The Lenten period has just ended for the Christian faithful. It reminds them of Jesus Christ’s suffering to restore their total relationship with God.
His unmerited suffering, culminating in His death on the cross, wiped away humanity’s sins. For its part, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops chose “Integrity for a Just Nation” as its theme for the 2024 Lent. Nation.’
KCCB underscored the value of integrity as a cornerstone of a just country. Their theme’s choice was timely, perhaps informed by the country’s persistent struggle with integrity.
Unsurprisingly, the Lenten period did little, if any, to shake our collective consciousness as a nation to change course.
It is agonizing that the period’s closure coincided with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s (EACC) ‘s release of a disappointing scorecard.
The National Ethics and Corruption Survey Report, 2023, paints a grim picture of the fight against corruption.
According to the survey, approximately 60% of Kenyans believe corruption is rampant, with 50% noting that vice is rising.
Unfolding events indeed bear out EACC’s findings.
The last few weeks have been dominated by reports of fake fertilizer in the market. The development has shaken farmers’ faith in the government’s subsidized fertilizer scheme.
Some wish they had taken the alternative route of buying expensive ones. The quest to make quick and instant money from the initiative seems to have clouded the judgment of its perpetrators about the food security risk they are exposing the country to.
Sadly, such motivation is not isolated. It is the norm rather than the exception, the modus operandi, particularly in the country’s public service.
Our public service has been repurposed to serve private interests by choice. For many, the motivation to join public service is to satisfy their insatiable greed and infinite appetite for accumulation.
We are caught up in this complex configuration in which public servants scheme to secure every resource conceivably within their control for themselves.
Nowhere is this better manifested than in procurement. Merit is alien within our procurement ecosystem. Proxies are set up to ensure that resources do not fall outside the controllable orbit.
It is hardly a secret that some public servants intentionally frustrate publicly controlled service provision facilities to benefit rival private equivalents set up by themselves.
In retrospect, adopting the report by the Commission of Inquiry on Public Service Structure and Remuneration of 1971 was wrong.
Popularly referenced by the name of its chairman, the Ndegwa Commission report allowed public servants to run private businesses to supplement their meagre income. This created a conflict-of-interest monster that poses a real existential threat to our fabric.
Professor Kindiki’s Intention is Right, but Approach is Doubtful
Recently, the Cabinet Secretary for Interior, Professor Kindiki Kithure, has taken initial steps to reverse the trend. Following the surge in deaths associated with illicit liquor, Professor Kindiki ordered public servants working in the enforcement sector who own bars to close them or resign.
Professor Kindiki’s move triggers a taste of what we need to restore sanity to the management of our public service. Its effectiveness is, however, doubtful.
It’s a good antidote, but it’s inappropriately administered. A whole-of-government and public service approach would be needed to upset the status quo.
If it has to be progressive, the first target must be the senior people in government.
That way, it may trigger an incentive structure that cascades downward. The bottom-up approach will hardly shake the system out of its atrocious complacency.
