Sugar deal an excuse for Kenya's political drama

The level of political discourse, like the Kenya shilling, has plunged to a really new low in recent weeks.

The maelstrom created over a supposed sugar deal amplifies a sickening and disturbing trend.

For weeks now, Jubilee and CORD MPs have been locked in a conflagration that has reinforced to the public just how pathetic politics in the country has sunk.

Even worse, both sides appear impervious to the suffering of Kenyans. Yet through it all, we have learnt that sometimes listening to both sides shouting, you have to be the sober public servant wading through the sludge of mud and manufactured drama.

Let’s start with the art of propaganda that has been raised to a new level by both camps.

It began when the CORD brigade accused Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru of involvement in the “theft” of Sh800 million from the NYS.

As the brouhaha for Ms Waiguru’s suspension or sacking intensified, we learnt in trickles that in fact this was an attempted theft made through IFMIS, the Government financial system and that no money had been lost through the attempted transactions.

We may have had reason to breathe easy, but the fact that there was an attempted fraud was disconcerting enough.

The last two weeks have seen a different kind of storm in a tea cup, complete with a pinch of sugar. It involves a supposed sugar import deal allegedly inked in Uganda when President Uhuru Kenyatta made a State visit that would allow the importation of 300,000 metric tonnes of sugar.

Never mind that Kenya has a shortfall of 250,000 metric tonnes of sugar, the Opposition seized on the “deal” to accuse the Jubilee administration of trying to kill the western Kenya sugar industry, instead of reviving it.

Sometimes, the thunder can get lost in the storm. Even worse, Parliament has become the cathedral of partisan and hateful politics.

As the storm intensified, Opposition MPs led by Gladys Wanga (Homa Bay County) urged their supporters to boycott milk (that was never discussed at the meeting) from a certain manufacturer because the Uganda trade deal involved an exchange of meat for milk that appeared to benefit the President who, we were told, has interest in the diary sector.

The move to drag in a milk boycott into a colourless debate can only be described as an act of low-voltage imagination.

Nothing was more disheartening than watching Ms Wanga on national TV last December pouring a bottle of mineral water on besieged Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso in an act that marks a highlight of her political career thus far.

But then, here was honourable Ms Wanga months later leading a crusade demanding a milk boycott.

Here are the facts as adduced so far: there was no sugar deal signed between Kenya and Uganda touching on sugar, Government functionaries have maintained; nobody has produced a copy of the “deal” that was signed; we have been importing sugar from Uganda under the Comesa rules, but even that did little to bury the debate. The Opposition was already planning huge rallies in Western Kenya to protest the “deal” and rally farmers. The Opposition has pulled another dummy from its repertoire of political acts. Remember Okoa Kenya? Touché.

Yet to their credit, CORD has developed a knack for turning a non-issue into a tsunami, thanks largely to a soporific Jubilee communications unit that slumbers through manufactured controversies.

Yet in reality, the Opposition needs to go back to the drawing boards and re-examine their values and role which is to keep the Government in check and provide alternative leadership in waiting.

Where was this level of outrage when the Auditor General released a catalogue of shocking public sector wastage of close to Sh67 billion recently?