Audio By Vocalize
According to the latest Afrobarometer survey data, nearly 60 per cent of Kenyans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. And you cannot blame them. The government has failed to protect our children, from ongoing crises in boarding schools to disappearance of thousands of children over the last year.
General insecurity is on the rise, including use of gangs in our politics. Corruption and poor service delivery are as common as ever. Meanwhile, the economy continues to squeeze households ever tighter. Amid all this, public officials seem to be living in a different world. Taxes are rising. Wasteful spending, including lavish foreign trips and gatherings of delegations, is on the rise.
Arrogance is the order of the day – exemplified by how the government is handling the hosting an Ebola quarantine and treatment facility in Laikipia. Why does the government seem to be failing on multiple fronts?
The answer may lie in the fact that we have a government that is at its best when throwing a party or staging a public relations (PR) stunt. You see this in how senior officials spend all their time peddling campaign messages rather than doing their work. The dominance of the PR imperative in government has overridden concerns over actual service delivery.
