New mistakes, old disasters we elected are ready for duty - fleecing Kenyans

Voters queue to vote at the KICC polling station on August 9, 2022. [Stafford Ondego, Standard]

When the term of the 12th Parliament ended two months ago, I wrote here that the brigands had gone home, but we will pick another lot to continue with their wicked ways.

That might have been harsh, to brand elected representatives -people who are supposed to pass legislation to make ours a better nation - thieves, bandits, robbers or thieves. But truth be said, that is what they are, and unlike other timid robbers who try to hide their weapons and intentions, the ones we elect to Parliament are bold and shameless; they are the look-you-in-the-eye-while-I-steal-from-you type.

Several months ago, I wrote here that "Kenyans elect mistakes, then expect the mistakes to provide solutions. When no solutions are offered and problems increase, they look for scapegoats.

"Come the next election cycle, they vote in the previous mistakes that have graduated to disasters and throw in younger mistakes which will be pupils of the disasters."

That next election cycle has come, and we did not disappoint because we did exactly what I wrote several months ago: voted in the previous mistakes that have graduated into disasters and thrown in younger mistakes which will be pupils of the disasters. These younger mistakes were in Parliament buildings the other day, for an orientation tour.

They need to know the nooks and crannies of the building from which they will pass laws that disempower and impoverish Kenyans; the place from which they will attend committee meetings and then write skewed reports that exonerate those who have granted them favours after wronging the public. They needed to know even where the toilets are, not because they will use them to answer calls of nature, but to answer calls of corruption, for there have been reports that was where members of the previous Parliament went to receive cash so as to pass a controversial Bill.

The newbies were excited, as they should be after a grueling campaign period when they spent cash with abandon, now that there is no law to cap campaign spending. Going to Parliament was their dream, but considering statements some of them have made, it will be a nightmare for voters, as it has always been.

If the money they spent during the campaigns was from their friends, they have to find ways through which the friends will benefit from their being in Parliament. If it was from their businesses, they will have to plug the holes left in their books. All that will be done through cutting underhand deals, at the expense of Kenyans who voted for them with the hope that they will enter the Chambers with fresh mindsets and make things work, after saying they would not be like their predecessors.

It is pointless to say that there should be a law to cap campaign spending. Such a law will not see the light of day because the thieves in Parliament will not pass any legislation that regulates or curtails their thieving ways. Of course such a law would help the voters but since Kenyans are inherently corrupt, they prefer short term gains to long term solutions since they will miss the handouts they receive during campaign period.

If what some of the newbies said during the orientation tour is anything to go by, the new spate of robberies will start in two weeks time when Parliament starts its sittings. Just before the elections, the Supreme Court pulled the plug on MPs' cash cow, the National Government Constituency Development Fund. Before that, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission had also scrapped Sh1 billion intended for their sitting allowances.

These were just some of the ways through which they were getting illicit funds, and the veterans who joined the newbies in the orientation tour, know how sweet these monies are, and wasted no time in inciting the newbies who hit the campaign trail knowing that these monies would be available.

Some of the "younger mistakes" have vowed that the first order of business in Parliament will restoring the CDF kitty and the "disasters" are with them considering that they also declared that "we will not allow them to scrap our allowances." One of the "disasters" who shouted the loudest about the allowances is a convict, sentenced to jail and fined tens of millions of shillings because of committing economic crimes, and is just not rotting behind bars because the appeal is pending.

These people have not even been sworn in.

So far, they are not thinking about the voters, and the promises they made. They are not ready to change any systems that they complained about on the campaign trail, and said were responsible for the confining the youth, the electorate, to poverty.