Most Kenyans felt ashamed to see the infantile fighting between two semi-autonomous government entities — the County Government of Nairobi and the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.
The dispute is over who owes whom what. This should be a fairly simple matter to resolve, because it would only involve a review of records over relevant periods. That is if the two entities — infamous for large-scale thievery — keep accurate records.
The Auditor-General’s reports have often flagged up the misuse or loss of billions of shillings by the county government, even as services and security deteriorate.
The County collects billions of shillings from residents, but it doesn’t have much to show for it. Nairobi, just like the national government, seems to have no central organising purpose. It just staggers from one crisis to the next.
As for KPLC, if media reports over the years are anything to go by, it is the hotbed of thievery, minting millionaires faster than you can say Elon Musk. The corporation, just like the county government, collects billions, yet services are wayward at best. If it drizzles, most neighbourhoods lose power. Thank God for small mercies that Kenya is not in a hurricane-prone zone.
The two entities have now sunk to a new low that would be unimaginable in countries where leaders have some self-respect. In retaliation for KPLC cutting off power to its offices over the alleged debt, the County has deposited mountains of waste outside the gates of KPLC offices.
And then the county government, in a moment of prodigious inventiveness, in line with its vision of making Nairobi a city of “order, dignity and hope”, blocked sewer lines to KPLC offices in the central business district. Human waste overflew onto the streets and pavements.
This infantile tit-for-tat demonstrates the low intellectual, moral and ethical capacity of those we have entrusted with running vital national entities. But the foolhardiness and lack of purpose seem to also characterise national government.
The top leadership has been on campaign mode since winning the election in 2022, making promises and extra-legal roadside policy announcements.
Catholic Bishop Anthony Muheria has likened this ceaseless campaigning to advertising. He warned that the government was not an “advertising, but an implementing agency.”
Listening to the noise of the campaign, one would think that we had solved our very daunting developmental problems. Yet every sector is in crisis.
Trump has cut off aid to crucial sectors. Yet we have no qualms spending billions on these “advertising” jaunts, renovation of state houses or on self-aggrandising trips abroad.
Recently, we witnessed government expending time and scarce resources to campaign for the most inconsequential position in the history of institutions — the AUC chair position in Addis.
The socioeconomic problems bedeviling Kenya, which are duplicated in all AU member countries, can only be solved by the individual countries. Pretending that AUC chairpersons can solve these problems which they couldn’t solve in their countries is a callous fraud.
Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political and social commentator.
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