REACTION TO THE PRESIDENT’S NATION ADDRESS

JOINT STATEMENT BY CRECO AND MEMBERS OF THE TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP ON STATUS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL VALUES & PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNANCE IN KENYA

Which Direction? The state of a Nation struggling with National Values and Principles of Governance

STATEMENT ON STATUS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL VALUES &

The Constitution of Kenya 2010, section 132 obligates the President of Kenya to give a State of the Nation address on the progress the government is making in achieving the national values and principles of governance as outlined in section 10. The president is also obligated to show progress on how the country is fulfilling its international obligations as stipulated in the constitution section 2(5). On economic and social rights, Articles 41 addresses issues of labor relations and 43 speaks to rights to health, housing, food, water, social security and education as rights that Kenyan’s are entitled to enjoy and justifiable within the legal framework.

The main anchors of the national values and principles of governance are the Constitution of Kenya 2010, the various acts of Parliament including Public Service Commission Act 2012, Fair and Administrative Action Act No. 4 of 2015, Leadership and Integrity Act of 2012, Public Officers Ethics Act 2002, and other policy documents such as the Mwongozo Code of Conduct for Public Service in Kenya.

This brief first offers an analysis of the President’s State of the Nation address and then highlights of our Shadow report on the status of implementation of National Values & Principles of Governance. We also make recommendations on noted gaps. We hope our analysis will enable the Presidency to report better and improve the monitoring of our state officers delivery of services to the people of Kenya.

Part I

STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS

In 2013 President Uhuru and his Deputy William Ruto offered Kenyans a campaign platform titled “Harmonized Coalition Manifesto – Transforming Kenya: Securing Kenya’s Prosperity 2013-2017”. In the document, summarized in an article online, the coalition of Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Charity Ngilu and Najib Balala promised to:

·         Put food and clean water on every Kenyan table,

·         Ensure that every child in Kenya gets quality education,

·         Create wealth,

·         Ensure that every Kenyan gets quality and affordable healthcare,

·         Empower Kenyan women to take their rightful place in developing this country,

·         Keep Kenya safe and secure both internally and externally,

·         Develop a cogent foreign relations and trade policy for Kenya

The 2017 State of the Nation address by President Uhuru was for all intents and purposes a campaign speech and not an honest accountability piece. It was short on details and glossed over matters critical to the bulk of the population. We noted the following gaps:

On food; the President did not elaborate much how his government/ administration has been able to address the issue of food shortage, we all know that just recently, the UN declared Kenya as one of the countries hit hard by drought and thus shortage of food. We expected the President to give an account/ report on the Galana Gulalu Project that the government invested heavily, he also said nothing on the drought and hunger staking the nation on building long term resilience in affected communities

On Corruption; we all know what has been happening in Kenya and the government seems to be losing on the fight against corruption. During the State of The Nation Address in 2016, the President surprised Parliament with a list of shame for those who had been perceived to be corrupt, we expected the President to report on the progress. We applause the President on presenting the SRC’s proposal on reducing salaries, however  that is not a long lasting solution to the huge public wage bill which is Sh627B but the Government steals from the public in the form of corruption.

On Security, Kenyans continue to lose lives as others seek refuge, a recent situation being in Baringo where people continue to die even as the government has deployed a contingent of police officers. We demand that the Chairman of the National Cohesion and Integrated Commission, leave office since he has failed in his duties. The NCIC remains unable to reign in hate mongers. The President offered nothing to convince the public why our gallant officers need to remain in Somalia. Our officers were e killed in line of duty up to today the number of our officers who died in Eladde and Kulbiyow are still unknown. Someone should be held to account.

On Debt; the President did not explain the reasons for the ever increasing debt burden. China owns more than half of all Kenyan debt. Kenyans should be told what interest the Jubilee Government has with China.

In addition, there was no mention of continuous extrajudicial killings by his officers, the President spoke of weeping mothers of drug victims at the coast and ignored mothers of victims of extrajudicial police executions across the country.

On Healthcare; Over the last four years, what is unmistakable and has repeatedly played out  are images of Kenyans, all of them rich and well-connected, being ambulanced to South Africa, India and United Kingdom, in search of better medical treatment. What the President promised was quality affordable healthcare for every Kenyan.

Part II

The Status of State, State-agencies and public officers' compliance with National Values and Principles of Governance in management of public affairs

CRECO, and the Technical Working Group, carried out a national survey on National Values and Principles of Governance. The exercise comprised a baseline to unveil the level of state and state-agencies' compliance with national values and principles of governance as captured in Article 10 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010. The team further developed a framework of monitoring to keep track the progress being made in achieving compliance with national values and principles of governance. Key state agencies were targeted for monitoring and feedback.

CRECO and the TWG have thus compiled this first ever shadow report to document and share the status of compliance with NVPG and progress towards establishing a value-laden, objective and principled service delivery and accountable governance in Kenya.

Our findings are that we are not making much progress on achieving National Values and Principles of Governance. Looking at the 19 National Values and Principles of Governance only one shows clear evidence of being on track – Participation of the People. For the rest there is either No progress (10/19) or we are off track (8/19).

Evidence of progress 

1.      Rampant Corruption allegations involving senior public officers. A number of Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and other officials are reported to be under investigation for being involved in grand corruption cases. A number including former Cabinet Secretaries in charge of Labour, Lands, Energy and Petroleum, have been charged in courts of law

2.      There exists some direct link of service delivery as an outcome of good governance as witnessed in the Huduma Centres which are making services closer to the people. All county headquarters have fibre optics and that’s no small feat.

3.      There is evidence of some key Government agencies' willingness to engage advocacy CSOs at National and County level. e.g., Chapter 15 commissions CAJ, NPSC, TSC, Directorate National Cohesion and Values, NCIC, NACCSC among others.

4.      National Assembly and Senate have been opening up and inviting public participation e.g. at National Level on electoral reform, to get information on any legislation that saw public participation at County level.

5.      The long term cases of cheating in national examinations seem to have be on the path of progressively being addressed

6.      Recruitment and deployment of public servants across the country, also to include, police, armed forces, teachers, recruited and deployed country-wide

7.      The Judiciary has provided several favourable rulings upholding National Values and Principles of Governance e.g. on 2/3^rd Gender rule and appointment of Cabinet Secretaries, on PBO Act commencement etc

Evidence of retrogression and complete abuse includes

1.      The JSC is the only one of 15 commissions surveyed by the NCIC that has hired more than a third of its workforce from the same ethnic community. The survey by NCIC found that 39.1 per cent, against the required 33.3 per cent, of the Judicial Service Commission's workforce is from the Kikuyu community. This is contrary to provisions of section 7(2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act.

2.      Undermining independence of the Judiciary for example threats against Judges by Parliament. 

3.      Unethical conduct of some senior public officers. Senior Government officials have been implicated in public land grabbing across the country, corruption and discrimination

4.      Over $800,000 that was meant to be used for athletes' travel, accommodation and other expenses in Rio Olympics, Brazil was stolen and the Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Hassan Wario and the National Olympic Committee is yet to be held to account.

5.      Political leaders led by Governors Jackson Mandago of Uasin Gishu County and Alex Tolgos of Elgeyo Marakwet County, attempted to evict then newly appointed Acting Vice Chancellor of Moi University, Prof Laban Ayiro because he was “not from the region”.

6.       In an open forum convened in State House exclusively to reflect on ways of dealing with corruption in Kenya, the President declared helplessness in taming corruption, in the same manner that he had hitherto publicly acknowledged corruption to be eating up the presidium

7.      The Failure to commence the Public Benefits Organisations' Act (PBO Act) despite a court ruling favouring its commencement and directing the Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning Mwangi Kiunjuri to do so.  This government instead changed the hosting of NGO Board of the Ministry of Interior.  The same NGO board that continues to harass the sector disregard rule of law and operates in illegality. This is clear impunity and injustice.

8.      Land grabbing case of Lang'ata in 2015 not resolved and the Naka Primary School land grab in Nakuru reared its ugly head in 2016

9.      National Assembly and Senate unable to uphold the rule of law, manipulation based on tyranny of numbers, decisions are executive-based.

10.  Intercommunity/ethnic and border conflicts e.g. the war in Kerio Valley involving  aggressors  from Baringo East in which the Chairperson of Departmental Committee on Administration and National Security Asman Kamama comes from but does nothing to address and National Government also dragged its feet after lives were lost and many people were displaced. Other conflicts areas are Muhoroni, Chemase and Laikipia

11.  Recently the government is reported to have spent Ksh. 43 billion to fund campaigns and garner support for Amb. Amina Mohamed as the head of the AU. This was done while on the other hand, Doctors in the country had been on strike for the last 1.5 months because the government could not be able to raise Ksh. 1 Billion to cater for their demands as stated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) of 2016.

12.  Misuse of public funds. The country has been hit by allegations on misuse of billions of shillings in many government flagship projects including; the Eurobond borrowing transactions, the National Youth Service (NYS), the Youth Development Fund. Reports of misuse of funds allocated to county officers are also very rife as contained in the Auditor General’s Report for the financial year 2014-15, among others.

13.  The issue of citizenship e.g. Makonde walk from coast to Nairobi to be recognized as Kenyans, whereas those IDPs who walked from Uganda were chased away

14.  Afya House scandal where Kenyans lost close to Ksh 5 billion in dubious tenderpreneurship ventures and inability to trace the funds.

15.  The health sector faced collapse due to the 100 day doctors’ strike precipitated by government’s unwillingness to negotiate.

16.  Overlap of functions and emergence of a provincial administration baptized as coordination of national government functions, despite the courts declaring years ago that county commissioners were in office illegally Continuous balkanization of the country by political blocks

17.  Recycling public officers hounded out of office by allegation of corruption and other vices returning to vie for various political seats.

18.  Escalation of Extrajudicial killings and disappearances e.g. the Mavoko 3 (lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and Taxi driver Joseph Muiruri)

19.  The Parastatals rationalization report has never been presented to Parliament and the public. Instead, the Executive has largely rewarded their cronies with Parastatal leadership roles.

Conclusion

While the president has conformed to the constitution under section 132 in giving the state of the nation address, in future he needs to ensure that;

• The state of the nation address should give a cumulative scorecard on all the sectors of the economy. This calls for consolidation of each sector scorecard.
• The scorecard should give qualitative and quantitative data and projections for ease of monitoring progressive realization and holding the responsible state officers accountable
• The government should address the emerging issues that affect Wananchi, people are dying of hunger and thirst, schools are failing, corruption is rampant and the teachers are underpaid and disrespected. Patients who don’t have any money are left to fend for themselves and doctors are threatened with termination when they agitate for better wages and working conditions, Kenya is a nation shunned by her neighbours who see her leaders as selfish unprincipled demagogues who act with impunity, not in the interest of their subjects, but to protect themselves from being held accountable.

Statement prepared by Constitution Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) and Technical Working Group (TWG) on National Values.

1. Ecumenical Centre for Justice and Peace (ECJP)
2. United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK)
3. Transparency International (TI)
4. Institute for Education in Democracy (IED)
5. Katiba Institute
6. Mzalendo Trust
7. Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA)
8. National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK)
9. Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC)
10. Amka Space for Women (AMKA)
11. Community Based Development Services (COBADES)
12. Youth Agenda (YAA)
13. The Institute of Social Accountability (TISA)
14. Uraia Trust
15. Civil Society Reference Group (CSRG)
16. Society for International Development (SID)

For further information contact

Regina Opondo

CONSTITUTION & REFORM EDUCATION CONSORTIUM

Tel: 0722209779