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Kenya has a sugar problem? MPs have a solution: Throw a homecoming party at it

Tuesday July 17 2018
toon
By TEE NGUGI

The Comedy of Errors is a play by William Shakespeare, but over time, the title and the narrative it refers to have become, like so much else from the bard, an idiomatic expression.

The idiom, “a comedy of errors,” refers to a series of errors that make both the journey to an event and the event itself ridiculous or hilarious.

The idiom is also employed with an ironic twist to indicate a series of errors that are so ridiculous, they would be laughable if their result were not so tragic. In this sense, the idiom captures the comic stupidity of events and the resulting tragedy.

Henry Lopez’s novel – The Laughing Cry – and the actions it narrates also capture the interplay between comedy and tragedy. The novel, more than any other, fictionalises the tragic and comedic character of post-colonial governance. Do we laugh or cry at the buffoonery of an Idi Amin or Yahya Jammeh?

It is hard to miss the comedy of errors or the hilarious stupidity that leads to tragedy in the sugar saga going on in Kenya. Consider the plot, characters and actions in this drama.

There is a drought in the country that causes a shortage of sugar. Why a drought that is always forecast should cause a shortage of anything, and more specifically, why it should cause a shortage of sugar in a country that has hardworking sugarcane farmers and local sugar factories is part of the tragi-comedy.

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To offset the shortage, the minister in charge of the Treasury allows the importation of sugar. Even importers blacklisted by parliament bring in millions of tonnes. The sugar board, an entity that chooses, as if it were a spy agency, to operate in the shadows, fails to check who has or does not have a licence to import (perhaps being in the shadows has affected their eyesight).

Port authorities allow in sugar imports willy-nilly. Kenya Revenue Authority fails to tax imports. The Kenya Bureau of Standards neglects to check the health risks of the imports. It is later revealed, by the minister in charge of internal security no less, that some of the sugar contains mercury, copper, lead and other hazardous substances.

A parliamentary probe also reveals that some sugar was transported and stored in unhygienic conditions. The interim report given by the parliamentary committee investigating the sugar saga fails to answer the most urgent question – is the sugar on the shelves fit for human consumption?

Even by the tragically low standards of Kenya’s parliament, MPs found the report negligent, diversionary and poor. In a parliament that hardly agrees on anything except increasing MPs’ salaries, there was bipartisan unanimity that the committee had done an extremely shoddy job.

This litany of tragi-comic errors by the minister, government agencies and parliament, raises fundamental questions.

If parliament is thoroughly incapable of doing so, who will represent and protect citizens’ interests?

If these committee members, eloquent ethnic demagogues at “homecoming parties” and on TV panels, fail so spectacularly to carry out their key mandate, what does it say about the ability of the legislature to provide the checks and balances envisaged in the constitution?

Should not members of parliamentary committees undertake lifestyle audits?

If a minister in charge of such a crucial department fails – unwittingly or, more likely, wittingly – to specify importers and importation period, and ensure those specifications are strictly adhered to, how sure are we that this not a continuation of the Kanu-era tradition of creating artificial shortages in order to mint overnight millionaires at the expense of local industries?

If every agency can fail so comically to perform its duty, when will we ever overcome the tragedy of underdevelopment?

The AU Executive Council held a summit on corruption in Nouakchott, Mauritania. At the summit, speakers rehearsed in grave tones as if they were the originators of the idea – the central role corruption plays in the underdevelopment of countries.

Members of civil society have been making that argument for years and have lost life and limb for their pains.

Granted, the AU holding a summit on corruption is a small step forward. But it is not a giant leap in fighting because leaders do not realise just how deeply ingrained corruption is, as the sugar saga in Kenya demonstrates.

Do they realise that real commitment to fighting the vice could mean some of them ending up in jail, like Park Geun-hye of South Korea and Najib Razak of Malaysia?

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based social and political commentator.

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