NYS officers walk next to some mobile clinics imported from China by
Estama Investments at the NYS camp in Miritini on October 30, 2016.
Photo | Laban Walloga | NMG
After a long electioneering period, the focus has now shifted to
service delivery in what has been labelled the Big Four, manufacturing,
food security, affordable housing and healthcare.
This
is in addition to other economic blueprints such as the Vision 2030, AU
Agenda 2063 and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Apart from
manufacturing, all the others require a lot of direct investment of
public resources so as to achieve the expected results.
For
food security, more funds need to be invested in irrigation and other
modern agricultural programmes. In affordable health pillar, more funds
will be put in drug and modern machine procurements as well as training
of personnel.
This is also the same in affordable housing where more than 500,000 homes will be constructed annually.
Housing construction is a capital-intensive venture and given
that many projects have collapsed or abandoned midstream, we have all
reasons to worry.
We have had big scandals and
allegations of misuse of funds in health, housing and irrigation sectors
over the past five years. For example, the Sh5 billion Afya House
scandal at the Ministry of Health. In the agricultural sector, we have
Sh7 billion Galana irrigation project that is yet to bear fruit.
We
still face the same food security challenge we had before the
investment. In all these and other public projects, corruption, which is
the biggest crime fuelling money laundering in developing countries, is
always the cause of the project failure.
It’s,
therefore, imperative that for the government to achieve the success of
project four, anti-money laundering measures must be enforced to deter
and disrupt the corruption schemes that can derail the projects.
Second,
since the August 8 General Election, opposition politicians have been
calling for reforms to ensure there is electoral justice.
The
truth of the matter is, by merely reforming the election process
without addressing issues and malpractices associated with election
financing, nothing much will be achieved.
According
to the Election Campaign Financing Act, the law sets limits on amounts
of money that can be used by political parties and candidates to finance
their campaigns.
It also requires the candidates to
record the sources and details of their finances as well as submit bank
accounts where the campaign finances will be managed.
Anonymous and illegal contributions are prohibited and attract stiff penalties if not declared and surrendered.
All this is meant to increase and deter illicit funds
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