Competence in public service will win Covid-19 war

Laikipia West Senator GG Kariuki is congratulated by Retired Major Billow Khalid after they were both awarded a PHD during their graduation at the university of Nairobi graduation square in Nairobi in December 2015. 

There is no doubt, as a nation, we are in the midst of multi-pronged turbulent times. Turbulence is a disordered, irregular, stressful period in the life of a community and nations. To win the future in turbulent times calls for management in all sectors, to make sure institutions are built upon culture of meritocracy.

Those institutions have the ambidextrous capacities to survive the blows like the current Covid-19 pandemic. Indispensable leaders, managers with 20/20 foresight under uncertainty, emerge out of such crucial moments as the present one, where societies face existential threats from arrays of factors riding on the Covid-19 waves.

The future demands decisions, systematic actions today, now. The economic ascendancy of a country is a choice in the hands of its citizens, the leaders and the entire Machinery of Government (MOG) in all of its branches: the Executive, Legislature, and the Judiciary.

The ultimate purpose of MOG is to efficiently and effectively promote the well-being and sufficiency of the nation, the people.

The main catalyst of such grand goals is a public service built on the practice and belief of professionalism and meritocracy. Only then can the country overcome and defeat this toughest of turbulences of 2020-2023.

In a country where professionalism and meritocracy underpin national values, trust gets normalised. Then taking the whole nation into confidence for a given purpose during times of crisis becomes easier.

We, Kenyans, are in a new constitutional, devolution era that poses five big challenges. These are, how to improve national infrastructure, productivity, agriculture, livestock, industry and reduce poverty; how to make devolution work seamlessly, efficiently; how to cope with the large and soaring budget deficits, national debts stemming from the growing demands from all fronts; how to resolve prudently internal conflicts and finally how to transform the public service employees into a world-class professionals, with the right motives, skills and national values.

As Prof Ali Mazrui wrote in his book, The African Condition, “The African’s problems are the paradox of maladministration, retardation and technical backwardness.”