Politicians complaining about cost of living and fuel prices are liars

Dishonesty. For the past three days, some of Kenya’s elected representatives have been doing what they do best: telling lies.

It is common knowledge that when they are not ripping off Kenyans through underhand deals, they are telling lies, and this week, they intensified this latter activity.

Whenever there is a crisis, and most are caused by their thievery and inability to think beyond their own stomachs, they join voters in wailing against the government.

This week, they have been wailing because of the fuel price hike and blaming the Executive, yet keeping it in check is their job.

Once again, they are lying to Kenyans that they are with them, and that the rise in prices has come to them as a shock too. Thus, they will do everything within their power so that the so-called ordinary citizens are cushioned against high cost of living.

Problem is, some voters — and they are many — believe these lies, and actually, do trust that the politicians are genuinely concerned about their overall welfare.

This has been the tragedy. Kenyans elect these thieves, and when they have connived to steal from Kenyans, the people who elected them, they come back to promise the victims that the thieves will be apprehended. That they will ensure that the stolen goods are not only returned but that they will put an end to more broad daylight robberies.

The rise in price of fuel is not surprising. The elected representatives knew it will come a time when the price will be high, or higher than the current levels, because they passed laws that ensured that costs will increase even when the economy is tanking.

As a matter of fact, a number of laws they passed were never about keeping prices of basic goods and services low or stable, but were to see them skyrocket.

That is why their concerns now are not genuine, and deep inside, they are just laughing at the stupidity of the suffering Kenyans who see them as saviours.

As one of our senior writers, Allan Mungai, pointed out in our sister publication, Saturday Standard, the elected representatives are “the ones who passed the Value Added Tax law in 2013 when the economy was stable and postponed its implementation twice to 2016 and later to 2018, allowing the Executive to raise its appetite for external borrowing.”

It is dishonest of them — but why can that be surprising anyway, considering that national and county legislative assemblies are filled with people who earned their seats by peddling half-truths — to sound surprised and start protesting over the high and rising, cost of living.

But while the politicians at all levels of governance must be held responsible for the mess, it should not be lost on Kenyans that they did not get there on their own.

Granted, they peddled lies, but Kenyans swallowed the lies like they have always done, and woke up early to line up and vote, and then figured that their civic duty as citizens ended at the polling booth.

Often, in fact all the time, Kenyans too get surprised at the turn of events, and blame everyone else apart from themselves. But if only they took interest in what the legislators are supposed to do, such situations would be averted.

There is apathy towards politicians. Kenyans do not want to engage them — and actually take pride in that — and take them to task, but at the end of the day, it is not the politicians who suffer.

This failure to confront them has made them comfortable in not thinking about the people they represent, the voters, when they are passing punitive laws.

They peddle lies every electioneering period, throw money they have ideally stolen from public coffers at the people, promise them the world, then walk away assured of getting elected, so they can steal some more.

They scream about corruption, and all of them use war on corruption as a campaign plank, and say it is what is ailing the country, but engaging in underhand deals is their stock in trade, and there is no public kitty they saw that they never wanted to empty in to their pockets.

They say corruption is denying the youth jobs, is killing the economy, but they are neck deep in corrupt deals, and cannot explain some of their acquisitions or where they get the resources for campaigning in their areas or around the republic.

As a matter of fact, if corruption were to be eliminated, none of them would consider going for any elective positions because they would not be sinfully lucrative, and they might have to serve the electorate, something that they have no interest in.

Sadly, they cannot end corruption, do not want to end it and do not wish that it ends, for, engaging in corrupt deals, is their main income-generating activity.

And their form of relaxation is lying to Kenyans that they want to solve their problems, the current one being the fuel price hike. These pathological liars need professional help for real.