Uncomfortable stories of state of the ‘other nation’

In his final State of the Nation address read to both Houses of Parliament on Wednesday last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta correctly catalogues many successes that he credits the decade of his presidency that has entered its final year.

He was profuse in his self-commendation, singling out the infrastructure, economic progress, health care and political stability as some of the signature achievements of his presidency. And he was right. Building 10,500 kilometres of roads across the country is a feat worth crowing about. And yes, under most circumstances, growing the GDP of a country from Sh4.74 trillion in 2013 to Sh11 trillion last year should be commended.

He spoke of success in health provision – which is also true and visible in the many decently equipped health facilities in most counties – but also rather surprisingly stated the highly improbable possibility of delivering 100 per cent universal health coverage before he leaves office (unless the administration that takes over after the 2022 General Election will still be “his administration”).

It was a State of the Nation address that fully conforms to the profile of such occasions – lofty on self-gratuitous rhetoric, highly subjective on selected successes and usually tunnel-visioned. They hardly pretend to be nuanced because this could contradict the heady sense of excitement carried in the suspended disbelief we all are expected to embrace during such occasions.

War on corruption

Such unwelcome intrusions of reality ideally should be voiced by the alternative platform (of opposition) that President Kenyatta effectively muzzled through a famous handshake with the Opposition leader Raila Odinga.

But lack of opposition cannot hide the “other state” of the nation. This is one that displays the frightening fragility of our national finances, for instance. Our insatiable appetite for borrowed money is one of the troubling legacies of the Kenyatta presidency that will remain a prominent blot, perhaps only overshadowed by the regime’s abject failure to tame corruption. We knew corruption in Kenya was always an embarrassing, though hardly unique malaise as virtually every country suffers the vice, but for it now to account for a staggering loss of Sh2 billion a day is mind-blowing.

It is bizarre that it mutated this way under the watch of one who vowed to make war on corruption the centerpiece of his administration. 

Some may recall the excitement triggered when he tabled the famous corruption list in Parliament, an action that instead of unleashing a determined push to bring people to account, quietly fizzled out after predictable pronouncements of self-righteous anger. It is so bad now that cartels operate as if they are part of the state.

Youth unemployment

It is another terrible legacy in the face of the excessive investments made to ostensibly fight it. From official agencies like the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to processes like requiring public officers to periodically fill wealth declaration forms, nothing seems to work. The effectiveness of these offices and initiatives is best illustrated by the contempt with which responsible entities treat presidential fiats like the directive that the infamous “Covid tendepreneurs” that harvested millions from national drugs distributor Kemsa be urgently screened and punished.

In the “other nation”, Kenya’s youth unemployment is a sore that continues to fester with no tangible resolution in sight. Band-aid solutions like Kazi Kwa Vijana under which youth are deployed to execute menial tasks are not sustainable. There remains a lot to be done to transform and promote growth in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing that traditionally have created jobs in a sustainable manner.

As it is now, the country is nowhere near investing 10 per cent of its annual budgets in agriculture despite being a signatory of the Malabo Declaration. A progressive and surefire catalyst to boost manufacturing could be the introduction of legally imposed Local Content Mechanism requiring all products being made locally or imported for selling here to contain a specified amount of local content. Though accepted in principle, such an important initiative is held up in some bureaucrat’s in-tray. Passing such legislation should be one of the triumphs the President should be celebrating.

In the “other nation” is evidence of other pledges not met – an unmet pledge to provide affordable housing for thousands of Kenyans and another one to secure all Kenyans against hunger. These too form part of the legacy of this administration even if they are conveniently left out of the speeches that will be archived as official records.

The writer is a former editor-in-chief of Nation Media Group and is now consulting. [email protected], @tmshindi