A NEW GALLUP SURVEY REveals that Kenyans are more concerned about unemployment, poverty and high prices, than they are about a new constitution.

That is worrying. That we are more concerned about simple bread-and-butter issues — about our creature comforts and well-being — than about the constitution, shows we conform to the hackneyed argument of years past that matters of the stomach are more important than freedom and democracy.

During the struggle for multi-partyism in the early 1990s, President Moi and his academics-on-hire went into overdrive trying to sell the argument that the crusade for democratisation and human rights was alien and foreign-inspired; and failed to take cognisance of the fact that Kenyans had much more important issues to occupy them.

Politics of the stomach, President Moi used to say as he presided over a kleptocracy that looted the national coffers, drive in a wild binge aimed at buying hearts and minds.

Well, a few in the inner sanctum grew very rich, but the vast majority of Kenyan became much, much poorer until they eventually realised how important it was to boot out the Kanu regime before it starved them all to death.

So, in a way, Mr Moi was right. He bankrupted the country and the people he was trying to buy with politics of the stomach came to realise that their long-term interests lay in democratisation rather than temporary satiation.

In time, the process was completed when the Moi regime was shown a wide open exit door to mark what came to be recognised as a pivotal stage in the Second Liberation.

It was not long, however, before the new President Kibaki reneged on the promise to deliver a new constitution, one of the cardinal pledges of election campaign, and the coalition that had ended four decades of a Kanu monopoly on power started crumbling.

President Kibaki’s biggest letdown to Kenyans has always been the aborted new constitution; and after the near meltdown following the disputed 2007 presidential election, it was widely recognised that the path to peace, national reconciliation and healing would have to be paved with a new economic and social order.

Hence the surprise that just over half a year since the country was pulled from the brink, Kenyans no longer recognise the paramountcy of a new constitution.

I don’t know whether that is a sign of contentment, indifference, or desperation, but it is still worrying.

If it is contentment with the relative peace and calm following installation of the Grand Coalition government, then Kenyans are in a state of dangerous delusion.

Peace is not just the absence of war. The fact that Kenyans are not killing each other at the moment does not mean a state of peace, it only means a ceasefire. Until the things that divide Kenyans are resolved and he solutions entrenched in a new constitutional order, we cannot talk about having attained peace. We are still in a state where a tiny spark can lead to fresh bloodletting.

Indifference is just as dangerous. It means Kenyans simply do not know or do not care that they are sitting on a ticking time bomb that could explode at any minute.

Then there is desperation. It is true that a people struggling just to keep body and soul together, as in the Moi years, might have little time and energy to expend on abstract things like a new constitution. They have enough problems about where the next meal will come from.

Perhaps Mr Moi’s ideology of the stomach held that hungry people do not have the luxury of time and energy to agitate for improvements in their lives.

True, to an extent, because the more chilling reality is that a hungry and desperate people do not have the luxury to look forward to a future of hope and promise.

They are more likely to turn to crime and other acts of desperation merely to survive. Runaway crime and the proliferation of dangerous gangs in the urban areas and all sorts of bandits in the remoter areas are a direct manifestation of that state of desperation and hopelessness.

THERE USED TO BE A DOCUment called the Ministerial Code of Conduct. Issued by President Kibaki just three short years ago, The Code would appear to have gone into disuse seeing the sort of conduct and utterances we are daily observing of our ministers and assistant ministers.

In addition to expecting them to observe the general Code of Conduct and Ethics applicable to all public servants, ministers were further bound by detailed regulations in a long list of dos and don’ts.

The regulations are being openly flouted, and it appears nobody is willing to enforce them.

Perhaps one could blame the structure of the coalition that forced the two arms of government to cohabit with characters they would ordinarily not want to be seen dead with. There is also the unofficial immunity granted ministers because, however badly they behave, they cannot be sacked unless President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga concur.

The coalition structure, however, is not exactly the one at fault. Even in the pre-coalition period, when he ruled without having to make reference to anyone else, President Kibaki was patently uninterested in enforcing discipline and good behaviour among his troops.

A look at the Code of Conduct reveals a whole series of provisions, which have been ignored.

As a public service, today I dedicate my space to extracts from the Code of Conduct. I will be waiting to receive alerts when these provisions are flouted. I suspect no minister will be left standing if the Code were to be applied.

In carrying out public business, including making public appointments ministers should make choices on merit, without discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, gender, religion or origin.

Ministers are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to scrutiny by the Public and Parliament. Ministers, who knowingly mislead Parliament, will be expected to offer their resignation.

Ministers should, at all times, act with honesty, and uphold the highest ethical standards.

Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises or appears to arise between their public duties and private interests. A minister shall not personally, or through a company in which he or she is a shareholder or a director, do business directly or indirectly with the ministry or any public body under the general or special oversight by the ministry of which he or she is the minister.

Collective responsibility requires that ministers should be able to express their views frankly in private while maintaining a united front when decisions have been reached. Ministers should thus not disagree publicly with Cabinet decisions. Decisions reached by the Cabinet are binding. Ministers are required to abide by them and defend them as necessary.

IN REACHING POLICY DECISIONS ministers shall give fair consideration and due weight to informed and impartial advice from civil servants.

Any minister who intends to make a speech, which deals with, or makes observations which have a bearing upon matters which fall within another minister’s responsibilities, should consult that minister.

On appointment to each new office, ministers are advised to provide the secretary to the Cabinet with a full list, in writing, of all interests which might be thought to give rise to a conflict. The list should cover not only the minister’s personal interests but also those of a spouse or partner, children who are minors, trusts of which the minister or a spouse or partner is a trustee or beneficiary, or of closely associated persons.

Ministers undertake to allow the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, or any other competent authority, to access their declarations of assets and liabilities made under the Public Officer Ethics Act, or any other law amending or replacing the same.

No other authority shall be required by the Anti-Corruption Commission or other competent authority to access a minister’s declaration from the responsible Commission and to verify the same. The President may, on the advice of the Commission or other competent authority, take administrative action against a minister whose declaration is found to be incomplete, or false or otherwise to raise suspicion on the integrity of the minister without prejudice to any legal action that may be taken against such minister.

Ministers must resign any directorships they hold when they take up office.

PRESIDENT KIBAKI, VP MUSYoka and Prime Minister Odinga are no doubt the most pampered public servants in Kenya.

In addition to princely salaries, courtesy of the rest of us ordinary mortals, they enjoy almost unlimited benefits and perks that take care of virtually every earthly need.

These include shopping, household, entertainment, holidays, leisure and other personal expenses which really should not be charged on the long-suffering taxpayer – but no audit raises a query.

Now the three wise gentlemen find it fit to extend to their spouses further entitlements in the form of cash infusions from the public coffers for assignments nobody quite understands.

Now, I do not begrudge a First Lady and the others – I’m not sure whether they would be Second Lady, Third Lady, or whatever – having their official activities funded by the State.

I suppose spouses in such exalted positions do have some public duties that come with having married right or married lucky.

There will be dinners and cocktails to host, charitable work to be undertaken, all sorts of official travel and countless activities that come with the territory. Some of those functions might even involve a bit of sprucing up in the wardrobe, hair and facial departments.

It would be extremely mean and churlish of us to expect them to dip into their own handbags to finance activities that are undertaken principally in support of the quasi-official roles they play.

It is thus right and proper that – clothes, hairdo and make-up excepted – we, the taxpayers, foot the bill.

It would be entirely wrong, however, to simply throw wads of cash at Mrs Lucy Kibaki, Mrs Ida Odinga and Mrs Pauline Musyoka for them to spend as they wish. Not a single shilling should go into their respective personal bank accounts.

Any provisions for spousal expenses should not be paid directly, but drawn from the official budget of the principal spouse who is in Government service.

Such expenses as envisaged should not be paid out as salary for no recognisable job done, or as some ex-gratia payment; but operated within public service rules and regulations as applied to public servants authorised to incur expenditure for defined functions or projects.

Since the beneficiaries in this case are not even public servants, it follows that they cannot be allowed to sign, draw any cash or sign any expense vouchers. Such tasks would have to be entrusted to staff in the offices of their husbands.

I don’t know where this whole business of paying the far-from-needy spouses of our key leaders came from. I have no idea whether Mama Ngina Kenyatta was ever paid an allowance.

IT WAS WHEN PRESIDENT KIBAKI came to power that Kenya again had a First Lady and the allowance came into being. One might recall that it was very tactlessly increased just before the General Election of last year – something about an increased workload.

During President Kibaki’s first term, the matter of Vice-President Awori’s wife getting an allowance never arose.

From the circulars seen recently from the Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura, one can glean that the payments to the wife of the present Vice-President is an innovation, as is the matching payment to the wife of the Prime Minister.

If the way Kenya operates is anything to go by, it might not be long before the wives of Deputy Prime Ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi also start badgering their respective husbands for money from State coffers.

WITH INTERVENTIONS on the Mau Forest crisis, the Grand Regency Hotel sale; and now the Port of Mombasa, Prime Minister Raila Odinga is displaying a rare kind of leadership as he defines the functions of his new office.

The power-sharing agreement he signed with President Kibaki gave him a position that was hardly defined. Whoever got such a post could either assume vital executive power or be no more than a glorified messenger.

Indeed, many of Mr Odinga’s allies were apprehensive that he had been short-changed, particularly because he did not get direct responsibility for any of the key dockets like Internal Security, Provincial Administration, or Finance.

On the other side, many of President Kibaki’s people were quite satisfied with a deal that granted them a respite from the post-election violence, while giving Mr Odinga what looked like a premiership with very little power.

Many of the PNU nabobs were wont to smirk that as long as Mr Odinga got a long motorcade and appropriate security detail, he would be quite happy, and it would be back to business as usual.

The fact is that it is no longer kazi iendelee. Mr Odinga has grabbed an ill-defined office and shaped it powerfully in his own inimitable way.

There is now no longer a question of what power-sharing meant. The early efforts to use Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka to cut Mr Odinga down to size have been abandoned, and it is now quite clear that the Prime Minister stands right next to the President in terms of the pecking order.

Constitutionally, the President still wields almost untrammelled executive power, but the nebulous responsibilities given the Prime Minister might, in fact, have been a blessing in disguise.

“General co-ordination and supervision” actually came without limits, and that is being seen by the way in which Mr Odinga has the freedom and latitude to exercise his influence over virtually all functions of Government.

He is helped partly by President Kibaki’s laid-back style and distaste for micro-management, so that what used to be seen as a gap in the running of Government has now been more than adequately filled.

With the President in his usual repose, it is Mr Odinga who has moved in to crack the whip across all functions of Government.

President Kibaki has always talked about accountable and efficient Government, but it his former arch-foe, Mr Odinga, who is out in the field whipping everybody into line.

Most refreshingly, Mr Odinga has shown that he is not afraid to step on a few toes. The Mau Forest and Kenya Ports Authority interventions could for him be very tricky politically.

LEADING THE DRIVE TO CLEAR THE Mau of illegal settlements and removing the ports boss has brought him into direct conflict with some of the key constituencies for ODM, but the Prime Minister has faced down MPs from Rift Valley and Coast provinces, respectively, who have taken him to task over the initiatives.

In the process, he has displayed that getting work done for the betterment of Kenya is for him more important that transient political considerations.

He has made a powerful case for saving the Mau, and the MPs from the region who had been complaining have been forced to tone down their demands lest they be seen as supporting the destruction of such an important national resource.

At the Port of Mombasa on Monday, Mr Odinga minced no words in restating his conviction that the vital facility cannot be left to the mercy of incompetent management.

Even more important might have been the strong style in which he dismissed claims by local MPs that the removal of the Ports Authority boss amounted to removal of a Coastal.