VOTING FOR ROADS

If you didn’t know, I am here to tell you that general election is here again! Politicians from all walks of life are on their way to a village or funeral near you with bags full of empty promises. Funerals provide a captive audience that many politicians love to speak and be seen at. At these events you will be promised the following: free education, good roads, improved health care, jobs, economic development and general aid, whether you want them or not. Never mind that the promises made during the previous election campaigns were never delivered, this time it is different. Those politicians were incompetent, corrupt and stubbornly partisan.

This election is going to be different: ODM, PNU and ODM- Kenya will not repeat the mistakes of the current government because you are voting for one of your own. As voters you will need to step back and determine for yourself if voting one of your own into office is really a panacea. What makes one of your representatives different from the ones that have held this office before? Political leaders in this country are free to make false promises because voters rarely have the opportunity to ask substantive questions at political rallies. The voters who dare ask such questions in public often risk great bodily harm from people that have vested interests in the elections. I know it is very difficult to do, but next time you meet these politicians in your village or at funeral gatherings you need to ask them the following question: who in the government will be responsible for following through on these promises and where will they get money to do so?

For those politicians looking for issues to run on, I have one for you: National Road Building Network (NRBN). I know where you can get the money and the manpower to build the best road network in Kenya:

Let us use the CDF funds for NRBN. The CDF money is already “in the pipeline”. All that is needed is to redirect the funds ear-marked for CDF to the NRBN. College students can be hired almost immediately to work on the construction. Under a national road-building program, qualified general road contractors from the private sector would be awarded the bid in each province. These contractors would be required to hire college students who are currently getting government loans for higher education to work the road-building program, which in turn will allow the students to pay for those loans during their three-month holidays. Self-sponsored students can also work on the road program to accumulate financial credit that can be applied towards education fees in public colleges. The funds for NRBN must be nationally allocated based on the actual needs of all provinces in the country regardless which group or party is in the office. Under the NRBN, the responsibility of all roads in Kenya will be borne by the central government. Without quality roads, there will be no trade between different parts of the country. So this election when politicians hire their “coppers” to come and make political promises, pass this article to them and ask them to address the road issue. Even if the roads in your area are in relatively good condition, how about the road in the neighboring district or region?

For those politicians running for national offices or parliamentary seats, please, do not waste your time on personal and tribal politics. The issues of whether to circumcise or not should be left to individuals and their family doctors. We don’t elect our leaders to baby-sit the country, which is why a person’s physical anatomy should be left out of our political process.

Dan M. Orao
CEO
Great Lakes Card Service
& Financial Management
 USA