Set standards to curb wastage of county, CDF billions

Turkana Central CDF project. Photo: @LodwarCDF

That county and CDF billions have impacted positively on Kenya's grass-root development is a fact even the heavy-headed of our world will find it hard to countenance. On the same note, however, it is worth noting that these disbursements have laid bare our love for low quality works and services. Kenyans' minimalist inclination is no longer a secret. 

The level of workmanship of county/CDF-funded public projects is all you need to look at before you start piling praises on your governors and parliamentarians.

While we ought to be thankful for the many schools, dispensaries, toilets, markets and whatnot dotting our urban and rural hamlets, it is imperative to declare that most of the people contracted to do these works have failed to live up to the public expectation. 

I have three theories to explain this tendency. One, we hire quacks to implement our public projects. Two, we accord zero dignity to those destined to use these facilities. And three, supervision and work follow-up do not exist in our vocabularies.

It is clear the first case is a direct result of corruption - what many of us casually dismiss as 'powerful' corruption networks. Yes, those bellies populating government procurement bureaus. The second one emanates from our social stratification disease. Walk to any public primary school and count the number of children from top-cadre families. Zero. Public things are meant for those noisy, poor 'public people'. Dignity, it seems, is not a privilege to be extended to this wretched class.

The third theory is not far from the second. It is simple: why supervise work whose beneficiaries do not deserve dignity? 

Now you get the drift. Kenya's low-cadre is on its own.

How can we root out this tumor? From where I stand, the response to this demand goes beyond prescribing this or that. For me, it is a matter of design. Let us look at it this way: do we 'dislike' - and condemn - public projects just because they look ugly? What are the reference points that inform our condemnations?

Many a times we see multi-million shilling CDF/county-funded buildings sinking – quite literally. And when this happens, the public is reduced to a comedy of errors by public officials. Due to scarce information in the public domain, we are left to consume the narrative of those we suspect pilfered public cash. A case of a thief explaining his escapades to his victims – unchallenged!

Reason? The public has zero tools with which to bank on to give an informed perspective on the costing and quality of public projects.

Which brings me to this small matter: is it hard to design a small handbook-like manual prescribing the different parameters of determining public projects' value-for-money? (This is when I run to my ‘digital’ friends. Something like e-mwananchi-macho app won’t be that bad).

I believe this citizen-led approach will go a long way to confront scenarios where a visibly substandard Ksh 20,000 latrine is said to have swallowed millions of shillings. 

There are many models out there. There is 'materials model'. This is when we put more emphasis on the quality and cost implications of materials as a way of curbing wastage. Another one is 'ready-to-occupy model'. This mostly applies to those who believe building-from-scratch costs outweigh costs of buying ready-made structures. 

For the later, take the case of a pit latrine meant for a village market. A latrine that will be out of use after six months ought not to be built using permanent - and most of the time, costly - materials. Prefab types come in handy. 

Cost-cutting measures, duration of construction and (of) use, quality of workmanship and accountability must remain our bottom-lines.

I am alive to the fact that politicians may want to showcase their 'development records' before expiry of their terms. With this in mind, I think it is quite logical to allow creativity to be our guide. We cannot dwell in mountains of cement and bricks that eat all our public monies and still expect to cover huge tracts of our development plans. 

We can build many durable structures for our people if we veer off this old conventional thinking. With our 'new models', it will be easy for our villagers to pick up the wrong guys and 'teach' them. It is all about standards. You see.

Lemukol Ng'asike is an architect. Twitter:  @mlemukol.