Re: Development Record of Kibaki Government: The campaign pitch

Hi to you all,

Happy new year and may God answer our prayers and remove all th e corrupt from Kenyan Government this year, and have justice for all.

Below is a reproduction of a write up by Barrack Muluka in support of Federalism. I would invite Oduor On'gwen and other Nationailst to read this article.It is mind boggling to learn that Impoverished Nyanza pays the second highest amount ox Tax in kenya after nairobi, and Central which is rich pays the least. this inequality has to be addressed in distribution of national cake.

Regards
Joseph Okumu
London

Kenya: Federalism Could Bridge Current Development Gaps

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINION
29 Juillet 2006
Publié sur le web le 31 Juillet 2006

Barrack Muluka
Nairobi

Sunday evening and I am watching the day's happenings on television. I have just got back to Nairobi, after battling daylong with some of the worst roads anywhere in the world.

A significant portion of the day was wasted in Kisumu, welding the suspension of my regular roadwork horse. The Germans would tell you that she is a metaphor for their automobile technological genius at its most ambitious and successful. But Kenyan roads are no respecters of genius - German or whatever. And so such is the lot of those who must drive to west Kenya, regardless that they are going to Kisii, Eldoret, Kisumu, Busia, Bungoma or Kericho. You must contend with the effects of terrible roads. The dreams of the dual carriageway that the Narc candidates promised us in 2002 have been buried with the party.

And so there am watching as President Mwai Kibaki comes on the screen. He goes on and on about the media and how they are misleading Kenyans on the allocation of development funds. He is particularly piquant about the latest reports and subsequent commentaries that show an unmistakable disproportionate favour for certain parts of the country in road development funds' allocation. It is instructive that the President is not questioning the figures.

He is simply unhappy that they have, in his perceived view, focused only on one year. If you want to be fair, paint with a broader brush, he says "for we cannot develop the whole country at once."

Fair enough, we cannot develop the whole country at once. But one would have thought that we would pay more attention to the least developed parts of the country - give them some leverage so that we could begin reducing the poverty gap?

On the authority of the Society for International Development (SID), Kenya ranks among the top ten most unequal countries in the world.

In East Africa, we are number one. Nairobi, Rift Valley and Central Provinces are in a class of their own. If you could hive off the rest of the country and patch them together, they would play in the same league as such middle level developed countries as Mexico, Mauritius and Tunisia.

The rest of the country is in the same league as such failed states as Sierra Leone and Togo, the poorest of the poor.

But the story of Central Province is the real enigma in Kenya's political economy.

When it comes to taxation, Central Province is - as I indicated in last week's column - third from the bottom, just managing to stay ahead of Eastern and North Eastern Provinces.

She contributes just about a third of what Nyanza contributes to KRA. Setting Nairobi apart, more taxes are collected from Nyanza, Rift Valley, Western and Coast Provinces in that order. Yet economic, social and demographic indices tell a different story altogether.

Consider for a moment that Central Province has the lowest poverty index in the country, according to UNDP figures, standing at 35.3 per cent.

Nyanza, for paying the highest tax outside Nairobi is the second poorest province, with an index of 70.9 per cent, just about two points ahead of impoverished North Eastern at 73.1 per cent. The rest of the indices are Coast 69.9 per cent, Western 66.1 per cent, Eastern 65.9 per cent and Rift Valley 56.4 per cent.

With regard to health, Nyanza is in a disastrous class of her own. For every 1,000 children born in Nyanza, 133 will die before the age on one.

Elsewhere, the patterns are 91 in North Eastern, 80 in Western, 78 in Coast, 61 in Rift Valley and 44 in Central. Figure that out. One more example - access to piped domestic water stands at 11.8 per cent in Central Province, 8.1 per cent in Coast Province (largely due to the Mombasa factor), 4.5 per cent in Rift Valley, 4.1 per cent in Eastern, 1.3 per cent in Western and of course 0.6 per cent in Nyanza and North Eastern each.

Now you do not need to be a malevolent media person to point out that these are disturbing disparities. They do not bode well for anybody - neither for those who are ahead, nor those who lag behind. In a report published in 2002, the Institute of Economic Affairs correctly observed, "Gross economic inequality is the principal universal cause of political conflict and civil strife, more so if it mirrors a country's cleavages of social class, race, religion and tribe.

Are the poor provinces about to get out of the woods? Hardly. Consider that over the past ten years, Government revenue has been steadily spent as follows: 41 per cent on servicing debts; 53 per cent on salaries. This leaves a miserable six per cent for development related expenditure. And this six per cent must also go to such projects as Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg and to Commissions of Inquiry into these projects.

Eventually only about three per cent of Government revenue trickles down to development of any sort. Now if this paltry three per cent must go to the already privileged parts of the country, then the rest are condemned to eternal poverty.

So long as our present structures and institutions remain, we will keep on electing Presidents who direct the petty 3 per cent to their home provinces. It does not have to be Mwai Kibaki or Daniel arap Moi. Future Presidents will do the same. I have said it before and I say it again - the answer lies in a federal system of Government, simply put Majimbo.

How this will work is the subject of a future article. Suffice it to say for now that we are dealing with a grave matter.

Those glibly opposed to Majimbo either know nothing about federalism, or the present corrupt and unequal circumstances favour them - but for just a little while. For, inequality is counted among the deadliest powder kegs in the world.

When eventually it explodes, it messes up everybody - the czar and the serf alike, but mostly the czar.