Is there value for taxes paid in Kenya?

During the recent rains, residents of some estates off Thika Road near Juja revealed interesting things about Kenya. The rains wrecked the only entry road to their middle-class area. And the road turned into ‘Lake Kenyatta Road’ overnight.

Stung to the quick, a WhatsApp’s group was cobbled up to appeal for funds to mend the road. And money flowed.

The good: Faced with adversity, Kenyans will come together. There is an inherent thing in us that is quickly harnessed and channelled towards the common good, government be damned!

Within a short time, lorries of rocks thundered. The clarion call was ‘Tujenge barabara’ (let’s build the road).

They donated Sh1,000, Sh500, trucks full of stones, and so on. Any time motivation sagged, the steering committee called for more donations. Money flowed. Then the road became passable.

People felt good. It reminds me of the occasional corporate-driven campaign to raise money to buy food for the starving compatriots in the north.

Seeing people donating small and big, one bag, a shilling, a lorry of food is just moving. It is the spirit of patriotism; caring for one another. It plays well with our oneness and nation building.

This same spirit is manifest when our sports teams win big in far-flung cities. We claim them as ‘ours’. And something called Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) will howl, yell and bellow at anyone who suggest ill on Kenya. Ethnic identity is quickly forgotten!

On social media, no one takes a fight with Kenyans and survive to tell the story. Yes we are one.

The mighty CNN learned it the hard way after its infamous ‘hotbed of terror’ slur. No less a person than its CEO had to fly to Nairobi to calm things down. Kenyans have discovered the near magical power of the social media and how to use it for a common goal.

Now the bad! In the Juja case, any resident who dared raise a question or suggestion would be quickly shouted down.

Exactly what we do nationally, whenever leaders have no straight answers. Queries on budget, plan, and timeline, labour or workmanship would be quickly dismissed with accompanying insults typical of the market place that is Kenya’s politics. Here is choice retort. “May be you use a chopper, that is why you are raising... (insert your favourite insult)...questions!”

Attempts to engage the group on such alien things like putting pressure on the county government through the MCA as the most sustainable solution were smugly dismissed. “There’s is no time for theories and philosophy... Just keep sending money and the road will be mended you ( insert insult...) !”

The road in question is public. We have already paid for that road through taxation and collecting money from the public amount to double levying. It seems we have long accepted that ‘government’ is that philosophical elephant described by three blind men.

While no one was forced into the contribution, the exercise mirrors the prevalent misunderstanding of the role of government in the provision of public goods. The Karengata Resident Association case captures this very well.

Some years ago, residents of the opulent Karen and Langata refused to pay land rates on the grounds that the defunct City Council of Nairobi had little to show in terms of infrastructure.

They went to court. The question is still unsettled, with Nairobi’s governor Evans Kidero recently asking Karen residents to start paying directly to the county.

The association has been collecting the land rates and using the money to mend their infrastructure.

That so many feel powerless or clueless on engaging the government is a function of low civic consciousness and poverty, conditions which successful governments have exploited well.

Yet the constitution even allows the public to sue the government to force it to deliver services. In addition the approach by the Juja residents is typical of middle class attitude. They are a status quo lot.

The truth is that the middle class, whom the African Development Bank defines as people who spend about Sh300 to Sh1000 daily per head, will normally not quarrel with any government so long as it does not interfere with private enterprise in service provision.

The middle class will not mind whether the government fails or not so long as the conditions remain suitable for private schools, hospitals, stock exchange, and security to thrive.

Yet they pay heavily for government failure. Elsewhere, governments fall or rise on the account of their provision of public goods.

One of the most clear of signs of government failure in Kenya is the proliferation of private provision of goods like education, health, water, security to serve a minority while public supply of the same for the poor majority has dwindled.

It is a silent conspiracy between the middle class and the government.