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While all eyes focus on Parliament and President Uhuru Kenyatta on the steep increase in taxes on basic commodities, every Kenyan is to blame for our current economic problems.
First, the Executive is to blame for accepting some legislative decisions that undermine fairness and equity.
Secondly, the voter is to blame for setting the stage for poor governance by making bad choices when electing leaders.
By electing leaders who do not have the spine to fight for our interests and who trade governance issues for personal gain, we give a blank cheque to both the central and county governments on how they generate revenue, manage public resources and borrow. We cannot later cry foul when our pockets are raided.
Secondly, the various legislative bodies make the bad situation worse by failing to execute their oversight roles.
One area where legislative bodies fail Kenyans is giving integrity and competence a back seat when vetting Cabinet secretaries, county executives, commissioners and CEOs of key constitutional bodies – which are critical in making monetary and socio-economic decisions.
For example, in the recent sugar scandal Parliament, which is supposed to protect interests of the common mwanachi, became a vehicle to sanitise crime.
It is the height of hypocrisy for legislative bodies to fight the Executive under the guise of having our interests at heart when, all along, they stood by as public resources were mismanaged.
In a nutshell, all the mistakes, missteps and indecisiveness at both county and national levels have their roots in a misguided, complacent and uninformed voter.
The private sector and some foreign governments that provide aid to our country, and which are supposed to be the cornerstone of good governance, have been overpricing their goods and loans.
This amounts to institutionalising fraud in the tendering process and partnering with public institutions to deprive mwananchi of value for money.
This, in turn, inflates our budget into trillions that cannot be matched with our ability to generate revenue internally.
Our surrender to the State of some of our personal financial responsibilities and the clamour for big projects are also driving the country bankrupt.
Kenyans must bite the bullet by making difficult decisions to shoulder part of the economic burden that we have brought upon ourselves, be it in the form of increased taxes, reduced expenditure or scaling down projects.
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