. Credit to the private sector has dried up, while the number of firms issuing profit warnings is increasing by the day.

The number of profit warning issues by listed companies is up and tax collections by the Kenya Revenue Authority are all on a downward trend.

The numbers from published audited accounts of commercial banks show that too many of our small banks are in distress, tottering towards insolvency.

BUDGET
The government itself is facing major public expenditure management pressures — as demonstrated by the recent supplementary budget when it was forced to make arbitrary across-the-board cuts on the recurrent budget by juggling votes and budget lines.

With a massive Sh30 billion cut in the development budget, a ballooning of pending bills is now expected to follow.

Management of debt has gone haywire, with government now forced to borrow expensive short-term commercial external debt to service other short term debts, pretending to be restructuring its external debts when all it is doing is no better than borrowing from Paul to pay Peter.

I see the government with no alternative but to seek fast-disbursing support from institutions such as the World Bank’s IDA, to enable it to swap expensive syndicated loans for concessional debt.

The crying need of the moment is political stability.