Kaimenyi steals teachers' thunder, but will he have the last laugh?

NAIROBI: There is a bit of truth in the statement that this country is ruled by lawyers. Barely had the news sunk in that teachers were about to reap the fruits of their decade-long battle for better pay than the Education minister Jacob Kaimenyi declared he would appeal against the ruling because the national Treasury is empty.

So teachers were somewhat startled, not quite sure if their song of jubilation was a simple act of kujifurahisha bure (pointless joy) or if tangible benefits were in the offing.

It is hard to tell if Kaimenyi was speaking out of turn – in a recent street protest, I saw a poster scoffing, Kaimenyi, wacha menye menye (Kaimenyi don’t be a know-it-all) a view that was amplified by some politicians who say there is no justification for the minister appealing against the ruling.

I like to think there is truth in that conclusion; there seems to be enough money to draw for anything else other than teachers’ pay.

A case in point is the ongoing rehabilitation of roads around the city, in readiness for our Cousin Barry’s visit, and which had no previous budgetary allocations.

But then, our teachers are not coming from across the seas, and neither are they the President of the United States, which makes a lot of sense.

Moreover, they are not politicians with veto power to overturn laws that work against their interests, while enjoying sufficient leverage to decide how much pay they should earn for their two-and-a-half days of toil every week.

In any case, the suggestion that the Government can hardly afford an extra Sh70b that teachers’ pay increment is a mere drop in the ocean for our trillion-shilling budget.

It’s unclear who will have the last laugh, but we certainly haven’t heard the last from teachers, not so soon anyway.