Friday, April 04, 2008

so be it

Ok so the cabinet has been agreed on. 20 ODM 20 PNU. many people are calling this a shocker but this is where we differ. i have always said that we in Kenya often fail to get the point. the point is not really the size of the cabinet, their salary and so on. what matters to me is the delivery. to say the least i dont have a problem with the size. maybe the type, like when they talked of ministry of nairobi, i found that funny. but if we have 50 cabinet posts which we need i would not have a problem at all. just like if we had 100 ministers and they all delivered on what we required and made all of us prosperous why would it bother me.

Like someone said one time, people do not grow by lowering costs or controlling them. people grow by creating opportunities and wealth. its like i used to wonder back in college why it was so difficult to get to medical school yet health workers are what Kenyans need most. most lecturers argued that they did not want to dilute the profession. and they thought that that funny thought could hold water. so they chose instead to churn thousands of history and English literature graduates who were of no use to the country than getting more engineers, medical personnel , chemists, pharmacists and the like. its all so misguided. i heard the same argument upon my graduation. that they did not want too many M.Sc students in Science in order to control 'quality'

just as when people claimed that the president had too much powers and so the powers needed to be trimmed. i disagreed. the issue was not the president having too much power, it is actually that the people have too little power. instead of lowering the prezo lets grow the people. Let the people be able to decide on their lives, be able to criticize the prezo etc. empower people so that they dont sell their land without a plan on how they intend to live their lives thereafter. empower them to refuse to die in the name of someone else and so on.

But i have another reason to be happy with the decision. Even if bloated, it will calm nerves now, the market is rearing to go. safaricom IPO is already seeing an avalanche. the signs are good. the only thing we were waiting for was for the government to start functioning. roads to be built, hospitals and schools to be in place and staffed. security to be assured and so on.

another good news is that Zimbabwe have lived up to their claim to be more mature than Kenya. the judiciary did not fraudulently swear in mugabe. mugabe did not claim victory. simba makoni (his Kalonzo) did not take the VP position and its reported in some media that mugabe wants out but his hardliners are still playing hard ball wanting the poor old man to go for a re-run. are they genuinely convinced he will win or they just want to embarrass him as a repayment for his past wrongs?

it sure must be lonely at the top!

3 comments:

  1. Lets be honest...this bloated cabinet is a bad idea but we can put a positive spin on it

    The reason we have 40 is because we our president doesn't have balls and ODM have to tow the line "for the sake of peace"

    Having said that, in pure economic terms, this new money is a stimulus (deficit spending) to economy especially if it is spent in the rural areas

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  2. OD - I can guarantee that the 40 will not deliver. The most efficient firms/organizations are those that are lean & mean.

    Bloated organizations have too much siasa (politics) & self-interests to do the right thing!

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