President Uhuru Kenyatta must show his hand in governance

By MUGAMBI NANDI

KENYA: At some point in his second term, former President Kibaki remarked that he regretted not having streamlined the country’s procurement laws immediately upon taking office in his first term, in order to make government procurement more efficient. The strict and lengthy procurement process had been put in place with the assistance of the World Bank as a means of curbing corruption. (Of course we know that this, like most World Bank prescriptions, has not worked, but that is a story for another day).

President Kibaki’s concern was that by settling into the legal framework put in place by his predecessor, his government lost time and missed an opportunity to speed up the implementation of government projects. The result was general impatience by the citizenry as road construction and other projects did not take off as fast as had been hoped. This is a lesson that would benefit President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

Almost one year since the duo took office, their policy-making and support structures remain largely what they inherited from Kibaki. While the need for continuity and institutional memory cannot be gainsaid, the injection of fresh thinking is paramount if greater strides are to be made. As is often said, one should not expect different results from using the same old methods. I must hasten to add that in my estimation Kibaki did a superb job on the economic front. In that sense, one might argue that inheriting his administrative structures and officials may not be an entirely bad idea – except that the Jubilee Manifesto was not about continuity. It was about change.

One of the biggest challenges the President and his deputy must be facing is how to bring about a change in the culture, attitude and mentality of politicians, the civil service and the citizenry.

I have no illusions about the enormity of the task, and I would not expect it to happen overnight. My concern is that the dynamic duo seems to be doing its best to “fit in”. This is killing innovative and creative thinking, due to overreliance on people whose approach is, to use an Americanism, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”!

I wrote here a while back that the civil service runs, nay, is the government. A lot of decisions with national, regional and long-term implications are made by the civil service. The Executive functions through the civil service.

The civil service is the very reason the UhuRuto duo is not achieving much traction despite the rhetoric about ambitious plans to take Kenya to the Promised Land. The civil service is “supposed” to be apolitical, but this is a mirage.

It would probably have done Kenyatta political damage to take drastic action on the issue of the public wage bill, but it would have done the country much good in the long run. By the same token, it might do him damage in the short term to fight corruption, but in the long run it would be good for the country and for his legacy.

I still hope that Kenyatta can be firm on these two issues, which alone would change a lot for the better for this country. Kenyatta has never been named in any corruption scandal. Indeed, the only blemish that is remotely related to corruption that is ever mentioned about him is the (in)famous computer error in the national budget when he was Minister for Finance.

It is about time Kenyatta showed his hand. He must not let himself to be held captive by his advisors, the civil service, party officials and other persons whose personal interests may not be in synch with the interests of the nation. He will, in due course, realise just how short a five-year term is. Time is running out but it is not too late.