Echoes of Mboya’s voice in revenue stalemate
Senators’ last-ditch effort yesterday to resolve the stalemate over counties’ revenue allocations amid the coronavirus pandemic symbolises Kenyans’ perpetual search for self-governance.
A numbing reality of failure of political (legislative and party) leadership to attain consensus in addressing three issues that have continued to haunt citizens since independence – poverty, ignorance and disease.
The novel coronavirus disease has thrust itself into the unusual territory of governance, posing a critical leadership test for the national and county governments manifested in the Senate impasse over revenue allocations to the 47 counties.
Ruthless and random, the pandemic has caught the two-tier government flat-footed as the country attempts to go through political reincarnation within serious economic and social distress.
As the political class scrambles to deal with an unexpected frightening situation, the virus has struck an already infected body politic, posing another a threat to unity and nation-building in our federal (national) state (county) system of government.
Counties are the bride wedded by the 2010 Constitution and besotted to a financially-strapped domineering husband who controls the purse.
They need funds they cannot raise on their own for the crying needs of citizens aggravated by the pandemic.
No money to pay workers’ salaries or for development. At the mercy of the Senate, and the National Treasury, beholden to the Executive and the National Assembly.
No one captures this enduring puzzle of unity, nation-building and equity in a constitutional conundrum that has persisted since 1963 better than the late Tom Mboya, probably the most prolific, charismatic Kenyan politician ever, his headstrong views notwithstanding.
In his book, Freedom and After, Mboya magnifies the root cause of Kenya’s seemingly intractable journey to nation-building and economic consolidation.
It is a must reading for anyone interested in the genesis of the political and constitutional drama playing out in the Senate gallery.
Mboya’s caution that “regionalism is very difficult for any Kenyan to regard dispassionately at the moment” rings true today as it did in 1962.
Witness the senators’ bare knuckles, no holds barred fight for their region’s fair share of the national cake!
A proponent of a strong central government that prevailed at independence until the last decade, Mboya’s argument has since been disproved by the political and legislative evolution that culminated in the 2010 Constitution, entrenching devolution into the national ethos.
Kenyans overwhelmingly rejected a centralised government that contributed to marginalisation and inequities in the distribution of national resources.
Lingering fears of a return to this scenario are highlighted in the protracted political, economic and constitutional manoeuvres currently being orchestrated on the national stage and amplified on the floor of the Senate.
It is a sign that our Constitution, reinforcing the doctrine of separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, has come of age as the defender of the rights of all Kenyans regardless of region of origin.
While Mboya’s 1963 belief that “regions at present constitute an irritant and nuisance which cannot survive” has since been irrevocably quashed, the Senate impasse on revenue allocations vindicates his conviction that the state needs to maintain unity as the basis of all development.
Kenyans should emerge from this acrimony stronger to combat a common enemy in the coronavirus, while forging national unity and sustainable, equitable development for all. — [email protected]
