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.  

Reality check: HIV/AIDS kills Kenya's pastoralists in record numbers

Turkana dancers. Photo @Eloto

Those who keep reminding us about Kenya's gains in its fight against HIV/AIDS should just repackage their pontifications and take time off their daily routines and carry out a deep reflection. On top of these, they should get in touch with the reality on the ground - especially in the forgotten jungles in the north of Kenya. 

Please forget about those numbers churned out by your various arms of government. They do not tell any truth about the plight of those suffering from TB & HIV/AIDS. There exists two cases: either those who fabricate those figures know the truth and deliberately choose to suppress it, or they have never taken a serious look into the happenings outside their Nairobi offices. 

If unchecked, HIV/AIDS will soon top the list of causes of deaths among pastoralists. Even with its infamous tag as Kenya's insecurity (read banditry) hot-spot, HIV/AIDS coupled with its cousin, TB are tormenting people in Turkana County in a manner never seen before. Illiteracy, some clever people say, should be blamed for this.

But I think they are dead wrong. Banking on illiteracy is akin to heaping condemnations on HIV victims for being unschooled. Yes, more than fifty percent of people in Turkana practice nomadic pastoralism. A majority of them have no formal schooling. Media penetration in the region is still in its zeros. The county - bluntly speaking - is locked.

But let truth be our guiding star. Kenya's nomadic pastoralists are victims of a lazy officialdom that sees no reason to innovate, an officialdom that is too fixated with old redundant thinking. HIV and many other diseases are having a field day felling pastoralists because those who ought to provide them with vital information and services believe doing so will undermine their coveted positions. 

I am told health services were devolved long time ago. Again, someone reminded me that Kenya's health policy orientation is still an occupation of some big shots in Nairobi's Afya house. And so my questions come in: when will we confront this invisible deadly elephant that is silently decimating hundreds of Kenyans out there? When will we recognize the central role of information sharing as a means of countering diseases' onslaughts?

Equipping one or two health facilities that are located miles away from one another, and from people in need amounts to playing mind games with Kenyans. More ground work is needed. 

People, find time to examine Kenya's health map to stomach the pain we cause to our fellow compatriots. 

We have huge proportions of our herder-communities who have never been reached by government and non-government bodies charged with the responsibility of fighting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It is common to spot these guys preaching to already informed chaps in towns. One, then, is left to wonder if those living outside towns are not entitled to this information. It is like STIs attack town people alone.

I think this is due to the existence of a false narrative along non/government corridors. These people think pastoralists live in "closed settings" that naturally keep them off STIs way. But they must be reminded that times have changed. All Kenyans - including pastoralists - are at risk of being hit by STIs projectiles. "Closed settings" do not exist anymore.

A pastoralist now stands a higher risk of contracting STIs due to the twin problems of ignorance (absence of information) and poverty. Sex pests too have joined the fray. They see pastoralists’ women and girls as easy targets. Join the dots and get the bigger picture. Danger lurks ahead.

We used to have TB camps - popularly called TB Manyattas - at major hospitals in northern Kenya. I am not sure if they still exist today. But one thing I know: these manyattas have never been decentralized to the villages. This is despite the fact that TB kills, and it kills in record numbers. We still see no reason to stop pointing fingers at victims. We have calmly retreated to our cocoons to lampoon pastoralists for being untidy and failing to "evolve with time".

Someone must do something now. Health sector reforms will only be meaningful if they touch those at the peripheries of our policy framework. Pastoralists have suffered for a long time. It is time to give them at least the basics - just vital information and services plus TB Manyattas. 

A healthy pastoralist is a healthy Kenya. Time we breathed life into this truism.

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

Direct your diatribe to governors, leave devolution alone

Photo courtesy of Internet sources

The ever increasing rumblings regarding alleged corrupt officials within Kenya's devolved units provide an interesting case study, especially, on questions touching on governance in general, people-centered approach and elite supremacy. A majority of us believe that a significant number of our county governors - and their minions - have accountability questions to respond to or have amassed wealth they can hardly trace its legitimate sources. More critically, many people now think devolution goodies have been redirected to a select few – the crème de la crème of our counties.

No matter the seriousness of these allegations, we cannot run away from engaging in an objective, constructive analysis of this system.

From where I sit, the very concrete issue in this debate should revolve around whether the system is shaky and anti-people or if it is the people managing it who need redemption – plus loads of prayers. On the other hand, we ought to explore ways of restoring hope and reassurance among many Kenyans out there who bank on devolution for all their development needs.

To deeply decipher the greatness of devolution in Kenya, readings on our post-independence government-to-people relations should feature prominently on our shelves. Recently, I picked up that infamous 1960s Kenya government policy paper that split Kenya into two zones: the economically viable areas and low-potential belt. On a closer scrutiny, I got a feeling that document had nothing fruitful for the people of Kenya. I tend to believe its drafters didn’t carry out any post-policy study. Had they conducted it - which I believe they didn't - they would have saved us the inequalities that now stalk our national socio-economic landscape.

Whereas the reasoning at the time of its inception seemed to have been inspired by the need to scale up production in the so-called high potential areas in order to boost government's finances to ostensibly 'bridge' the gap 'created' by low-potential areas, the kind of damage this policy has caused must serve as a living reminder to all those who think a return to a centralized management of national resources is the best bet. Surely, only an unreasonable Kenyan can find solace in anything centralized.

Or perhaps, those shouting about the evils of devolution have no knowledge of where we came from.

We cannot talk about marginalization without mentioning the risks of being at the peripheries of resource distribution. I know some homegrown factors like local professionals' apathy are to blame for the build-up of marginalization waves in the northern frontier of this country. All in all, Nairobi, or rather the center, cannot sit pretty and wish away the pain it has caused to what it erroneously christened 'low-potential zones'.

This brings me to the small matter of systems vis-à-vis leaders. We just have to face the truth; you cannot imagine a stable Kenya minus devolution. Without this pro-people system, we will all go bonkers. We will fight until the moons disappear.

Accusations and counter-accusations aside, devolution is doing wonders in many rural hamlets of this country. These wonders come in two phases: material and immaterial. The material aspects include those new schools, dispensaries, roads, water pumps and so on you see in your towns and villages. 

The immaterial aspect is by far the greatest achievement of devolution. Our newfound patriotism has something to do with the billions of shillings flowing to our counties. Now, unlike before, a fishmonger operating from Lake Turkana can proudly claim to be a Kenyan. In less than three years, devolution has succeeded to build an edifice that Nairobi's bureaucracy failed to build in its fifty-plus years of hollow national praise-singing. Real patriotism is down there in the village. Take a walk and witness this progress.

Again, today, unlike yesterday, the word 'budget' pops up in any public meeting you attend. Evidently, narrow elitist push-back will always reappear when money matters are directly managed and supervised by the public. Now, this is the sweetest thing about this system; with devolution you cannot just run away from your responsibilities. Information is no-longer an exclusive property of some faceless Nairobi-based officials.

I think it is an undertaking grounded in veiled escapism when some supposedly clever people badmouth devolution for sins committed by their governors. Systems do not work on their own. They depend on smart, committed brains. Installing effective brains and reaping humongous returns are no strangers. You know how to do the 'installation' - vote wisely.

Fellow Kenyans, direct your diatribe to your governors if strengthening devolution remains your nationalistic mission.

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

Turkana Oil Discovery Gave Us Land Grabbers

An Oil Rig in Lokichar. Photo courtesy: Twitter

The anticipated oil development that was to flood Turkana County is turning out to be a blunder of historic proportions. Optimism in the face of a deadly attack by thieves of all proportions is not a thing even the cool-hearted of this world can hold on. Cautious optimism tinged with a huge dose of community aggressiveness, it seems, is what I will advise my people to bank on. Their ancestral land is being auctioned left, right, center by people entrusted to protect it. The number of anti-people deals signed up to now will scare you to your grave. Leadership in this oil county has just run amok. It has turned against the populace in a manner only reminiscent to those blood-thirsty, power-hungry dictatorial regimes we read in history books.

This is the story. The central issue here is about oil land. The set-up is in Turkana East and South Constituencies. The tipping point is who should allocate, partition, and/or transfer ownership of public land, and on what terms. The point of divergence is how our tipping point should be executed. Is the local community part and parcel of its execution? Can suspect boardroom talks and roadside signings stand as the legitimate voice and aspirations of the general public - especially with regards to land matters? What measures are there to lock out crooked minds who may want to use their power and connections to shortchange the demands of the community? We will get back to these points shortly.

While land grabbers elsewhere in Kenya tend to be more daring (sometimes resorting to the use of raw power) in their exploits, in Turkana the situation is quite different. Over there, they have effectively mapped out the weaknesses of the local community. They know for sure that; 1) the populace is gullible and unaware of the existence of any law that safeguards its interests, and 2) a majority of these people can hardly read and/or write and are anxiously waiting to see "development". These crooks know any mention of the word development will blindly endear the community to their ill-thought deals.

Look at what is happening. Approximately 300 acres of a prime community grazing area somewhere in Turkana South is already under the control of certain faceless "investors". Millions of dollars - it is believed - oiled this deal. How did it happen? The deal makers, of course under the cover of supposedly clever local sons and daughters, landed on this desolate village, picked up some two three wazees (old men) who could not even pin together the import of this charade, shipped them to a distant hotel, get them fed well so as "to taste the fruits of development", and finally have their fingers on paper. And alas, the community land was gone! Forever - I suspect.

Good people, this is just a slice of the whole cake. Right now Kainuk, Lokori, Katilu and Kapedo Divisions of Turkana South and East Constituencies will soon be declared "community wildlife conservancies". Proponents of this idea want us to believe that it is purely a community-centered initiative that will bring the much needed socio-economic progress in this sub-region. However a closer analysis of the "agreements" establishing these conservancies reveals something fishy. There is more to this initiative than community conservancies. Someone wants to render residents of these places strangers in their own land.

This is it. One, the "agreements" do not state where, when and how they came into being. Two, no coordinates or geographical specifications have been provided. The common byline is: There will be established this and this community conservancy. Three, the cracks within local leadership gives some nice political juice. Lodwar seems to be applying breaks on these deals. Political networks within the aforementioned constituencies are in top gear: they want these deals implemented like yesterday. Four, the constitutional safeguards that underpin the centrality of public participation have been thrown through the window. Over there, community is just a bystander. Deal makers' interests come atop the list. Painful experience!

What really scares me most in these exchanges is the requirement that they SHALL prevail notwithstanding the provisions of the yet-to-be passed Community Lands Act. Could there be some powerful forces outside this oil county pulling the strings? Perhaps yes. This, I think, explains why it has taken centuries for Parliament to pass a community-conscious Community Lands Act. The silence of local politicians really makes me believe they are either part of this scheme or they are gatekeepers for malevolent people. No true leader shall forsake her people when they need her most.

Just like that infamous Lenana Vs British Colonialists agreement of 1911 that kicked the Maasai people out of their ancestral land, the unchecked deal-making in Turkana County will eventually reduce the Turkana people to visitors with nothing - even an inch to call home.

Lodwar bureaucracy has failed to live up to the populace's expectation. It can't feign ignorance.  Local professionals' body is another entity that is too noisy, and rudderless. Its members - and leadership - are out of sync with the reality. They fence-sit and just shout when an anti-people deal is signed. Intellectual emptiness is their base.

Robustness, I believe, should be the way to frustrate such one-sided deals. Turkana people want hope and action.

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

With Kenya's El Nino Billions Expect 'El Nino-preneurs'

Photo courtesy: Internet

This is the season of the year when we perfectly exhibit our love for last-minute preparations. We are told El Nino rains are set to ponder Kenya like never before. We have seen government - and non-government - top honchos popping from one conference hall to the other to lay down strategies of countering this monster.

Down at the village the presence of heavily-built, city-based government bureaucrats/experts is no new thing. They are there - again we are told - to stop these rains from sweeping away those tiny villages. While at it, a government agency has set aside close to Ksh 2B to "repair roads that will be swept away by these rains". Another one is running notices in our rural hamlets urging people to move to "higher grounds" even where no higher grounds exist.

Two things come out of this El Nino drama: 1) with the coming of El Nino rains, Kenyans should expect an El Nino corruption scandal. You all know we perform well when it comes to tragedy-profiteering. Many examples come to mind. The many droughts and famines “tormenting” Kenyans in the northern part of this country have had one visible effect. They have helped groom millionaires who can hardly explain the sources of their wealth. So, get ready to see more El Nino millionaires.

2) What the government has so far proposed as measures to mitigate the effects of El Nino have little to do with the plight of poor Kenyans - (not really poor but those outside the eating circle). At the core of these is an elitist ploy dressed as a people-centered approach. This is why. You cannot set aside cash to repair roads where roads do not exist. I will explain. The biting effect of El Nino - and by extension, floods - is the risk of contracting waterborne diseases. Cholera and typhoid are no new things in Kenya. 

I will pick my home county, Turkana as an example. A whopping 80% of people in this vast county have no pit latrines. Bushes, valleys, hills, rocks, and plains (of course you only go there at night) come in handy as "public toilets". Of its 20+ electoral wards quite a significant proportion of them will happily bag the tag of a toilet-free ward. Simply speaking, latrines do not exist in this part of our planet. Even the "urbanized" county capital (Lodwar town) cannot escape this verdict. More than 1000 toilets (in my own estimation) will be needed to pull it out of this condemnation.

So, you still cling on that El Nino-preparedness-script propelled by your able government? Curse be unto you and your lineage if you do that. Can we find our way out of this drama? Yes! Is there any cash to facilitate our exit? Yes! What about the political will? We will create it where none exists.

Still on Turkana county. There is too much noise out there about youth unemployment. Lodwar alone has close to 60% of its young people roaming in the villages aimlessly. With this idleness comes the existential challenge of criminal activities and promiscuity. This story repeats itself across Turkana. Now, multiply it by forty-seven and you get the picture of our republic.

What is my point? Away from the pessimistic narratives attached to El Nino and amplified by our expert tragedy-profiteers, we can actually squeeze something positive out of this "El Nino effect". One, those idle youth need jobs. Building pit latrines should top our priorities to keep cholera (and other health risks) off our limits. It is equally a labor-intensive exercise. A conscious governor will miss not to "steal" this show by unleashing the might of his youth so as to put food on their table. Fellow Kenyans, it is that simple.

Two, going by the huge amounts of money that will land on these young people's pockets, there will be a greater need to think beyond El Nino. I would propose that a percentage of their daily wages be set aside to finance village polytechnics - or rather barefoot colleges. Any working government will find it easy to befriend a people equipped with skills. But these skilled people do not fall from the sky. They are a product of our collective investment. Someone somewhere must seize this opportunity.

As a side-note, I find it a bit insensitive to condemn young people for being drunk, disorderly, and aggressive while doing nothing to know why they "picked" that route. S/he who finds happiness in preaching about youth uprightness must be ready to accompany that gospel with a gospel of action. Talk and no action leads to nowhere. It is the Holy Bible that declared that - not yours truly. Now, be ready to face El Nino.

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

The Fallacy of Kenya's War on Hate Speech

NCIC logo. Photo courtesy: Internet.

S/he who misdirected us to craft an anti-hate speech law to supposedly counter the deadly fires in our mouths should be smiling now - wherever s/he is. A majority of us have collectively assumed that hate speech (whatever that means) is to blame for all the tribal wars/contests stalking this country. We have further assumed that "punishing" hate speech peddlers must be accompanied by publicity so as to "shame" those whose intention is to steal our peace. And so I am left to wonder: Was this law destined to "compel" us to love one another? Was it created to help propel the political fortunes of some of our compatriots?

While these concerns seem to sound nice, the fact that nobody has ever been jailed under this law should worry us. Mark you; the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) will soon mark its eighth anniversary. This offers a solid reason to examine its successes and failures; why it has failed to "compel" us to love one another.

I think the commission plus the chain of actors working with it to police our mouths have failed miserably in their mandate. As we proceed with this hate speech business, it is imperative to know what hate speech really means and what parameters inform this definition. The open ended list of what constitutes hate speech may actually turn up to be the weakness of this law - and by extension, the commission. I have a feeling some characters may periodically invoke this law when criticism directed to them (as public officials) lands on their ears with a bang. The line between public criticism, as a democratic principle, and hate speech, as a tool of some malevolent minds against public peace, must be bold enough for all to see. Lest we risk plunging the whole nation into a state of fear of state power.

It is inconceivable for Kenyans to trust this commission. It has all the hallmarks of a government agency that pockets huge sums of taxpayer monies but with zero results to show. It has failed to stand up as an impartial body. How many times have we seen it "swing into action" only after a media outburst and/or public outcry? It has branded itself as a protectionist entity of the dominant political elite.

This protectionist feeling is not entirely good. Rwanda is a living example of how protectionism can mutate to exclusionism. The 1994 tragedy that engulfed that country will eternally symbolize the deficiencies of public officials who resort to one-sided application of the law. Sadly, nearly one million innocent Rwandans had to die for the world to decipher that only sound governance is the best guarantor of public peace and harmony.

Protectionism breeds two types of citizens. The first type is the one who thinks he is the bona fide "beneficiary" of the rule of law. The second type is the one who, out of frustration, believes he operates on his own and (he) has nothing to benefit from the law. This second type is a lethal creature. A slight scratch on his body is what it takes him to harm the first in order to "express his frustration against the state". Kenya's 2007 post-election violence was to a greater extent inspired by this. 

Protectionism, in all its manifestations, has something to do with politicians "standing for their people" or “politicians standing in solidarity with their fellows”. It is a principle founded on the understanding that if those who belong to one particular group do not coalesce, their perceived enemies/adversaries will easily have their pickings. That is it. What proponents of this thinking do not admit is that this "togetherness" should never feature in a country that aspires to create a nation called Kenya. Instead, they erroneously hold that their "togetherness" can coexist with this baby called Kenya.

Kenya's public indiscipline is partly a product of the unreliable conduct of our state actors. The state has failed to demolish the belief that those allied to the dominant/ruling political elite "ought" to enjoy the protection of the law as a matter of priority. This "beneficiary syndrome" will cripple this country. Those in power must come out to robustly contain the elements within their circles who falsely think freedom of speech (read freedom of speech without limits) is their exclusive birthright.

Hate speech peddlers - within and without government - are enemies of Kenya. Only a diabolic, unpatriotic Kenyan can harbour these bloody characters. It should be made a cardinal sin to collaborate with or even befriend these agents of hate. Baby Kenya must grow - by all means. 

NCIC's subliminal inaction is enough reason for us to send its commissioners home!

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