This government is wasting golden opportunities with its strange ways

 

By MUTUMA MATHIU mmathiu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Thursday, May 30  2013 at  19:00

 

I’ve been around, y’know, to quote Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, Al Pacino’s character in my favourite movie, the 1992 hit, Scent of a Woman.

In my own experience of being around, I have observed that a new editor has five months to change the world.

In those months, he can do no wrong, and no request is too extravagant or unreasonable.

Acolytes surround him, awestruck, nod in wide-eyed agreement to even the most banal bollocks.

He can say: “Blow up the place” and management will go, “with dynamite sir, or would you rather we asked the military for C4?”

After the five months, the editor becomes just another whiner, boring everyone with a song on resources and impossible targets.

In the same manner, governments have a window of opportunity within which to effect large scale social change.

If you want to have impact, you must hit the ground running. In the old days, John Githongo, who was doing anti-corruption work for Narc, used to estimate that the first Kibaki administration had 18 months within which to strike a massive blow at corruption, after which it would become mired in the boring routine of bureaucracy.

It’s like trying to cross a lake of molten chocolate. I imagine if you put a foot in tentatively, you will not be able to take too many steps before you get stuck.

But if, in the true unthinking African tradition, you close your eyes, gather a head of steam and ram into it, you stand a good chance, like the lizard that walks on water, of thundering your way across.

On Tuesday night, I looked at a government circular defining new ministries, showing new positions and their occupants (or lack of them in many places) and the distribution of departments and there was an inescapable and unfortunate half-bakedness about this new government.

President Kenyatta and his good deputy struggled to put a government together and for the very first time in 50 years, the Cabinet was announced not as one lump, but in dribs and drabs.

From being sworn in on April 9, there was no Cabinet until four names were revealed on April 23.

As I write, almost two months after inauguration, the government has no principal secretaries and there is a weird situation where the new Cabinet secretaries are having to stare across the table at three or more of the old permanent secretaries.

A Cabinet Secretary without a PS is like a car without gas. You can’t move.

And so the Jubilee government is wasting one of its most valuable assets: the honeymoon. Later on, after many fights and scandals, it will be ten times harder to change things than it is now.

Secondly, I think there are many brilliant people in the government. But where (and what) are their big ideas? What are they here to do? When will they tell us?

Finally, I am a bit alarmed about some of the appointments, particularly their fitness for purpose.

Now I am willing to give everyone a chance and I don’t wish to judge a book by the cover, though that is often a good guide.

We are having serious security problems in this country; indiscipline in the police force, slaughter of villagers by gangs, lots of urban crime and incursions by Al-Shabaab.

We need someone to run a complex, multi-agency law enforcement operation. How does the manager of a small college fit the bill?

How does good training in food and beverage prepare him for this challenging role?

Are political considerations and ethnic balancing more important than urgently securing the country?

There is a growing pile of wasted opportunities.

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The experiment with police reforms is not working so well. The new Inspector General, who were assured was going to solve all our problems, I think, was oversold.

I have seen no evidence that he has any new ideas or approaches to policing.

And other than visiting the scenes of criminal activities, I am not sure that he is doing much to protect us. That could be because the business of policing is done behind closed doors and not before microphones.

But the bigger failure is the new arrangement where you are the commander of an armed force but cannot hire, fire or transfer a subordinate. Commanders are dictators. Their word is law.

To have an inspector-general who can’t transfer a corporal is akin to putting a loaded weapon in our mouth and, egged on by NGOs, making frantic efforts at pulling the trigger.