Civil servants should only use public facilities
The Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. Money spent to purchase goods or services for all public officers should as much as possible be spent in public facilities. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The explicit suggestion that ministers should make use of public services would significantly raise the stakes in the public sector.
- If for once we can suspend our political bickering and agree that public service is not an opportunity to fleece the public, we will have invested in a better future for our children.
A process is ongoing to validate the report prepared by the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task force.
Many commentators declared immediately after the report was released that they would not even bother to read it since they believed the country does not need any further institutional tinkering.
Instead, they averred that what was needed was fidelity to the law and Constitution as they exist. This view is fed by the widespread belief that the BBI process was meant to create additional political offices and amend the Constitution to accommodate them.
Those of us who actually read the report agree that it is full of distracting political noise involving mainly restructuring the executive in pursuit of the elusive ‘inclusivity’.
However, we were able to distil lots of problems in Kenya and solutions aimed at addressing this. The courage of the team in placing happiness and good mental health at the centre of national priorities must be applauded.
Even if this is the only provision that is implemented, the country will change irrevocably for the better.
PUBLIC RESOURCES
Equally important is the task force’s assertion that Kenyans need far better healthcare if this country is to be productive and prosperous, and the recommendations to set up a Health Service Commission and focus on preventive and primary care may work.
These are things the Kenyan health fraternity has been harping on for years, and the public has learnt that Kenyans are thinking this way too.
Perhaps the most revolutionary recommendation was that senior public servants must have ‘skin in the game’ by using services that they develop and manage on behalf of all Kenyans.
The explicit suggestion that ministers should make use of public services would significantly raise the stakes in the public sector.
Money spent to purchase goods or services for all public officers should as much as possible be spent in public facilities.
It makes absolutely no sense that a minister of Health books her clinical appointments at public cost in a private facility, or worse, rushes out of the country to seek services that are available at public health facilities.
BROKE NATION
The government is spending huge amounts of money paying for senior public officers to take their children to expensive private schools while public schools suffer from extreme overcrowding and teacher shortages.
This situation is obviously untenable, and contributes to the massive waste of public resources in a country that has publicly admitted to being broke.
The arguments being made by some entitled public servants about the right to choose the services they receive can only apply if they are paying for those services themselves.
If BBI can fix this conundrum for us, the country will be better. If for once we can suspend our political bickering and agree that public service is not an opportunity to fleece the public, we will have invested in a better future for our children.
Lukoye Atwoli is associate professor of psychiatry at Moi University School of Medicine; [email protected]
