By Cyprian Nyamwamu
Yes we have more MPs than we have ICU beds/units. With only 150 ICU beds since independence but we have 349 National Assembly Members plus speaker and 67 Senators plus speaker. The ratio is nearly 3:1.
But we borrowed five trillion over the first six years of Jubilee. For God knows what.
We are building for MPs a building worthy billions in city center so that they may finally represent us better. The parliamentary budget is now over Kshs 30 billion annually. Yes annually. But the guys cannot do as little as stop the executive from ballooning the debt and borrowing. You wonder what exactly MPs do now that we have. They can’t even call for more doctors and nurses, they are never there for teachers. Everyone in Kenya is on their own.
What government spends on flowers, tea and snacks, travel expenses and allowances, stationery, workshop per diems, bottled water etc is enormous. The courageous man of God Reuben Kigame stated last month that what Kenya needs is a BVI not a BBI..a Building Values Initiative. Because we don’t have leaders but dealers. And the citizens are worse off. We have citizens who don’t care who we vote for, so long as it’s one from their clan, ethnic group or one their ethnic boss has told them to vote for and it better be someone with cash to spend.
We can blame the system all we want but that will not solve our problem. We need our Mahathir Mohammed, our Lee Kwan Yew, our Julius Nyerere to initiate a cultural revolution. Not BBI for more posts. We need change agents.
Before then, the COVID-19 has exposed us to the realities of our kind of people we have been electing to government, to Parliament. The kinds of judges and magistrates we have. The kind of police officers we have. The kind of Church or clergy we have including Imams etc.
If Churches today worked with the government to turn all churches into masks distribution and testing structures for their congregants and neighbors; into mass testing centres, food distribution, counseling and education centres; etc we will contain this disease quickly. But no, MPs and Churches are looking at the health ministry and state house to provide answers. State house will never give answers in Kenya that will cut it. I have explained elsewhere that governments in Africa are too big for small issues like unemployment and too small for big issues like the COVID-19 crisis. Rarely fit for purpose. Lately the USA government under Trump is displaying very African attributes.
Let one with all arise!
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