Kibaki and Uhuru: the handover        Photo courtesy

To the majority of Kenyans the most enduring legacy of the retired President Mwai Kibaki regime are the many infrastructural projects spread in every County. However, to many who were in the Public Service in December 2002,  Kibaki achieved much more than this. Before the NARC regime assumed power, most public institutions in Kenya were led by strategically placed home boys and girls who in turn appointed their trusted henchmen into pivotal positions within government. These skewed appointments were the bastion of cartels and syndicates which constantly fed the insatiable appetites of racketeers who virtually held the appointments, hiring, procurement and promotion processes in the public service hostage. Where I once served the catch-phrase by these homeboys and girls was that “in the race of life we run in the inner lane and everybody else must keep to the outer lane.”

In early 2003,  Mwai Kibaki did the unthinkable. Having campaigned and won elections on the pedestal of change and buoyed by the renewed enthusiasm of a population that was enjoying a sense of freedom after years of repression by KANU, the president started a purge in the top echelons of the public service. People who previously seemed invincible were routed of office, their henchmen were left exposed and the racketeers who depended on them to win lucrative government contracts started to close shop. At one point the Kibaki government dismissed all Procurement Officers in key government departments. Cowboy contractors and brief case suppliers closed shop and disappeared from town. The Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) was revived and came alive with sting operations which mainly targeted Traffic Policemen and low ranking civil servants who engaged in abusive corruption which directly hurt the common mwananchi. Traffic policemen who previously took bribes openly were forced to change tact. Judges who had been accustomed to “negotiated” or “procured” justice were shunted out of office through the infamous “radical surgery” of the Judiciary.

Public servants soon learnt that they did not have their jobs guaranteed for life. Civil servants accustomed to the culture of “hanging coats’ could not cope. They were either forced out or to grudgingly accept the offers of “golden handshakes” and retire early. Within a very short time Mwai Kibaki managed to induce a paradigm shift in the public sector and infuse a sense of service in government offices. Much of this good history of the Kibaki regime is often forgotten or overlooked owing to the unfortunate events and post-election violence that followed his swearing into office in December 2007.

Fast forward in 2013, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto were elected into office on the platform of economic transformation; youth and women empowerment and digital revolution. After weeks of halting, they picked fresh faces, mainly technocrats to serve in Cabinet. Majority of their Cabinet appointees are new to government and do not carry the historical baggage of the past. There was clearly a digital whiff of freshness in the process of picking the current Cabinet & Principal secretaries and this was greeted with a renewed sense of hope and enthusiasm by local and regional observers.

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is on record praising President Kenyatta for breathing fresh air into the East African Community (EAC). Despite the drawbacks occasioned by their pending cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague, Netherlands, the unfortunate incidents of fire that gutted a section of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and the Westgate terror attack, it is easy to discern a sense of urgency by the Uhuruto regime. An urgency to fulfill and deliver on their campaign pledges.

The agenda of supplying laptops to pupils in public primary schools is on course, the Uwezo Fund for the youth is up and running while preferential access to government contracts by youth, women and persons with disability (PWDs) has now been institutionalized by law. But everything ends right there.

A general sense of pessimism is slowly enveloping these efforts. Why is this so? The ICC, run-away insecurity and unfortunate incidents such as the JKIA fire and the Westgate terror attack seem to be the defining issues for Uhuruto. Whereas Kibaki had people like the late “hurricane” Karisa Maitha and John Michuki who easily won public trust for openly reprimanding indolent public servants, none of the 18 technocrat Cabinet Secretaries in the current government is yet to earn such public confidence or engender a sense of responsiveness within government. Whereas the tone at the top appears to be good, a cursory look around the country displays a sense of subdued hope.

Within the rank and file in the public service, everything appears to be business as usual. It is as if nothing changed or will change any time soon. There are no signs that there is a new sheriff in town. For example the Traffic Police Department has receded back to its old ways and the fairly lethargic officers watch indifferently as rogue public transporters break the law and reduce poorly maintained PSV Matatus into daily death traps for commuters. County Commissioners who are supposed to co-ordinate the affairs of National Government in the devolved units seem to be overwhelmed by the political hubris generated by Governors who more often than not behave like ethnic or regional Paramount Chiefs than service providers.

It is still not crystal clear who is in charge of security at County level. Criminal gangs have taken note of the ensuing confusion and now freely roam the countryside kidnapping for ransom, raping, robbing, killing and maiming defenceless citizens. Cowboy contractors seem to be back in business if the number of abandoned construction sites all over Nairobi County and its environs is anything to go by.

It is often said that a choir assumes the tone of the soloist. Uhuruto must change gear now, crack the whip and breathe fresh air into the lives of Kenyans. They are no longer strangers in government. By now they must have realized that there is a lot of dead-wood in the middle and lower echelons of the public service; economic saboteurs who view public service through the prism of personal aggrandisement rather than service delivery. Such people must be eased or socialized out of the public service.

The promise by President Kenyatta to launch an internet site or a web page where citizens can freely interact and report incidents of corruption directly to him must be viewed in this light. Nothing impedes service delivery in government more than procurement fraud; bid rigging and bid fixing which force taxpayers to pay for goods and services at astronomical prices.

Whereas Mwai Kibaki failed miserably in fighting collusive (high-level) corruption within government, the Jubilee government has a perfect opportunity to take up this mantra and create an enduring legacy. Unfortunate as it was, the Westgate terror attack has revived our sense of national unity and renewed support for government. The Presidency must seize the moment and set a new tempo of urgency within the rank and file of the public service. Those who will be reported to the President and non-performers must be dealt with. This may just be the perfect antidote to the general pessimism creeping back into the minds of Kenyans.

By Capt. (Rtd) Collins Wanderi

Advocate, Commissioner for Oaths, Notary Public and Chair-Kenya Institute of Forensic Auditors (KeIFA).