There is this mabati eatery we visit with my younger brother Kitali Ngaira Wendo when we get hungry, while roaming around Soy
When you order ugali, they bring a very thin slice, transparent like an underwear of the nocturnal merchants of Koinange in Nairobi and Avenue Kasavubu in Kinshasa or Paradise Bar in Eldoret, the town of my father
But before you even begin complaining, they bring you “ugali saucer” an additional ugali, as huge as Millicent Omanga’s sitting allowances
The former is your right while the latter is a favour, a privilege
They steal from you what’s rightfully yours, to get something to give you as a favour. That’s exactly how your taxes disappear from the coffers, only to come as favours in harambees and other campaign tokens
Someone may argue that there isn’t any big deal, as long as the end recipient is the tax payer, but that reasoning is faulty for the following reasons
The loot is stashed for his wife and mistress and only a tiny percentage is released in donations. Secondly, as I’ve said before, development that will change the society can only happen through structured programs and not handouts which lack sustainability
Look at what CDF is doing around, building educational and medical infrastructures, offering bursaries etc. These is what will change the fortunes of the society and not handouts in form of harambees, which only happen when elections are approaching
By the way, CDF is a paltry ksh 35 billion a year. Corruption has been gobbling upto one trillion a year, in the last five years, according to the auditor general
The churches also have a role to play in the fight against corruption. They are the biggest beneficiaries of stolen funds
Their acute thirst for funds is what inspires politicians to raid the coffers. There are multi million mega structures for churches a few yards apart and they are hardly filled
It will help if they get contended with the already built churches and stop wanting to put up more because the need to donate simiti and mabati is what inspires the looting of public funds, here and there
Why should we lie, when we can say the truth?
By Jerome Ogola via FB
