A Political Kenya: Latest Politics and Kenya Economy News

WE’VE A GRAND COA-lition Cabinet in place. Now attention has turned to the grand coalition public service.

It will be a public service where key officers are appointed, not on qualification, experience, training or the other measures of merit, but on party affiliation.

So if you are already in the service and up in line for promotion, the place to put your application is not the Public Service Commission, but the queue at the ODM headquarters or the PNU headquarters, if they still have one.

Better still, suck up to some politician who has the inside track on available jobs and the influence to place his political allies, youth-wingers, hangers-on, relatives, musclemen and friends in the most lucrative positions.

Of course, the term ‘‘lucrative’’ here refers to our peculiar way of grading Government and State corporation jobs.

What are the functions of the job? How big is the budget one will control? How much of that money can be diverted to private pockets? How many acolytes, relatives, cheerleaders and political supporters can one employ?

How can the appointment be used to enhance one’s future political prospects? What is the scale of projects that can be diverted to one’s home area?

Yes, that is the public service we seem bent on crafting as part of the power-sharing deal, which essentially was an accord between rivals fighting for their piece of the pie.

In the process, the critical elements of good governance must be thrown out of the window so that both groups can start a new competition, which is not a race for votes, but a duel over which can loot faster and more effectively.

One would actually have thought that two competing forces sharing power would provide natural checks and balances, but where both are irredeemably corrupt, it follows they will be more intent on outdoing each other in the looting race than in checking each other.

In such a situation, the best institution to run things efficiently should be the public service. After all it is public servants who sign the cheques and are responsible for policy implementation and the day-to-may management of Government ministries, departments, corporations and statutory bodies.

But if the managers will be appointed based on their party loyalties, then we have a recipe for total disaster.

This is why we must urgently rethink any component of the power-sharing deal that mandates the 50-50 sharing of key public service jobs by the political parties.

This is not to say that we should not seek to re-shape the service to reflect the new dispensation.

AFTER ALL, MANY OF THOSE SERVing, ranging from permanent secretaries, provincial commissioners, and ambassadors to parastatal heads appointed by the Kibaki Government were selected on political and ethnic affiliation, continuing the bastardisation of the public service started by the Kenyatta regime and inherited by the Moi administration.

Two wrongs, however, do not make a right. If ODM is genuinely for reform, then it must drop the demand for its own slate of political and ethnic appointments and suggest a better way.

What is required, really, is the establishment of mechanisms that will ensure competence rather than politics as the main determinant of who gets the job. And we cannot start by simply sacking serving public servants to create room for a new set of political appointees.

There must be a process by which performance of those already in the service can be gauged and those found to be under-performers, and they will be many, allowed to leave.

All who have passed retirement age and been retained simply because they are political loyalists can also be let go immediately.

Few of them, if any, offer any special skills.

That process, properly handled, will immediately create a large number of vacancies, which can then be filled, not by political party loyalists, but by the products of a competitive recruitment process.

In the process, we can also do away with the practice of bringing in “outsiders” to take all the best jobs at astronomical pay that dwarfs the public service wages.

The practice not only demoralises career public servants who get locked out of promotion opportunities, but is also discriminatory.

In any case, it is highly doubtful that many of those so-called experts bring much in terms of skills and competence that is not already available within the service.

If there is abiding need to hire experts with specific training and expertise that is not available within the service, they can be engaged on short-term contracts.

The need to insulate the public service from politics cannot be over-emphasised. There are many countries with highly volatile revolving door politics — Japan and Italy spring to mind — where one can hardly tell who is the prime minister or which is the ruling party from one day to the next. But the public service keeps on working efficiently and keeps the country going.

As we say, politicians come and go, but the public service must remain.

The issue of the internally displaced people is becoming more vexed with each passing day, and the auguries for a quick cure for what is, essentially, Kenya’s festering sore, do not look very promising.

While top political leaders express horror that more than 350,000 Kenyans are living in sub-human conditions in those camps and they must be resettled as expeditiously as possible, there seems to be some resistance from politicians in Rift Valley Province, from where the majority of the victims were evicted.

It is strange that a political leader worth his or her salt should appear to condone the mayhem that ensued after the disputed December presidential elections, during which mass murder, mutilations, pillage and rape became common.

A number of Rift Valley MPs believe that it would be premature to resettle the refugees before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is set up, and what they call historical injustices addressed. They also want investigations to be carried out to determine why ethnic cleansing occurs every election year.

That seems to be only fair. But the question is: how soon can that be done? Are these innocent Kenyans to live in camps indefinitely until politicians decide that time is ripe for resettlement?

These are some of the issues that are supposed to be thrashed out between Rift Valley MPs, President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, at a meeting scheduled for today.

But when people come up with preconditions before such talks even begin, it is a sign that they may not be willing to budge from their positions.

What should ideally happen is a meeting of minds between the MPs, the President and the Premier during which honest views can be exchanged and the refugees allowed back to their land as early as possible. Let the meeting be held in good faith, so that the healing process can start in earnest.

When politicians demand that people suspected of murder, arson and pillage be set free as a precondition, it cannot really be a sign of good faith. Why should innocent people be afraid to face the law?

THE RUNNING OF KENYA HAS been on auto-drift for a number of months now. The run-up to the elections and the post-election mayhem have sapped much of the energy, attention and direction needed for Government to operate effectively.

During this time, a cyclone of escalating prices of food products, fuel and fertiliser has been ravaging country after country, and particularly hurting the many people around the world who live close to the poverty line or on the wrong side of it.

In fact, for virtually all governments of developing countries in particular, it has become the most dominant nightmare and challenge. This is especially so as more and more of their citizens take to the streets and protest. We also need to remember we are only in the early stages of this compounding crisis.

In turn, when Kenya’s new government gets down to real work, it is going to have a baptism by fire and a very short honeymoon.

THIS CRISIS AND HOW TO HANDLE IT is going to be one of its first litmus tests. It is being made more urgent by the fact that we have done little so far to face up to these hard facts and figures and to look at ways of alleviating them short-term and addressing them long-term.

There are two things we must concentrate on. One is to alleviate or soften the brunt of the rising prices. The other is to quickly identify and secure supplies of the food imports we will need in the foreseeable future.

On the former, there are some options in terms of reducing or doing away with import duties on certain products.

For example, wheat still attracts an import duty of 30 per cent and maize 50 per cent if it comes from outside Comesa. Bearing in mind food prices worldwide have risen so much, the current tariffs only end up making these food products much more expensive than domestically produced food.

For example, the landed cost of imported maize is in the region of sh3,000 per 90-kilo bag, which is double the current domestic price. Many farm inputs ranging from tractor equipment to diesel also attract a variety of import duties.

It, therefore, makes sense to review them all and reduce or abolish them as quickly as possible.

The same applies to taxes on fuel. Reducing them would certainly dampen the rising cost of transport but the Treasury would have to forego considerable revenue income.

Two other options being called for are price controls and subsidies. The former is very difficult to implement successfully without distorting the market and creating shortages.

If the prices of these products are rising worldwide, it is difficult to buck that trend. Subsidies have the converse effect to reducing taxes in that the Government must find considerable amounts of money for such an exercise.

Further to that, Government subsidy schemes run the risk of being inefficient and hence wasteful. A good example of that is the disproportionate cost to the taxpayer of the National Cereals and Produce Board over the years vis-à-vis the actual benefits to the consumer at large.

It is tempting for governments to promise subsidies and rush into such schemes without working out the full modalities especially in terms of implementing them and paying for them.

Bearing in mind the pressures this new government will be under on this front, it might opt for this, but more as a knee-jerk reaction than to something that is fully thought through.

The Government, in conjunction with the private sector, must proactively help secure supplies of foodstuffs where the country has major structural deficits. Wheat and rice are the obvious two.

BUT IT IS NOW LIKELY THAT WE could have a shortfall between domestic supply and demand of around a third of our staple product, maize. In a situation where an increasing number of countries are restricting exports of the staple foods they produce, where world food stocks and reserves are perilously low, and where countries are snapping up what supplies they can often through bilateral arrangements, this task is going to be a very hard one for the new government.

At the same time, we need to accelerate medium- and long-term plans to vastly improve productivity so that we can reduce, and eventually eliminate, our structural deficits of food crops.

Whichever way one looks at it, much higher food prices are here to stay and the Government is going to have its work cut out in just fire-fighting the situation and securing adequate imports.

Mr Shaw is a Nairobi businessman

THE NEW MINISTRY OF Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands is probably the jewel in the crown of the Grand Coalition set up a few days ago.

The ministry, which will oversee development projects in northern Kenya and other arid areas that have been marginalised for years, was a good idea that should have happened a long time ago.

It is also fitting that Wajir East MP Elmi Mohammed was appointed to head the new ministry. Mr Mohammed will be assisted by Hussein Sasura who hails from Upper Eastern Province, also a semi-arid region.

The fact that the two are native to the region means that they will be in a good position to know the inhabitants’ development needs and help them set the right priorities.

Thus it is a belated recognition that these marginalised areas have special development needs unlike other parts of the country. For one, the climate is unusually harsh because of the desert conditions.

However, this does not mean that these region cannot be developed simply because of the harsh climate. The very fact that we people live in these lands means that development can take place.

Human beings use two things to conquer various environments: culture and technology. Culture provides a people with traditions, customs, norms and a religious belief system that enables them to live in groups without which life would be very difficult.

Technology refers to those tools that humans use to provide for their needs, the most basic of which are food, clothes and shelter.

The establishment of a ministry to oversee development in this area, then, is a step in the right direction. It is a recognition that this part of the country can be developed for the benefit of the residents and the country as a whole.

HARSH CLIMATE CONDITIONS ARE A barrier to development. But this does not mean they cannot be conquered. Indeed, there are numerous cases the world over where deserts have been literally been turned into bread-baskets. Good examples include Arizona (USA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Arizona is known for its desert climate, exceptionally hot summers and mild winters. However, the state has witnessed tremendous development over the years. It registered a gross state product (equivalent of our GDP) of US$232 billion in 2006.

This figure gives Arizona a bigger economy than countries such as Ireland, Finland, and New Zealand.

Though it is rich in oil and gas deposits, most of the UAE is desert. These conditions have not prevented this Middle Eastern country from becoming one of the most industrialised countries.

The UAE is a fast growing hub for manufacturing and service sector industries as it seeks to diversify its economy from over-dependence on natural resources.

From the foregoing, it is clear that one of the key goals for the new ministry will be to open up these marginalised areas through the provision of adequate infrastructure such as good roads, electricity, telecommunications and reliable water supply.

Such facilities will attract the private sector. With proper infrastructure, nothing will stop investors from putting their funds into sectors such as meat processing and allied industries in which Northern Kenya has a high potential.

Mr Owaka is a postgraduate student at the University of Nairobi.

Mungiki is a local terrorist group whose activities are working to directly benefit their more lethal foreign brothers.

The last three months have been very trying for Kenya. But even as fellow citizens celebrate the peace deal struck and now being implemented jointly by President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the true cost has yet to come to bear on us, especially in terms of gains that we have now lost.

One major drawback is that as Kenyans directed their interest fully on their country’s survival, a group of foreigners, who have previously brought us serious harm, was profiting from the chaos.

By this I mean the terrorist networks that flourish in Kenya and which our security apparatus have worked hard for years to break. As if that was not enough, the Mungiki have now taken over and are spreading panic wholesale.

As Kenya went through turmoil, suspects with possible ties to terrorist attacks in the country were arrested in Tanzania, and in Somalia a building regularly used by terrorist suspects was the target of a missile strike.

The Tanzanian police arrested nine men suspected of planning to bomb various sites during the recent visit of US President Bush.

The Kenya Police were notified that a man thought to be associated with the suspects may have been behind the terrorist attacks at a Mombasa resort in 2002.

There were reports that the suspects were arrested in Dar es Salaam and Arusha after police tracked their telephone conversations and movements. The suspects include five Tanzanians, three Arabs and one Asian and there have been suggestions that their leader is Harun Fazul, of the 2002 Paradise Hotel bombing infamy.

If the suspects are proved to be al-Qaeda operatives, that would indicate a shift in strategy by the terror organisation. In the past, the group has focused mainly on attacking prominent Western-linked facilities, not personnel.

The Somali missile attack occurred in Dobley, 6km from the Kenya border. The house was believed to be a refuge for terrorist suspects. The missiles strike destroyed the house and left eight people seriously injured.

Terrorists continue to raise other concerns for Kenya and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa. Reporters in the region appear to be a new target for terrorists. At least nine journalists have been killed in the last year, and death threats have forced at least 50 others to seek refuge elsewhere.

In February, after a long trial in London, Mohammed Hamid was found guilty of recruiting and training five of the failed bombers in the July 21, 2005 attack on London metro. Hamid was also found guilty of encouraging Muslims to murder non-believers.

Three of his followers were convicted of attending terror camps in Britain. During the trial, it was learnt that Hamid aspired to send more of his trained recruits to foreign lands to conduct terrorist activities. One of those places is East Africa.

Observers agree that East Africa is a fertile terrain for sowing radical propaganda and exploit the many undesirable social and economic conditions that exist there.

Now that the violence in Kenya has calmed, observers are hopeful that the war on terrorism again will receive the attention it requires.

The African countryside has become a major battleground in the war against terrorism. Continued insecurity brought by the Mungiki menace only works to further their course.

A hungry person is an angry person, so goes the old saying. And, indeed, in the past few months hungry, angry people around the world were rioting over rising food prices. In one instance (Haiti), this has led to the collapse of a government. In another (Egypt), the military has been drafted to ensure that enough bread is baked and distributed to the population.

This demonstrates the critical nature of food in people’s lives. It is a survival and security issue. We should not forget that the issue of scarcity and affordability of ‘bread’ was one of catalysts of the French Revolution of 1789.

The new Government has the challenge of looking into the long-term availability of affordable food. Post-election turmoil has seen the disruption of economic activity, especially in farming areas. This has contributed to an upsurge in the cost of living and pushed many down the poverty ladder.

Globally, alarm bells are going off about the looming food shortage and rising prices. World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, last week said the crisis could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.

He further pointed out that in some countries, hard-won gains in overcoming poverty may now be reversed. Indeed, one aim of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to reduce by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015. Currently, estimates indicate that over 800 million people are affected by hunger in developing countries and numbers are not falling quickly enough to achieve the goal, particularly in Africa and Southern Asia.

Hunger is very much linked to poverty and disease, with each contributing to the occurrence of the other two in a vicious cycle. For instance, hunger reduces natural defences against most diseases, which in turn means that sick people are less able to work or produce food.

In addition, people living in poverty often cannot produce or buy enough food to eat and so are more susceptible to disease. In this regard, the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition has concluded that nutrition is an essential foundation for poverty alleviation, and also for meeting MDGs related to improved education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health and disease.

Food scarcity and its result of hunger is, therefore, seen as a major constraint to a country’s immediate and long term economic, social and political development. Food security is also seen as a prerequisite for economic development.

According to the latest policy note from the World Bank on the issue of rising food prices, increases in global wheat prices reached 181 per cent over the 36 months leading up to February, and overall global food prices increased by 83 per cent. Further, the food crop prices are expected to remain high in the foreseeable future.

Many analytical reports on the issue attribute the rising food prices to a complex set of causative factors, the effects of which are bleaker than the theory voiced by Thomas R Malthus, the famous 18th century British economist who warned of the dangers of population growth rates out of sync with the capacity to produce food.

Among these are escalating oil prices, which affect a large part of the farm economy by increasing prices on the production and distribution chain. Concerns over high oil prices, energy security and climate change have also prompted governments (especially in the West) to increase bio-fuel production and use, leading to greater demand for raw materials including: wheat, soy, maize and palm oil.

The 2008 ‘World Development Report: Agriculture for Development’ provides a compelling example of the food-for-fuel debate: over 240kgs of maize — enough to feed one person for a whole year — is required to produce the 100 litres of ethanol needed to fill the gas tank of a modern sports utility vehicle.

The food price hikes are also linked to higher energy and fertilizer prices, a weak dollar and export bans.

Bad harvest

Poor harvests due to extreme weather are another factor. For instance, drought has decimated harvests in major wheat-producing countries as far apart as Australia and Kazakhstan, crimping supplies and creating scarcity. So too is the rise in demand in food-importing countries, where populations and incomes are growing. Expectation of further price increases has also resulted in hoarding driving the prices even higher.

Given this situation, the Government, needs to take a number of measures to ensure Kenya does not find itself at a situation where it may have to depend on food handouts. These include addressing the issue of production costs. The cost of farm inputs has risen, best indicated by increases in fertiliser and fuels. Left unchecked, this could turn out to be the country’s next big crisis of the year.