Why President Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto risk unpopularity soon

Updated Friday, July 5th 2013 at 11:35 GMT +3

The teachers’ strike over unimplemented staggered salary deal dating back to 1997 must have served as a wake-up call to President Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto that the honeymoon is over. This is because the manner in which the ‘digital’ duo managed the crisis followed the same script various governments have used to try and break up similar past strikes.

It begins with a call to tripartite dialogue between Ministry of Education officials, Labour officials and the teacher unions. The meetings actually are stormy because Knut as we know fights with bare knuckles.

Greed and avarice

When it appears that the teachers won’t budge, the Education minister issues ultimatums and warn salaries will be frozen and striking teachers sacked even though they know parents won’t release the children to go back to school.

The point we are making is that wherever there is a regime change, it does not take long for the nation to realise that governments will always remain the same, tackling the realities of shrinking size of the national cake and sharp rise in our collective greed and avarice.

Teachers have a point in the fact that their demands are anchored onto a deal signed with government 16 years ago. There are technicalities as to the interpretation whether the relevant gazette notice still has the force of law. My take is that the burden retired President Kibaki inherited from Mzee Daniel Arap Moi (at the time Education minister was one Kalonzo Musyoka) is now firmly on Uhuru’s and Ruto’s shoulders. It is going to be the biggest test of their statecraft. Kibaki could not resolve this matter for ten years and in all fairness, may be its implementation is akin to pushing a boulder up the cliff of Mount Kenya. So he chose what the previous regime did; incremental increases!

Uhuru and Ruto team I am told have put on the table a proposal of Sh3.6 billion to hire 10,000 teachers, Sh3.5 billion for promotions and Sh11.5 billion for harmonisation of allowances for teachers. This makes a total of Sh18.6 billion. Add to this, assuming teachers will accept, the cost of Sh15 billion set aside for the purchase of laptops for Standard One kids next year and you see the recipe for chaos in the learning sector for the remainder of Uhuru-Ruto first term.

This strike will showcase what metal the two leaders are made of and will also test their skills in juggling teachers’ and national interests.

If they choose to go by the current script borrowed from the Kanu era, we can as well conclude that what changed are the faces in government, not the way of doing things. Yes, salary increases strain the process of growing the economy but have we sealed the loopholes of extravagance?

In fact other than the backbreaking burden of supporting the new devolved units, constitutional commissions and expanded Legislature, we have seen MPs increase their salaries through the backdoor and blackmail of the Salaris and Remuneration Commission.

The big guys in government are burning billions through the return of four-wheel-drive fuel guzzlers complete with escort cars. Meanwhile as our costs hit the ceiling some among us decide that instead of bringing our expenditure down we actually should move the roof further up. This they do through such shocking and wasteful ventures such as spending Sh750 million to give Mzee Kibaki an office and home he does not need, and may never even use.

We also burn up billions, seemingly to exorcise the ‘ghosts’ of the former Grand Coalition, by renovating the public offices and homes inherited from its kingpins, especially one Raila Odinga. The rest we deploy to non-strategic programmes and even charter planes to leisurely take us to African capitals to lobby against The Hague trials.

The net effect of this conspicuous consumption, unbridled thirst to spend public funds and the unrelenting urge to don the tapestry of royalty and newfound status, has been a crush on the economy. Like the case of squeezing a stone for water, now they even thought of taxing maize meal and bread, among other basic foodstuffs! 

Vanity

It was one thing to make huge promises at the campaign rallies, and it is another thing altogether to implement them. I suspect that Uhuru and Ruto know the vanity of some of the promises but being astute politicians they still want to push on, however hard and expensive the programmes and goodies promised are, so as to look good before Kenyans. No politician would want to be accused of being a liar.

But there is a limit up to which the smokescreen can hang in the air and hide from Kenyans the reality of things inside government. Of course we are also culpable because we want to be lied to during campaigns and do not question the feasibility of some of the promises being given. Secondly, we elect our leaders through tyranny of constellated tribal numbers.

Teachers and civil society groups protesting planned tax on ugali have proven something else; that nothing unites Kenyans more than the stomach and hunger pangs.

If Uhuru and Ruto don’t scale down on public expenditure and also channel more effort into baking a bigger national cake to pass around, don’t be surprised if they end up grappling with myriad strikes in public sector and even food riots soon. If in doubt see what happened to Kibaki in 2003 and Barack Obama in the final leg of his first term!

To avoid this spectacle, the two leaders must change tack and up their negotiating skills and also rein in on those who think what belongs to the public is no one’s and should be (mis)used by public servants tany way they want.

The writer is Managing Editor, The County Weekly.

ktanui@standardmedia.co.ke