Dropping laptop project would be sufficient apology

By Timothy Bosire

Kenya: Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi should just see the light and drop the controversial attempts to purchase laptop computers for pupils in our public schools.

It beats logic to bulldoze a project that has degenerated from promise to scandal in so short a time. It was a campaign pledge played to the public gallery that was long on promise and short on reality. It is a lofty dream from the clouds while all our children want are items much closer to the earth.

Kenyans cannot understand why a project that is clearly ill-conceived, and problematic in implementation is still on the menu, leave alone being allowed to waste the time of bureaucrats in a key docket like education who have more burning responsibilities to the Kenyan child.

This project has its roots in the generation of clever election campaign propaganda for 2013. Some smart campaign spin-doctors realised that majority of Kenyan voters are youngsters who are fresh parents of infants and those about to start siring/bearing children. This genre of voters just happen to be the most excitable and if well harnessed could deliver massive votes to the parties or coalitions that could expertly tap into it.

What more magnetic maneuver to win them over than one related to technology; specifically ICT, which is the heartbeat of, and biggest dream achievement for, this cluster of prime voters! And what would capture them more than the promise to shower the small angels with real ICT provided for by government! So the campaign masters unleashed them on the campaign trail, on to the masses. And for sure, it delivered many winning votes.

Therefore, conceived in fantasy, this project easily failed the feasibility test. Logic would be, for the authorities to dump it at the earliest opportunity. Nobody would have lynched Jubilee Alliance leaders if, after assuming office, they would have sounded out Kenyans and told them they were dropping or suspending the laptop computer idea to concentrate on constitutional implementation, security reforms, infrastructure expansion and finalising democratic reforms. If anything they would have been embraced and accorded some benefit of doubt.

Today, though late in the day, Jubilee still has the opportunity to own up and apologise and withdraw this project. Apologise because the procurement circus has caused Kenyans a lot of anxiety and embarrassment thus far. The messy procurement is painting our education planners, budget officials and education policy drivers as inexperienced, reckless and naïve.

Why should Prof Kaimenyi be the deer caught in the headlights of this mess? Is he unaware that the project has him looking inept, cornered and tone-deaf to the voices of reason around him? Doesn’t he even notice attempted fraud in the series of aborted tendering for procurement?

Is it by chance that virtually all key stakeholders, amongst them teachers’ unions, Parliament, education scholars, the public procurement oversight authority and even development partners raised objections to the architecture of the project and attendant procurement flaws? How can all these worthies be wrong at the same time about the same agenda and only Prof Kaimenyi and State House balancing the opposite end of the seesaw?

Corruption-riddled

Is the good professor willing to suffer the same infamy of his predecessors who landed senior government positions, including serving in Cabinet, only to soil their previous good reputations and achievements?

Among top professionals and professors who have presided over public office and ended up with permanent infamy over botched public tasks or corruption-riddled projects are: Prof. George Saitoti, Prof. Sam Ongeri, and Prof. Philip Mbithi.

Posterity may judge Kaimenyi more harshly because whereas his predecessors were victims of the old order under a deficient Constitution, he is serving under a new constitution that directly requires him to be more honest, competent, careful and responsible in the discharge of his duties. The new constitution is on his side to insist on the straight and narrow, without excuse!

As things stand now, this project appears jinxed. The procurement process has oscillated between abortions. Availability of enough money to buy enough of the gadgets has become an elastic riddle.

Questions about its sustainability have gone unanswered. The possibility of availing the laptops to all pupils is remote, while the preparedness of teachers and schools to manage the program is one long pipe dream.

Dear Prof, here is some free advice that you can take to your bank of integrity: this project is no priority and is not viable. And if you, as a teacher, scholar and parent love Kenya’s children and sympathise with the taxpayer, both who stand to lose unnecessarily, run for the hills.

It is useless to adopt the mentality of a charging rhinoceros, eyes wide shut, bellowing at a moving target without minding pitfalls. Log out of this one professor.

The writer is MP for Kitutu-Masaba.