OVERSIGHT ROLE: ARE KENYANS GUILTY OF MIS-GOVERNANCE?
BY: JUMA HEMEDI
3/06/2022
This week the media reported the freezing of assets belonging to a former governor worth billions. There have been similar stories in the news since the coming of multiparty and more so since the start of devolution in 2013 involving many sitting and former county bosses as well as legislators. The 2010 constitution defined for the first time the rights and responsibilities of Kenyan citizens. It also created governance and oversight institutions to ensure that public resources and those rights that citizens are entitled to are protected.
At the county level the sovereign will of the people is donated to two institutions which are separated by their mandates, the County executive headed by the Governor and the county assembly populated by elected members of the county assembly elected also by the voters in the county. The Governor executes the mandate enshrined in the constitution and is answerable to the county assembly and the senate, who are the “people’s watchdog”.
At the national level the people of Kenya also donate their powers to two institutions; the executive headed by the President and the Parliament comprising of both the National Assembly and the Senate members. Senate creates a greater oversight and protection of devolution and its principles. The people also knew better and enshrined other institutions such as the office of Auditor General, Controller of budgets, EACC among others.
Senators and the County Assembly members are the first line of defense in preventing the plunder, theft and misuse of public resources and the abuse of office by governors and county executives.
How is it that billions of shillings meant to provide development and critical services to their people at their counties are stolen at their watch? The same question should be asked of the members of the National assembly. At what point should we raise the alarm that the resources meant to provide sanitation, education, healthcare, infrastructure, clean water are being stolen and or misappropriated by a few?
One of the issues that has often come up in most independent reports has been the issue of those charged with legislation and oversight doing business and even becoming suppliers of the very entities they are supposed to oversight.
How do you question a procurement process that you are a beneficiary of? And how do you question poor workmanship of a project that your company is responsible for? The Kenyan people continue to put their hopes and trust in institutions that continue to fall short of their expectations.
But if the oversight institutions are guilty and we submit they are, we the Kenyan voters are equally GUILTY. We have all fallen short of the glory of God and of our country. We have continued to fail our country and our children.
We continue to participate in elections without asking ourselves what we want and expect from those we elect. We have continued to live up to the adage of the definition of some phrases of “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
A lemon tree cannot produce lemons this season and then we expect it to produce mangoes in the next season. No wonder our young people failed to show up to register as voters, they just cannot understand how their parents have been participating in elections for over 30 years and nothing seems to change.
We continue to punch below our weight socially and economically because we continue to choose leaders who are below per, and the best of us shy away from offering themselves for elections. We raise our individual expectations of ourselves and strive to be hard working in our businesses and investments and in the future of our children and their education, yet we continue to elect individuals who pass policies and laws that destroy our very businesses and investments. These people end up destroying the education of our children and their very future that we want to protect.
We are all insistence on what quality of life we want for ourselves yet we have no standards and checklist for our leaders. We interview the employees we employ at home and in our Mpesa and kibanda business more than we do the candidate for MCA, Senator and MNAs. We must take our county and country seriously.
We are ALL guilty on the following counts among others;
- The stolen and misappropriated public funds by the people we elected and put into office
- The bad laws that have been passed and failed to safeguards our businesses, investments and the future of our children
- The bad policies that have failed our healthcare, education, sanitation and human dignity
- The continuous participation in elections being solely guided by party euphoria and money instead what potentials individuals possess and what kind of leadership we want as a people for our country.
- We are guilty for the loss of lives that could have been prevented by the provision of essential medicine, equipment’s, resources and human capital.
- We are guilty for the loss of education opportunity for those children whose bursaries were stolen and whose schools were not built.
Even as We submit this guilty verdict. We are well aware that we have less than 70 days to do it RIGHT. If we want to harvest oranges, we must plant orange trees. If we want a country that is well governed, we must sacrifice and pay the price for good governance. Failure to pay the price for good governance will end up making you pay the costly price for bad governance.
We must remember that our RIGHTS are tied to our RESPONSIBILITIES, we have a right to access government services, but we have a responsibility to ensure we elect people with integrity into government and governance structures. We have less than 70 days to make this decision. Make the RIGHT decision. Let’s Take our country Seriously.
Juma Hemedi mwaniki
MP Thika-2022
#WeTakeThikaSeriously
No comments: