BY WESLEY KEN
It’s on record. Upon winning, the ruling coalition led by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto said it was a blessing to Kenyans to have won the presidential election first round thus avoiding a run-off and saving the country over Sh6 billion that the electoral body could have spent to conduct a presidential run-off. That statement made economic sense.
Three years later, financial prudence seems to have eluded them. Three parliamentary by- elections, two coming at very close intervals. This is a precipitation of the Jubilee Government through the appointment of three sitting members of Parliament, Hon Gen. (Rtd) Joseph Nkaiserry (Kajiado Central), Dan Kazungu (Malindi) and Charles Keter (Kericho County) to the ministry of Interior & Coordination of national government, Mining and Energy & Petroleum also respectively.
The mini-polls couldn’t have come at a time more worse than when corruption scandals are at their historical high and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), citing harsh economic conditions and trimmed Kenya’s 2016 economic growth projections from the initial 7.2 to 6.8%.
The Question one asks here is; from the large pool of professionals at the President’s disposal, were these three politicians the only individuals qualified for the jobs? I thought the cabinet needed to have few or no politician at all. That aside, the President had a choice of picking individuals outside Parliament. By so doing, we could have averted this wasteful and unnecessary yet costly exercise.
Political pundits put the estimates of the three by-elections combined, somewhere above Sh1 billion, a colossal amount considering the number of government projects that have stagnated as a result of lack of or inadequate funding. As a country we have a myriad of more pressing issues afflicting us among them health care. For one, maternal mortality rates of 488 deaths per 100,000 live births at the moment show how we are far from achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Don’t forget Kenya had set to trim these deaths to 147 per 100, 000 live births by 2015. Do we as a nation have our priorities right?
Others may argue that it made political sense and by appointing the three the President did not violet any existing law; yes that’s true, but at what expense? Political expediency at the cost of economic development? Further, the next General Election is just around the corner, why not wait?
I could have cared less had it been that both sides of the political divide did their individual funding to cover the IEBC logistics, and Jubilee Government desisted from employing state largesse on its political expeditions.
In any case, the by- elections have hardly disrupted the political status quo. ODM held on to the Kajiado-Central and Malindi National Assembly seats while Jubilee (through JAP) conformably recaptured the Kericho Senatorial seat.
Let by-elections be held if, and only when it’s the only option.
