By Cyprian Nyamwamu
Kenyan currency is privately printed; the police, military, judiciary is owned by private tenderpreneurs and contractors who build courts, supply houses and vehicles etc; KEBS, NACADA, NTSA, NEMA and all these regulatory agencies are all privatized services that have actually outsourced their mandates to consultants etc. That is why we are a failing State that allows four years of imported poisonous sugar to kill our agricultural sector, the selling of unga as yoghurt, poison laced water, medicines, contraband goods in shops, Panadol laced Githeri, chemical laced fruits, eggs and meats etc. We are a poison dumping site. We are a dying population which never connects politics to the life outcomes of the vote.
A Kenyan lives in a private house, drives a privately owned vehicle or Matatu to drop children in a private school because there is no public transport system and because public schooling is so broken. SGR has been contracted to the Chinese. Kenyans take family members to private hospitals because public hospitals are broken, not by doctors but by the system.. Go to Machakos Level 5 and see the pharmacies across the road which tell you that the big infrastructure is what government thinks is medical care; the electricity company is privately owned now, water is privately supplied by those water boozers or trucks; weekends are spent in private play grounds and resorts not in public parks, food is privately produced and distributed..
Strangely, it is only Kenyan doctors that are supposed to close down their private clinics in a capitalist system where even elections have been privatised, security was long ago privatized with all the Askaris of private security companies that even manage our ports.
Some people now believe that 100 Cuban or foreign doctors is the way to solving a capitalist-privatization-national crisis so deep. I mean, we have to be very shallow if we don’t understand what this Cuban doctors insult is all about. Increasing foreign doctors will not solve the problem with our doctors, our healthcare system or indeed our national comprador capitalist-privatization- crisis. Richard Mogaka, we have Kshs. 5b to throw away to import tin containers that are still rotting in Mombasa; we have Kshs. 70b to import useless medical equipment that largely does not work; but we don’t have money to pay our workers especially doctors, nurses, clinicians, teachers. The Cuban system is public sector and service centered not private sector driven. You cannot have a contractor state but expect doctors to be the only humans in Kenya who live on 170k a month when their lawyer-former-year mates are paid Kshs 70m to represent IEBC, the police, etc to do their impunity jobs. When a simple hair dresser makes away with Kshs 200m for supplying air to NYS or a supplier of air pockets Kshs. 60m. What is the market cost of affording an engineer, a lawyer, an environmental impact assessment expert, a gender consultant, a security policy consultant? What about the market rate of a doctor, a nurse, a clinician? In the US, public school teachers earn twice the
Income of private school teachers and that is why public schools are the real deal. Let’s understand the crisis first. It’s called NEOLIBERALISM.
The Former Bogota Mayor told us during an IDS public lecture that the crisis is caused by privatization. For example expanding roads like Waiyaki way to have six lanes will not solve the traffic jams pain, it will worsen it. What you need is a public transport system of trams and buses that take out the need for private cars.
Privatization strips the public sector all the
Key resources and renders public services hopeless, then people resort to private services.. Doctors and all experts follow the money subsequently.
We need a public housing system to build a sustained socio-economic model, housing that comes with public schools and hospitals, water , electricity, sanitation and waste management system, connected to public transport systems, across the country all the way to Moyale and Mt Elgon.
Article 43 of the Katiba is only achievable outside the current Jubilee nonsense of last mile electricity to grass thatched houses or importation of a handful Cuban doctors into a broken health system. That is all propaganda PR stunting. Njoki E Wamai PhD please bring down this Cuban doctors’ praise on your FB wall which has triggered this post.
Let’s grow some brains, soul and character and offer proper intellectual and political leadership to our country. Not some kalongo longo policies that have been rolled out by this Jubilee error. Let’s be very serious about our lives, and if not, about the lives of our children. They have lent this country to us. We must not fail them the way our parents have failed us.
Education is not school buildings; health is not big hospital structures, transport is not big SGR projects and expansion of Outerring road at the cost of Kshs 17bn for 14 Kilometers; Environmental conservation is not Kshs 800m to clean Nairobi River; this infrastructure projects for draining our public services is a wicked and criminal enterprise to privatize the public sector and its services and must be stopped.
What is needed in Kenya is the reinvestment and transformation of the public sector and public services in Kenya. In Tanzania, it’s Jeshi La Wananchi which builds roads in northern and Southern remote parts of the country using natural resources of that country. We must revive public water, housing, education, transport, health, security, electricity, libraries, civic education, television, radio, etc for Kenya to be saved from total extermination.
Cyprian Nyamwamu
Future of Kenya Foundation
On the eve of Saba SABA 2018
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