Mars Group Kenya

WE ONLY HAVE UPTO THURSDAY JUNE 26TH 2008 TO ENSURE THAT THE PARLIAMENT OF KENYA DEBATES BUDGET 2008

On Thursday June 12th 2008, the Minister of Finance, Amos Kimunya, tabled the annual estimates of expenditure of the Government of Kenya in Parliament, and informed Parliament that he proposes to raise and spend about Ksh 760 billion over the next twelve months.

This is the largest budget in Kenya’s history, and certainly the most important budget ever proposed in view of the political and economic crisis that followed the Presidential Election of December 27th 2007. The 3 month crisis resulted in the death of over 2,500 Kenyans, the forcible displacement of over 500,000 citizens, the pushing of millions below the poverty line, and the halving of the national economic growth rate to between 3% and 4%. Inflation which stands at 31% has hit poor Kenyans hard, as a result of high costs of oil and poor harvests. There can be no doubt that this is therefore the most important national budget in history, and that Parliament must debate the budget to ensure that the Minister of Finance’s spending plans are rational, equitable, waste and corruption free.

Only Parliament has the constitutional mandate to approve or refuse to approve the national budget. The Constitution and Standing Orders of Parliament require that Parliament should debate the annual estimates for 7 days which means that the debate on the Minister of Finance’s speech should end on Thursday June 26th 2008. This date is constitutionally significant, being the last parliamentary allotted day before the expiry of the Government of Kenya’s Financial Year on June 30th 2008. To prevent the Government from running out of money, the Constitution allows the Minister of Finance to get approval for upto half the budget before the end of the financial year. Half the budget is Ksh 380 billion.

OLD HABITS DIE HARD: WHERE ARE OUR MPS WHEN WE NEED THEM?

Unfortunately, there are signs that Members of Parliament are not taking their constitutional duties seriously. Lack of quorum, which bedeviled the 9th Parliament, moved the respected Speaker of the National Assembly, Kenneth Marende to speak out last Thursday to “remind members of the seriousness of debate on the Budget statement.”

The lack of diligence of Members of Parliament means that up to Ksh 380 billion could be passed undebated by Parliament on Thursday this week. This is scandalous, especially in view of the fact that the budget estimates presented by the Minister of Finance are riddled with billions of shillings worth of wasteful and misplaced expenditure proposals. Many of these examples are well known to the Members of Parliament, having been communicated to them through press reporting since the budget was read on June 12th.

Instead of spending time in Parliament going over the budget estimates, line by line as is their constitutional duty, too much time has been spent by our Parliamentarians waging a press war in defence of the immoral proposition that they should have tax-exemption in respect of their allowances. This tax measure by the Minister of Finance has disingenuously trapped the MPs in an argument they cannot win; while diverting attention from the biggest absurdity inherent in Finance Minister Amos Kimunya’s budget. Mr. Kimunya proposes, at a time of national economic crisis, not to cut government’s costs at all and has published a national budget in which he declares his intention to spend 85 shillings of every one hundred shillings of tax on the Government’s recurrent costs; leaving only fifteen shillings of every hundred shillings of tax for development expenditure.

FINANCE MINISTER KIMUNYA CLEVERLY SET UP PARLIAMENTARIANS TO TAKE THE FLAK:

MP’s, because of their insensitivity to the suffering of Kenyans, have played right into Minister Kimunya’s hands. His tax proposal was a bait which they have swallowed hook line and sinker. It was meant to galvanize public opinion and attention on Parliament and away from the Central Government which wastes much more money than we could save by taxing constitutional officers. Because they are in a morally weak position, and because of a herd mentality, MPs have spent valuable time in Parliament pointing fingers at each other in a contest which has no upside for them. Incredibly, they have made their own situation worse by failing to debate the budget in Parliament as they are paid, and given allowances at taxpayers’ expense, to do. Because our MPs are generally unpopular no one is pointing out that we will raise only 800 million shillings a year from taxing their allowances. Because our MPs aren’t concentrating on their work, none of them has been able to tell Kenyans that we should be equally concerned about the Finance Minister’s proposal to pay 5 companies Ksh 6.5 billion for a fertilizer factory that does not exist; for a navy ship that has yet to be delivered to us and has no guns; and for a communications project that was unauthorized by Parliament and which resulted in the attachment of our Embassy at the Hague. Not a single Member of Parliament has yet to stand in the debating chamber to tell us that these deals are bogus – a conclusion supported by the August House’s own Parliamentary Accounts Committee Reports and those of the Controller and Auditor General.

If our Parliamentarians wish to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public they should devote themselves this week to exposing the massive waste in Minister Kimunya’s Budget and save the country billions of shillings by refusing to approve expenditure that is unjustifiable and immoral.

SOME BUDGET ITEMS THAT ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE MP’S ALLOWANCES BUT WHICH MINISTER KIMUNYA NEVER MENTIONED IN HIS THREE HOUR BUDGET DAY SPEECH:

Our MPs should accept that their allowances are going to be taxed. More Kenyans of goodwill and means have accepted that they too will be similarly taxed so that we as a country start to take care of the poorest of the poor, and avert a return to the chaos and destruction of the first quarter of this year when mass youth unemployment exploded the myth of Kenya’s stability. However, the Government of Kenya must also play its part and tighten its belt. It must slash the waste which runs into the hundreds of billions of shillings. For example: the billions spent on ‘hospitality; ‘utilities’; ‘printing’; ‘foreign travel’; ‘fuel and lubricants’; ‘rent’ ; Ken Ren Fertiliser; Jasiri Mombasa; Project Nexus and other things that never merited even a sentence in the Minister of Finance’s 3 hour budget speech.

If I were a Member of Parliament I would take the opportunity presented by the three days left of parliamentary debate time (i.e. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week) to show that the Minister of Finance is concealing other obvious candidates for slashing.

HOSPITALITY - Two Billion plus: Billions of shillings are spent each year on hospitality. Last year the GOK budget for entertainment of its guests amounted to Ksh 5.7 million per day for every day of the year. The total bill was Ksh 2.16 billion for the year 2007. Does anyone recall Amos Kimunya mentioning in his budget speech that this year he wants to increase the Ministry of Finance’s Hospitality Budget from just under Ksh 500,000 per day to Ksh 728,000 per day?

UTILITIES - Two Billion plus: Water and Electricity to you and me. Every year this budget item leads to haywire budgeting in which the official residence of the President (State House) is given almost as much money as the Ministry of Education, and has a higher water and power budget than 26 whole Ministries including Parliament itself, the Judiciary, the Ministry of Roads and Public Works etc… (it would take too long to go through 26 ministries). Even where there are water and power bills to be paid, the large amount we provide does not seem enough. Did Minister Kimunya mention that last year the Ministry of Water was given parliamentary approval to spend Ksh 661,000 every day of the year, but that millions of water service board consumers went without treated water because of unpaid electricity bills, or that hospitals were cut off from water supply? Surely, there must be one Member of Parliament to speak for Kenyans.

RENT - Three Billion plus: MPs should be concerned that GOK spends Ksh 3.995 billion on rents per annum and only receives Ksh 239.368 million per year from property income and rent. The Kenyatta International Conference Centre accounts for Ksh 210 million of the income received from buildings by GOK.

PRINTING - Two Billion plus: The Government Printer is a full fledged department within the Office of the President that prints all important government documents including all Bills and Acts of Parliament; and the National Budget itself. It maintains a bookstore on Haile Selassie Avenue which sells the Kenya Gazette newspaper and other materials as any other bookstore would – except it has a monopoly. Last year it was expected to earn the Government a grand total of one hundred thousand eight hundred and eighteen shillings in revenue. In a whole calendar year! Even though the Government has its own printer, last year the Government managed to spend Ksh 6.2 million per day on commercial printing of its documents – the total budget was over 2.2 billion shillings. Public procurement related to printing is notoriously corrupt and one would expect MPs to spend some quality time looking at the printing budget of the GOK this coming week.

FOREIGN TRAVEL - Two Billion plus: Kenyans frequently bemoan the globe-trotting habits of their elected officials but sometimes they forget to look at the international visits of our civil servants. Last year, the Government of Kenya spent over Ksh 6.7 million per day every day of the year on foreign travel. Of course Government doesn’t stop, but it was shocking nevertheless to learn that even during the height of the post-election crisis, high level delegations of civil servants were still attending international conventions as if nothing was going on in Kenya. Already overburdened taxpayers who assume that there is no way that this budget could still be as large as last year, are preparing for disappointment unless MPs vote the proposal by Minister Kimunya down next week.

PURCHASE OF CARS - Two Billion plus: Did you know that State House Nairobi has 149 cars? Did you know that this year Minister of Finance wants to buy Ksh 73 million more worth of cars for State House? Did you know that last year a similar amount of money was spent on cars at State House? Did you know that the Government budget for cars for 2008 has gone up by 1 billion shillings, even as public attention is consumed by the debate on MP’s allowances? Unless MPs debate the budget this week, Minister Kimunya is likely to get approval to spend at least 50% of his Ksh 2.6 billion motor vehicle purchase budget and we will never know why he needs so many cars. The Ministry of Internal Security alone wants to spend Ksh 1.6 billion on buying cars. Last year Parliament did not debate the Internal Security budget, and passed unscrutinised another 1 billion shillings for this Ministry. It is time that MPs insisted on accountability for the massive amounts of money that the Government spends on buying cars. On paper there are 10,395 cars owned by the Government of Kenya. Since Minister Kimunya never mentioned any of these vehicular facts, perhaps MPs could insist that he explains this budget to them. They might even ask to inspect some of the cars.

SINGLE LINE LUMP SUM BUDGETS FOR ENTIRE DEPARTMENTS - Forty Seven Billion plus: Every year the Minister of Finance presents lump sum budgets for the National Security Intelligence Services, the Armed Forces and the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission. This year their collective budgets will pass the Ksh 47 billion mark – and yet they will be no debate on the budget items in them because the Minister of Finance has helpfully provided none. MPs need to assert themselves. Intelligence agencies, militaries around the world, and anti-corruption commissions do not present single line item budgets to many parliaments around the world anymore. Here’s a question for the MPs: why would the official agency responsible for anti-corruption, as well as promoting transparency and accountability in Government not be accountable to Parliament for every single shilling in its budget?

KEN REN FERTILISER FACTORY - Four Billion plus: Kenya faces a massive fertilizer importation bill even as the Minister of Finance on June 12th asked Parliament to approve the payment of hundreds of millions to foreign banks for a fertilizer factory that does not exist. The Fertiliser debt is dubious and fraudlent because Kenya does not have a fertiliser factory, even though there was a still-born project in the 1970s to build one near the Mombasa Oil Refinery to leverage on the oil refinery’s waste products which can be used for fertilizer production. A massive financial scandal ensued and the factory was never built. Today, Kenya is in the midst of a fertilizer price and supply crisis that threatens to diminish food production, at the worst possible time for the country. Yet the Minister of Finance intends to pay an Austrian Bank called BAWAG, and a Belgian Bank called Ducroire, Ksh 900 million this year for the never-built fertilizer factory. This fact wasn’t mentioned in the budget speech, although the Minister indicated that he wanted to use public funds to get fertilizer to farmers and was apparently “in consultation with Uganda and Tanzania on setting up a regional fertilizer factory to ensure long-term sustainable supplies.” What is going on at the Treasury? Why does the Government keep making annual repayments of hundreds of millions of shillings for a fertilizer factory that we do not have, and apparently will never get? Parliament must end this long-running scandal and call the Finance Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry and the Attorney General to account on how this obligation came into being. The Austrian and Belgian banks involved should be put on notice that Kenya’s Parliament will not authorize any further payments from the Consolidated Fund on bogus debts.

NAVY SHIP - Four Billion plus: Did you know that the Minister of Finance has asked Parliament to authorize the payment of a staggering Ksh 4.94 billion this year to 3 foreign companies for a controversial Navy Ship? Did you know that the Controller and Auditor General told Parliament in 2006, that this deal was illegal and had breached the External Loans Act which requires parliamentary approval for all foreign debt? Did you know that the ship which the Minister of Finance wants to use tax money to pay for does not have weapons on board, and its equipment’s warranty has lapsed? Did you know that all these issues have not been properly investigated to date? Did you know that Ksh 4.94 billion is more than the entire budget of the Ministry of Water?

Do you believe that Members of Parliament should approve the Minister of Finance’s request to spend taxpayers’ money this way?

Feed the People Not the Fat Cats:

Did you know that the Government takes Ksh 85 out of every Ksh 100 you pay in tax for its overhead costs – including paying foreign loans, salaries and pensions, water, fuel and electricity expenses?

Did you know that the Government will only spend Ksh 15 of every Ksh 100 you pay in tax on development – including free primary education, building of roads, provision of water and health services?

Did you know that the Minister of Finance’s Budget Speech told you nothing about the recurrent expenditure of Government – for example do you recall him telling you how much he will spend on fuel, hospitality and foreign travel?

Are you satisfied with this situation? Did you know there is something you as a Tax Payer can do to ensure that the budget is used for the development of Kenya? Tell your Member of Parliament to scrutinize the National Budget line by line, and to refuse to approve wasteful expenditure.

Tell your MP that you want a budget for the people, and not for the Fat Cats.

mwalimu mati
CEO
www.marsgroupkenya.org

Tags: budget, debate, parliament

The Kenya Anti Corruption Commission & Internet Censorship in Kenya – an Exercise in Futility

It’s not what you’re thinking.

In what amounts to an excellent impact indicator, the Government of Kenya is blocking access to one of its own websites according to a Daily Nation story by Fred Mukinda. The website in question belongs to the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission!

For the last year or so, the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission has been using an anonymous whistleblower reporting web based system developed by a German firm. The BKMS system allows whistleblowers to open accounts online and to make anti-corruption complaints, and if necessary submit documents; safe in the knowledge that no-one will know who they are (not even KACC) unless they choose to reveal their identity.

According to the Daily Nation story “Whistleblowers’ Computer Link Cut” which quotes the KACC spokesman, Nick Simani, “a few Government departments” are trying to monitor or restrict access to the KACC system by government computers. Some “senior officials” have instructed IT personnel to monitor civil servants visits to “forbidden web pages” such as those of the KACC corruption reporting system. Until, we have a whistle blowing law in Kenya such behaviour by Government (as suspicious as it looks) is not illegal. Whistle blowing legislation will come, and it will criminalize such behaviour, because Kenya signed and ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption on December 9th 2003 – and is therefore obliged to make what these “senior officials” are doing illegal. In the meantime, KACC should put its foot down and publish the names of the Government Departments involved. When we checked the only ministry which had a direct link to the BKMS was the Ministry of Tourism.

This incident shows clearly, that some people in the Government of Kenya are afraid that internet whistle blowing can bring accountability to bear in frightening ways. They are right to worry. Technology is making whistle blowing easier and safer and there is even a Kenyan precedent.

Last year a long suppressed government commissioned investigation report by Kroll & Associates leaked from within the Kenyan Government and ended up on Wikileaks, the mother of all anti-corruption whistle blowing websites in the world about 4 months before the elections of 2007.

In months to follow, the Kenya related content on that site grew at such a rate that an entire page is today devoted to Kenyan leaks. Apart from the infamous Looting of Kenya series, there is never before seen material about the Charterhouse Bank investigation; a confidential World Bank investigation of its road projects in Kenya; a payroll scandal at Egerton University; and material related to the Presidential election of 2007 including secret political party documents.

Wikileaks to a large extent made its bones on these Kenyan exposes, and has gone on to defeat powerful enemies of transparency ranging from secretive banks through the military to religions and freemasonry. Earlier this year it won a precedent setting internet freedom of expression court battle in San Francisco, in which the Judge actually reversed himself.

The moral of the story? The genie is well and truly out of the bottle. To those within Government who are minded to try, we would say: “It is an exercise in futility to instruct your IT departments to block staff access to the KACC website. It is really futile! If it’s not the KACC system, it will be Wikileaks. And that’s one place where your ‘seniority’ won’t count.”

mwalimu mati
CEO
www.marsgroupkenya.org

Tags: Corruption, gok, Governance, kacc, whistle blowing

FEED THE PEOPLE NOT THE FAT CATS PART II

As we dutifully continue to pay our taxes we should reflect on the sad fact that until yesterday Kenyans got back only about 24 shillings in development expenditure out of every 100 shillings in the Budget of the Government of Kenya. The rest goes to recurrent expenditure which pays salaries for civil servants (about 1 percent of the population), maintains government infrastructure, pays retired civil servants pensions, and repays loans. Yet even then for all the Ksh 300 billion that we have given the Government each year for its recurrent expenses nothing seems to get to the majority of civil servants – reference the Prison Warders’ strike – or the Nurses – or the Teachers – or the Police etc…

The cost of cabinet debate has been settled in favour of those in the civil society who warned that increasing the size of the cabinet would cost Kenya’s already overburdened population big time; and predicted that the only way to find the extra cash need to set up 9 new Ministries would be to dip into the development kitty.

So, no surprises in the Minister of Finance’s supplementary budget. Minister Kimunya plans to spend an additional Ksh 22.3 billion over the next 2 months to run the Government of Kenya. Most of this money will be used to accommodate the establishment of the 9 new ministries in the Grand Coalition Cabinet.

Only Ksh 7 billion will be used for development expenditure, i.e. building roads, health and education facilities etc… for us the long suffering people of Kenya.

It now appears obvious, from the supplementary budget announced yesterday by Mr. Kimunya, that the only way Kenyans can afford to pay for their new bloated cabinet is by going without development. As we are unlikely to strike oil, we will have to forego development indefinitely.

In June 2008, the budget will, I predict, read much the same. More will be spent on recurrent government costs than on developing Kenya. If we do nothing about this we will work to pay taxes merely to support the Government getting less and less in return, until the house of cards collapses, or worse.

I am sure that the Kenya National Accord was not intended to facilitate the underdevelopment of Kenyans in order to accommodate the two Principals. So I would like to offer proposals.

We need to reverse the recurrent to development expenditure ratio in the Kenya National Budget. If it were up to me it would be 60:40 (Development: Recurrent) from June this year. It’s doable if there was the will, but if this is too early, we should set ourselves a target of when this will be achieved e.g. by Budget Day 2009.

We need to have corrupt loans on the Kenya External Public Debt Register purged immediately so that Kenya tax money is not being paid for bogus debts abroad. Such corrupt loans are easy to spot – we could start with all the Anglo Leasing debts and the Ken Ren Fertiliser Factory loans. The money saved would then be committed to development expenditure. A practical example: the amount of money provided for in this year’s budget (2007/8) as repayment for a bogus fertilizer factory which does not exist is enough to buy and distribute for free almost 150,000 bags of DAP fertilizer. And Kenyans allegedly still owe Ksh 4 billion on this loan to Austrian and Belgian banks. Clean the debt register to free up money for feeding the poor and developing Kenya is a policy we should adopt now.

Our Government is asking donors for money and last year about 10% of the budget was from the international community. This made up 40% of the Development budget. In our opinion more money could be mobilized for development, if the international community were to adopt a policy to immediately forgive proven corruption related debt. We need to petition the international community for 100% cancellation of all external debt that we can prove to be corrupt, and which are owed to entities in their jurisdictions. They can assist us by supporting the immediate cessation of repayment of corrupt external debt and the enforcement of law towards this end in their countries. The Government of Kenya would undertake to redirect money saved towards development. This policy would be consistent with commitments to Kenya under the Millennium Development Goals and other commitments to achieving a fair shake for Kenya and Africa generally.

We need to clean the Kenya National Budget and to remove unnecessary or wasteful expenditure from the Recurrent Budget. For example how much sense is there in State House having an annual expenditure on fuel of over 1 million dollars for 149 cars? This would mean that each car would consume 114 litres of fuel daily for the year. There is something wrong with this budget line item – and with time Kenyans can point out dozens of other examples. The Government should adopt austerity measures as most Kenyans have already done. Trim the fat, and more becomes available for development expenditure.

Finally, we need to restore the system of checks-and-Balances and parliamentary oversight over the Kenya National Budget. There are not enough days provided in the Standing Orders of Parliament to debate the budget votes and most of our Ministry’s budgets end up being passed un-debated through the so-called guillotine procedure. Last year over 36 votes were guillotined – including the Ministry of Finance which prepared a budget and doubled its own recurrent expenditure allegedly for and on behalf of the Kenya Revenue Authority to whom we pay tax. This situation has been made worse by the decision to increase the number of ministries. The solution I would propose is amendment of the Standing Orders to prescribe longer working hours for our MPs so they have more time to debate each and every vote-head in the budget. Alternatively, we could slash the cabinet to a reasonable size.

Actually, why not just slash the cabinet size?

Regardless this story won’t die anytime soon. Take a look at Kenya Cash Shortfall over Cabinet

Mwalimu Mati

Civil Society Unhappy with Grand Cabinet – Public Meeting Disrupted Forcibly

No grand reforms, no grand social balance in our Grand Coalition Government!

Bunge La Mwananchi (People’s Parliament-Kenya) would like to inform you that even
after notifying the Kenya Police of the intended rally according to the laws of
our land, the Officer in Command of Shauri Moyo Police Station, commanding at least 50 “rioting
police”, tear-gassed the citizens who had arrived early. The police clobbered us
as soon as we had set up the public address system and put up the banner for our
meeting which was to discuss the government expenditures on the Members of
Parliament’s salary, the cost of running a bloated cabinet, the lack of jobs and
high inflation that is causing basic commodities price increase amongst other
issues.

Six leaders of Bunge La Mwananchi were taken hostage by the police for close to 8
hours at the Shauri Moyo police, according to the Officer Commanding the Station he had
received orders from above to stop the meeting and make arrests and we would have
to wait until 5pm for him to communicate with his superiors. Thankfully, advocates
Mbugua Murithii and Harun Ndubi came to our rescue.

The Bunge leaders were released on police bond and required to report to the OCS
on Tuesday 22nd April, 2008 at 8am, having been charged with the following: i)
organizing an illegal meeting, ii) planning to incite the public and iii) causing
disturbance.

Bunge La Mwananchi is concerned that even after the grand coalition, Kenyan are
yet to experience grand reforms. We want reforms now! We are pushing that the
coalition governments should not only have regional balance in the power sharing
deal but the ordinary Kenyans want to see social balance too. We want the
coalition government to urgently make laws that will address the lack of jobs as
an emergency, for instance, a new bill should be put into parliament to require
all Government departments, Corporate, Embassies, Churches, CSOs, and NGO among
others to employ at least 4 more people from the pool of unemployed youth.

We are concerned that the Government of Kenya can afford the expensive Social Welfare
Program for the Members of Parliament (see
http://www.bulamwa.co.ke//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=56 )
however, the government cannot afford to make available basic services for its
people such as electricity, water and sanitation. Of all these issues, which one
does the government of Kenya find insidious?

We will however on 22nd April, 2008 be notifying the Kenya Police through OCS
Shauri Moyo once again of another citizens’ rally to be held on Saturday 26th
April, 2008 as from 10am at Kamukunji grounds to dramatize the state of our
people.

George Nyongesa
Bunge La Mwananchi
www.bulamwa.co.ke
+254 720 451 235

APRIL 17th 2008

“And now, the end is near; and so we face the final curtain”.

Today, 93 Members of Parliament will be “elevated” and sworn in as Ministers and Assistant Ministers in the Grand Coalition Government of Kenya. The new catchword is public service – never mind the obvious personal benefits. As the flags go up on the limousines, the “masters”, tens of millions of Kenyans, will spend yet another day eking out a miserable living to earn their daily bread and to pay for their “servants” new status.

Tomorrow and the day after that if they are lucky, tens of millions of Kenyans will wake again and work to pay for the billions of shillings needed to support their new Cabinet’s recurrent costs. Such costs as fuel, domestic & foreign Travel, official limousines, utilities, hospitality, household and office furniture etc… (the budget lines are the same for every Ministry). Over the next year tens of millions of Kenyans will spend about Ksh 350 billion (over 5 billion USD) to support their servants, but not a shilling of this money will actually be spent on the average poor Kenyan. Something is not right with this equation.

This is a sad situation. Despite public protest, and in the absence of any official Government explanation of how it will finance the bloated Government (where are you Ministry of Finance?), Government expenditure is henceforth to be skewed towards maintaining a bloated bureaucracy and away from feeding the people and providing them with the infrastructure to grow economically.

The truth is the Government had not planned over the period 2007-2009 to create any more Ministries. The truth is, despite the announcement on April 13th 2008, the Government has no revenue to do so, and there are no windfalls expected. The truth is, since December 2007 economic activity among the population has been interrupted, the Kenya Revenue Authority is collecting less tax, and many former taxpayers are struggling to survive. They simply don’t have enough to support the Grand Coalition cabinet of 93. The truth is, to finance the new Ministries, the Government will take the money from the only place it can, our development budget.

Once we dip into our development kitty to pay overheads, we will trigger a downward spiral in which, as we fall, we struggle to keep paying taxes not for our development but merely for the comfort of our servants. Underdevelopment is the obvious result of such a misplaced policy. With underdevelopment will come heightened social tensions and eventually insurrections against the conspicuous consumption of the servant class that calls itself Government.

What after all is the fundamental purpose of Government in Kenya? Can the National Accord have intended that Kenyans forego development for calm? How will this improve my situation, or indeed yours?

Poor people of Kenya are, I am sure, watching closely as their representatives accept elevation at their expense. Will the home coming parties be grand? Ask the people! For sure the Ministers and their flags will face the people. Ask the people if they can eat Flags!

There is one way out of this. Parliament as the representative of the people can get directly involved to stop this madness. Kenya cannot afford 43 Ministers. This is a fact! Left to its own devices, the Government will bust the bank. For example it can overdraw to spend, or worse it may even print money to spend. It has done so in the past. All because there is no law to prevent the inflation of offices and Ministries in the Government of Kenya. But hang on. There is a law – the Constitution of Kenya to be precise section 16 of the Constitution.

Parliament can act immediately pursuant to section 16 of the Constitution to cap the size of cabinet and immediately remove the absolute discretion that President claims to possess in this matter. Now is the time for the Cabinet Size to go before Parliament for resolution once and for all. All we need is a single Member of Parliament to rise to the occasion and introduce a bill to save us. Such a Member of Parliament would no doubt have the support of the Media, Civil Society, and Kenyans at large. Kenyans would be the co-sponsors of this bill because of our collective self-interest.

Section 16 of the Constitution of Kenya reads as follows:
Ministers of the Government of Kenya
(1) There shall be such offices of Minister of the Government of Kenya as may be established by Parliament or, subject to any provisions made by Parliament, by the President.
(2) The President shall, subject to the provisions of any written law, appoint the Ministers from among the members of the National Assembly.

The failure of all Parliaments since 1964 to enact such a law (establishing the offices of Minister of the Government of Kenya) has allowed President Kibaki and his predecessors to inflate the size of Government at will, and has the illegal effect of allowing the President alone to cause massive drawings on the Consolidated Fund to run these ministries without Parliamentary authority in breach of the provisions of Section 99 of the Constitution.

What is there to stop the President from creating say 70, 80 or even 90 Ministries? This is too much power. It has to be taken away. Parliament has the power to take it away, let us demand this. In any case, with the construction of a 93 member voting bloc, the Government is without a substantive check from the Legislature. Such a voting bloc can be misused under the guise of collective responsibility to tax at will, without representation.

The Bill we are proposing will correct this anomaly and remove one of the President’s last vestigial powers to act without check. The Bill is already authorized by a Motion of the Kenya Parliament passed in 2005. The Bill will not cause any additional charges on the Consolidated Fund or increase the tax burden on Kenyans. This is the way to get out of the massive problem.

www.marsgroupkenya.org

Related:

Truth Be Told – This Cabinet’s Bad for Kenya

Justification for a Bill to Cap Cabinet

An Open Letter to Parliament

Truth Be Told - Quite apart from who is in it, this Cabinet is bad news for Kenya.

In 2007, the Kenya National Budget was set at Ksh 700 billion (about USD 10.7 billion).

Of this amount, the Government has to make loan repayments and pension payments (for retired civil servants) to the tune of Ksh 141 billion (or USD 2.1 billion).

Of the remaining Ksh 559 billion (USD 8.6 billion), the Government planned to spend Ksh 300 billion (USD 4.6 billion) on running 34 Ministries.

After catering for Government’s running costs (salaries, equipment, furniture both office and household), there is only Ksh 260 billion (or USD 4 billion) for Development Expenditure available. However not all this money comes from the Government. In fact it borrows about Ksh 52 billion (or USD 800 million) for building roads, improving infrastructure, providing health and education services etc… from international donors. In the past the Government has misused loans and left Kenyans to repay.

At the end, only Ksh 200 billion (USD 3.2 billion) will remain for spending on the people of Kenya - the majority of whom live below the poverty line.

Now that the Cabinet has been increased to 43, the Government must spend more. Back of the Envelope Calculations say that the average recurrent cost of running a Ministry is Ksh 8.8 billion – or USD 130million. Therefore 9 new Ministries would cost 9 times Ksh 8.8 billion equivalent to Ksh 79.2 billion or USD 1.2 billion. This increase wipes out the Ksh 50 billion, the Ministry of Finance will raise from selling some of its Safaricom shares.

This money has to be deducted from the Ksh 200 billion development budget (USD 3.2 billion).

So at the end of the day, having 43 Ministries means that Kenyans are not likely to have more than Ksh 130 billion (USD 2billion) spent on them for Education, Health, Road Construction and Water to take a few examples of what Government is meant to actually be doing to develop Kenya.

It is tragic that a 43 member Cabinet means that Kenyans will expect only about 19% of the Ksh 700 billion national budget to be spent on developing the country. It appears as if the GOK has ceased to have a development function and exists only to tax Kenyans, and spend taxpayer’s money on GOK recurrent costs (salaries, loans and pensions).

What will those who pay for all this (taxpayers and donors) have to say to this economic mismanagement knowing that Kenyans:
- Live with inflation above 20%
- 150,000 IDPs live in tents (supported by the red cross – not the GOK)
- will soon suffer from food shortages this year and have to rely on charity
- Thought that the national accord was intended to facilitate relief to the poorest and worst off – and not to construct a bloated government
- Have heard that the Government has asked donors for Ksh 31 billion (USD 476 million) to resettle the IDPs, because the GOK is unable to raise this amount from its own resources.

Truth Be Told This Cabinet is Bad news for Kenya

Mwalimu mati
www.marsgroupkenya.org

Justification for a Bill to enact a law to Establish the Number of Ministers of the Government of Kenya as required by Section 16 of the Constitution of Kenya

APRIL 9TH 2008

Unfortunately, politicians continue to hold Kenyans at ransom over cabinet appointments to the Grand Coalition, while millions of Kenyans live in inhumane circumstances because of the events of December 2007 through February 2008. To break the gridlock over the establishment of the Grand Coalition legislated under the National Accord Act and the Constitution of Kenya Act 2008 we are proposing that Parliament as the representative of the people get directly involved. Now is the time for the Cabinet Crisis to go before Parliament for resolution once and for all.

On 4th April 2008, Mars Group Kenya wrote an Open Letter to all Members of Parliament. The letter was received and acknowledged for distribution to all members through Parliament’s Registry on 8th April 2008. In the letter we proposed that Parliament act immediately to cap the size of cabinet to immediately remove the absolute discretion that President claims to possess.

We are of the view that the Media, Civil Society, and Kenyans at large can, and should, sponsor a Legislative Bill to be adopted in Parliament immediately to address the current Cabinet Crisis, whether the President appoints a Cabinet or not. Drafting such a Bill is in our collective interest and within our competence. The Bill would cap the number of Ministers of the Government of Kenya and invoke Parliament’s authority on this matter under Section 16 of the Constitution of Kenya.

Section 16 of the Constitution of Kenya reads as follows:
Ministers of the Government of Kenya

(1)
There shall be such offices of Minister of the Government of Kenya as may be established by Parliament or, subject to any provisions made by Parliament, by the President.

(2)
The President shall, subject to the provisions of any written law, appoint the Ministers from among the members of the National Assembly.

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Throughout my life in the United States, news of the death of a family member or a friend back home has lost some of its power over me. In the last 13 years I have lost a father, two grandparents, an aunt, four uncles, and five cousins.

Then there are the countless friends I grew up with who are no longer alive. One committed suicide because an accident had left him blind, another killed himself because his parents would not approve of the girl he was courting, and the third one hanged himself for as yet undiscovered reasons. On two separate occasions, two friends were killed by speeding cars. A childhood buddy drank himself to death, while several others have fallen victim to that villain whose name my kinfolk are still too ashamed to utter, AIDS.

After the tragic loss of so many young lives, of people who as children had shown so much potential both for themselves and for their community, I became numb to the pain – so numb that I could no longer summon tears upon learning that a friend had died. But the news from home last week sent me bawling once again. In fact, as I write this I have a box of tissue next to me.

If there was one young man angels needed to protect from death, it should have been Joshua Orina, the Saboti Constituency Development Fund manager who was found brutally murdered and dumped in a sugarcane plantation in Bungoma. Joshua was seven years younger than me, but I called him Grandpa for he was my grandfather’s first cousin; this even though he was young enough to be his grandson.

The last time I saw Joshua was in 1994, shortly before I left Kenya. But I remember him vividly: a dark complexioned, slender 12-year-old boy, destined to be taller than everyone in his immediate family. He was humble and shy – more of a thinker than a speaker.

Joshua was the last born in his family. In the Gusii highlands where I come from, the lastborn get the unrestrained love and affection of their families. We used to joke that parents stopped having children after the lastborn because they had finally found a child they could love. Although all sons were entitled to equal shares of the land and wealth where available, parents often secretly stashed money away for the lastborn.

But Joshua’s parents had no money to spoil him with. His father, who was very old when the boy was born, could not do much to provide for the family, and had died before Joshua was 10. That left Joshua’s mother as the sole breadwinner of the family of six boys and one girl. The land they owned was too small to feed the children, let alone produce a surplus to cover their education. Even though I also grew up in the same poor village of Makairo, I used to wonder how the Orinas got by.

To feed and clothe her children, Joshua’s mother worked on people’s tea fields plucking leaves. Still that wasn’t enough, so she walked barefoot to marketplaces several kilometers away from Makairo to buy mangoes, omena fish and other petty products to sell for a tiny profit. I remember kids, myself included, making jokes about how her hands – scarred by hours of manual labor – were rougher than her feet.

Joshua’s older siblings did not go beyond high school, not because they were incapable, but because their mother had no money to send them to good schools. His mother’s plight is without a doubt what motivated Joshua to work so hard and graduate at the top of his primary school class to join Gekano High School – one of the best in Gusii.

I did not know how well Joshua had done in school until 2004, when I called my brother, a student at Moi University, Eldoret, to inform him that I was going to be two weeks late sending his tuition.

“That’s OK,” my brother said. “I can stay with Mura until then.”

Tears of joy trickled down my cheeks when I learned that Mura, as Joshua’s boyhood friends called him, had continued to excel at Gekano and had been accepted to Moi University to study Business. Finally, I thought, the decades of the hard work Joshua’s mother had endured were going to pay. Finally, there was a glimmer of hope that her lastborn would rescue her from the rusty tin shack she had lived in for so long.

Joshua graduated in 2005 and took a job at a small auditing firm in Nairobi. But Joshua’s dreams were mightier than what the small company could provide. So last year, he applied for a job to head one of the Constituency Development Funds (CDF). Whoever interviewed Joshua must have been so impressed to hire a 26-year-old for a job that was formerly the responsibility of a Member of Parliament. Joshua moved to Kitale in October to take his new job. He went to work immediately and discovered that millions of shillings allocated to programs in Saboti had been misused by corrupt officials. He wrote a report that sent the officials screaming for his blood.

As I do every time a relative dies, I keep waiting for someone to call and tell me that there had been a mistake, that Joshua is still alive – that his mother’s toil had not been in vain. Every day I see an e-mail or phone call from my brother, I wish he could say that the man they found dead in a sugarcane plantation had been misidentified as Joshua because they had beaten him beyond recognition before shooting him six times.

But instead my brother keeps feeding me with new information on how they killed Joshua. One of the corrupt CDF officials he had been investigating lured him into a double-cabin pick-up truck and began to drive away as Joshua sat in the backseat sandwiched by two men he had hired to abduct him.

Joshua began to fight for his life, but the two guys overpowered him. They tightened his necktie. As he gasped for air, they shoved something in his mouth to pacify him. They then tied his legs and hands before laying him across the vehicle’s floor.

I can only imagine what was going through Joshua’s mind as the corrupt official drove slowly, waiting for the cover of dark so they could kill him. He thought about his two young boys – aged five and 10 months old – whose future had seemed so bright just a few hours before. He thought about their young mother, his wife, who he had promised to join at the supermarket after running the short errand that was now likely to lead to his death. Would she end up struggling, just like his poor mother did, to raise the children?

Those thoughts must have made Joshua desperately want to do everything to go home alive that night. He must have offered his would-be killers everything he owned – all the KShs.75,000 he had stored in his ATM card.

They took his ATM card and verified the PIN by withdrawing KShs.20,000. They drove deep into the sugarcane plantation, and when the sun set, they killed a dream.

This post was submitted by African Loser.

Tags: Corruption, Joshua Orina, kenya, Saboti CDF

OPEN LETTER TO THE MEMBERS OF THE 10^TH PARLIAMENT

DATED 4^TH April 2008

Dear Member of Parliament

We have been told that Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga (Principals to the Kenya National Accord) have settled on a Kenya Cabinet size of 40. Kenyans are now asking whether they are going to receive adequate representation from you, if as seems likely the Executive will appoint more than half the parliament as ministers and Assistant Ministers.

Kenyans cannot afford such a large Cabinet. Kenya does not need such a large Cabinet. This is a very bad start for a Grand Coalition that has yet to be accepted by a majority of Kenyans. We accepted a hybrid form of Government (the so called Grand Coalition) because we feared for our lives, but that doesn’t mean that this fear authorises the Executive to destroy Parliament’s ability to check it by co-opting a majority of members. Be that as it may, we write to propose courses of action and to appeal to you not to take up a position in this bloated cabinet, but instead, to move your colleagues to cap the number of ministries as per section 16 of the Constitution and the motion of the former MP for Siakago, J.B Muturi.

Members of Parliament are already paid billions of shillings by the poor taxpayer.

In terms of the Financial costs, the National Assembly is the most expensive to the taxpayer since Independence on December 12^th 1963. The 2007/2008 Budget Estimates provides for the following Expenditure for the National Assembly.

Members of Parliament were elected by poor Kenyans to represent us, not to agitate for wasteful government expenditure in the name of power sharing. Certainly, they are not meant to be inciting Government to spend more for no serious purpose beyond contriving to get Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to give them sinecures at public expense. Kenya’s tax money should be used for the immediate care of the poorest and not the wealthiest Kenyans. Nearly twenty million Kenyans live on less than Ksh 64 per day. This means they will make no more or have no more to spend than Ksh 25,000 in a whole year. And that is for families! These are the Kenyans we should be spending money on. Kenyans would prefer to spend any extra money this coming year on poor Kenyans rather than continuing to fatten political sacred cows.

It must be made clear that Members of Parliament are in fact employees of the People of Kenya. Members of Parliament are among the highest paid in the world and have a job to do. Members of Parliament have no business lobbying for what is in effect a second job:- that of a Minister or Assistant minister. It is our view that Members Of Parliament must first and foremost do the job that they have been elected to do.

Why do we need 40 Ministers?

It is Parliament’s fault. The two Principals are able to do what they have done because despite the clear provisions of section 16 of the Constitution, Parliament has never made a law to establish and determine the number and portfolios of the Cabinet. Thus Ministerial positions remain the personal gift of two men, never mind what the Constitution of Kenya intended. Because we let Parliament get away with not passing an important law, we are all collectively condemned to pay for the largest Cabinet in Kenya’s 45-year history.

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Kenyans deserve a Lean, Clean and Efficient Cabinet. Kenyans are requesting that Parliament only passes a budget for 13 Ministerial portfolios made up as follows:

A PROPOSED CABINET FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA

(This factors in every single government function as currently constituted)

1.Office Of the President

2. Office Of the Prime Minister

3. Ministry for Development

4. Ministry of Security

5. Ministry of Information and Communication

6. Ministry of Education

7. Ministry of Health

8 Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

9.Ministry of Agriculture

10. Ministry of Finance & Planning

11.Ministry o