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MATHIU: Four things we must tackle next year for rebirth of Kenya

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By MUTUMA MATHIU
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There are four things we must tackle this coming year. First, do the folks who run this economy know what they are doing, or are they pulling our leg? Because the economy is right there at the top of our collective, national New Year resolutions.

The accumulation of debt, the pile of resource-gobbling mega projects whose viability and utility is still the subject of public debate long after implementation, and apparent government unwillingness to slow down and take stock, are some of the biggest worries.

We will get to a point where we say, no more Chinese debt, not a cent more. Of course, somebody will also have to help us figure out if spending $3.2 billion on diesel rail technology was a smart thing. I hope this happens in 2019.

Tens of thousands of Kenyans hope this will be the year when the government starts to facilitate enterprise and stops being such a millstone around the neck of the private sector.

Growth and jobs come from companies. Jubilee has driven thousands of these into bankruptcy through a corrupt and malicious procurement system by which it obtains goods and services but refuses to pay up.

It looked quite progressive when sections of procurement were ring-fenced for youth, women and the disabled. A really good idea. Until it came to paying — then the claws and fangs came out. MPs must, as a priority, pass a law obliging procuring entities to settle invoices within 90 days and make it an offence to fail to do so.

The small gods in ministries, parastatals and counties, obtaining goods — and bribes — from Kenyans and then destroying them by snaking around payments must be driven out of business.

A related issue is, of course, corruption. Ours is probably not corruption; it is pan-societal kleptomania. For ordinary Kenyans such as myself, it feels as if well-heeled thugs are driving Canters to the national till and evacuating the contents to the basements of their corruption-funded palaces.

People are beginning to wonder if corruption can be fought, after all, and whether we should even try since thievery and dishonesty are quite institutionalised and entrenched.

Not only should the crackdown continue, it should be cranked up tenfold. There are many projects that are unexamined — including our Sh1 billion-a-kilometre roads. There should be some alignment between investigators, prosecutors and the Judiciary. If 10 big people are jailed for corruption, you will be surprised at how quickly graft retreats.

On October 4, 1958, the French punched the reset button, ending the chronically unstable Fourth Republic by adopting a constitution that created the Fifth Republic.

Political instability in the post-war period forced the nation to turn to a national hero, Charles de Gaulle, to design a political system that would ensure stability. De Gaulle created a powerful president to take charge of the country, and he was probably right.

The politicians are talking about reworking the Constitution to increase the number of chairs at the dining table so that more of them can eat.

This will ensure that vicious ones who could burn the country are not locked out. No doubt the Kenyan state, as now established, is weak and wasteful.

There is some wisdom in taking advantage of the political push for constitutional change but not to create the stable, rapacious polity the politicians want to establish to rule and plunder the country in perpetuity.

The politicians want the Constitution changed for positions to be created for them. The price they must pay for it is the establishment of a system that frees politics from their stranglehold and makes it possible for a talented Kenyan without money or a big name to ascend to the apex of power.

And this time, the limited review of the government structure should not be left to NGOs or the acolytes of the politicians. It should be given to a few smart, independent-minded national heroes whose only interest will be to ensure a strong, democratic and transparent government.

And, please, let’s remember that the system is not the problem. The politicians are. It’s the same characters who have been there since the fall of Daniel Moi who squandered the Narc revolution and burnt the country in 2007, leading to the killing of Kenyans, and created the crisis last year. The solution is not to enhance but rather curtail their ability to hold the country to ransom.

Finally, this coming year, we should have a national dialogue on security. For many Kenyans, national security is a ‘Black Hole’, a space into which untold resources are poured, but we don’t quite know what happens in there. Until an officer opens fire and kills a student, or Al-Shabaab breaks through national defences and massacres children on campus, then we take to Twitter.

We should invest in a modern police academy that will admit the cream of our youth and train them to protect society. We should relook at the prosecution service and create a profession that lawyers are proud to join. We should begin an assessment of our Judiciary to put more money in it but also make it more law-abiding. Judges are the watchmen of our rights, but who is watching the watchmen?

We should look at our military and intelligence services and create an architecture that serves the needs of our future. The year 2019 should be a busy one for Kenyans. Have a great year, though, and God bless us all!



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