While addressing senior members of his administration at a retreat recently, President William Ruto talked about the issues of bureaucratic red tape and delay in service delivery.
The president's concern is not new. All over the world, government officials are normally criticised because of delay and inefficiency caused by numerous approval processes.
In Kenya, these delays are difficult to comprehend because sometimes they are not necessary. Take the example of an application for a national identity card or a passport. In other parts of the world, one can get these services within a day. Here, the possibility is high that even after a year, such a document might not be availed.
Paperwork is still the cause of the bottleneck to the service offered by the government. Just a few years ago, all payments to the government had to be done physically at specific banks. With M-Pesa and other technologically enhanced payment modes, it is no longer necessary to subject someone to long queues to pay the government.
The president's concerns are spot on. In the first place, governments are led by politicians who are elected by the citizens. In the social contract between the elected leaders and citizens, the element of service delivery is central. After every election cycle, the electorate have an opportunity to either reward or vote out an elected leader who did not perform as agreed.
It is therefore expected that civil servants implement the manifestos the elected leaders have presented to the electorate. But here is the paradox. As soon as leaders such as the president and governors are elected, the people they appoint or hire to serve them in the government start playing a central role and at a times take advantage of the powers delegated to them.
According to the East African Standard edition of March 18, 1971, two senior politicians, Martin Shikuku, then an assistant minister in the office of the Vice-President and MJ Seroney, an MP, complained about the Cabinet and other senior civil servants becoming too powerful, arrogant and failing to deliver the services the elected officials expected them to.
The Kanu officials proposed an amendment to the law to allow the ruling party leadership to give directives to civil servants where necessary. This of course is impossible with the current arrangement we have in the governance structure according to the Constitution. But Ruto's concerns are legitimate. The buck stops with him at the national level.
Once again, with the president's remarks on these bureaucratic bottlenecks, we are back to where we were in the 1960s. The concern by the elected leaders about service delivery is still a concern but fortunately this time we have technology on our side. The use of emails and electronic approvals including signatures can reduce the time it takes to offer services to the people.
-Mr. Guleid is coordinator, North East Development Initiative
