Sunday 30 March 2014

Give me the books; I will give them to the kids. We will turn them into world class citizens

Hi, my name is Kenneth Okwaroh Ochieng. I am Kenyan, born and raised in a small village on the shores of Lake Victoria in East Africa. It took me 27 years to discover that I love politics, policy, government and economics. I fumbled and muddled through primary, secondary and even undergraduate schooling thinking I wanted to be a medical doctor, then nurse, the urban planner, then journalist, even actor! Mine was 3 decades of muddling through with little information and exposure to detect my true potential and determine what I wanted, what I could be good at, and what I could realistically be.

Today, I look at kids in the village, around the sugarcane farms where I was raised, still going through the same. I wouldn’t want this to continue. It would be a tragedy if I let this continue. I have made a personal choice to spare time, resources and will to provide these kids with information. Information to allow them learn the vastness of the world and to discover the vastness of their unique capabilities and to be able to elect what they want to be, earlier on in life. 

My first step is setting up a small library for kids in that rural village in Kisumu County where I grew up to learn the world and discover their potential. This will grow to other areas in Kenya.

Please share with me books you have read; books your children have read; books you can spare. Any titles from math, to literature, art, politics to science. Wherever you are, whatever you have, just let me know. I have been saving and continue to fundraise so can put in some resources for shipment.

"We are raising a dangerous generation of superficial citizens that must not be allowed to thrive" Someone said that today, if you want to hide something from the typical African youth, put it inside a book.

You can catch me @Okwaroh on twitter; +Kenneth Okwaroh on google plus; Okwaroh Ja’ paprombe on face book; on my blog Okwarohztake http://okwarohztake.blogspot.com/ or drop me mail at okwaroh@gmail.com


Thank you, and may you find blessing and satisfaction in supporting and inspiring a truly worthy course.

Thursday 20 March 2014



How Uhuru Kenyatta has missed the point on the wage bill debate. Focussing on salary instead of the chronic wastage, pilferage and missapplication of resources in the public sector in Kenya

I am so sick in the stomach after reading this article. I dont know whether to weep or be annoyed for this country. These are just excerpts of an article by Paul Mwangi - former civil servant in the Government of Kenya giving a graphic account of the obscene wastage of public resources presided over by the national government. The article is crossposted after these quotes.
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"Standard lunch order in most of the meetings I attended was Chinese"
"I was also entitled to an official car, armed driver, armed bodyguard and two Police guards at the house"

"And though I took only about three to five cups of tea in the office, I learnt that my secretary was entitled to pick Sh20,000 to Sh40,000 to make my tea every month"

"At the end of the month, I received my airtime allowance in the form of cards from various service providers. The total amount was Sh27,000. If there is one thing my relatives, friends and subordinates miss from my service in government it is free airtime. Because try as I did, I couldn’t spend more than Sh7,000 of the allocation. And I got new cards every month."

"I don’t know but I have heard that the President’s confidential account often runs into billions of shillings and in the last regime was the cause of the short and tumultuous tenures of many a Comptroller of State House under whose office the account is operated"

"And when the work is done, the committee members would be paid an allowance for serving in that committee. This goes anywhere from Sh10,000 to Sh50,000 per person. If it is a gazetted task force, the sum would be a few hundred thousand shillings. Never mind that these allowances are being paid for work that everyone was employed to do in the first place, and will be paid for with a salary at the end of the month."
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"Every day is party time in government offices - By PAUL MWANGI
For slightly over 12 months since January 2012, I served as the Legal Advisor to the Prime Minister. It was a position that placed me at the highest levels of the Civil Service, with a pay grade of Job Group “U”, otherwise known as “PS level”.

What I learnt and observed about government in that short period of time makes me conclude that the President’s attempt at bringing down the wage bill by taking a 20 per cent pay cut, and enforcing the same across the board, is incredibly naive. (READ: Backlash meets Uhuru’s move to take salary cut)

The problem with the exorbitant public wage bill is not the salaries. In fact, I think it is a good thing that the government is now able to attract competent staff and Kenyans will benefit from good public service, less corruption and thus a more productive private sector.
The problem with Kenya’s wage bill is wastage and abuse. All the way from State House to the tea room at the ministries, tax payers’ money is lost through wasteful use of resources and abuse of authority.
The first encounter I had with waste was when a requisition was made for furniture to my office. As a senior government officer, I was entitled to my own colour printer, computer, laptop, ipad, television, document shredder and water dispenser.
I have never seen such wasteful use of resources in the private sector in Kenya. In the commercial sector, printers are shared by many offices, as are water dispensers, shredders and televisions. And laptops are only issued to persons engaged in field work.
AIR TIME
At the end of the month, I received my airtime allowance in the form of cards from various service providers. The total amount was Sh27,000.
If there is one thing my relatives, friends and subordinates miss from my service in government it is free airtime. Because try as I did, I couldn’t spend more than Sh7,000 of the allocation. And I got new cards every month.
And though I took only about three to five cups of tea in the office, I learnt that my secretary was entitled to pick Sh20,000 to Sh40,000 to make my tea every month.
I was entitled to tea, coffee or hot chocolate as I desired and to a choice of sugar or honey for my sweetener.
There were no less than ten senior offices to whom this allocation was made and many of us never got to know how much was picked or spent on our office accounts.
The fault, I came to learn, was not with the senior officers. The rules of service set these entitlements and they accrue as a matter of course.
This account is just a tip of the iceberg.
I was also entitled to an official car, armed driver, armed bodyguard and two Police guards at the house.
Personally I did not think anyone was looking out to harm me so I only took an official car and an armed driver which I used during working hours. But I have observed that since the NARC government of 2003, the use of police security has become increasingly abused.
It is surprising that in the Moi government, with all its excesses, one never witnessed the almost comical spectacle we are being treated to everyday on our street where every minister, senator and governor is running around with several chase cars blaring sirens and a security detail at the expense of the taxpayer.
Without doubt our Cabinet Secretary in charge of internal security and his Permanent Secretary need to be accorded some serious security but who wants to harm the cabinet secretaries in charge of such mundane responsibilities like fisheries, sports or economic planning?
Sometimes in the process of work, it requires ad hoc committees to be formed by members of the same department or ministry, or sometimes members from various ministries, to see through a process or discuss an issue.
When this happens, tea must be served at 10a.m. and at 4p.m. together with snacks. The snacks will be a samosa, a sausage and a ndazi per person. And lunch too. Standard lunch order in most of the meetings I attended was Chinese.
I think it is sad that for the level of service the civil service gives Kenyans, it would be having Chinese lunches at the tax payers’ expense.
ALLOWANCES
And when the work is done, the committee members would be paid an allowance for serving in that committee. This goes anywhere from Sh10,000 to Sh50,000 per person. If it is a gazetted task force, the sum would be a few hundred thousand shillings. Never mind that these allowances are being paid for work that everyone was employed to do in the first place, and will be paid for with a salary at the end of the month.
But to make this bad situation worse, there are kingpins in the accounts offices of almost every government department that control all payments with absolute discretion to pay or deny.
These big wigs’ names must be put in every payment list for money to be approved. So for every committee or task force requisitions, these kingpins earn sitting allowances as a matter of course.
Their names must also appear in every list of per diem payments for people travelling out of station.
I heard of accountants who make at least Sh500,000 in a dry month through these illegal payments.
But it is not just the lower cadre bigwigs who exercise these abuses. I learnt that all senior government Ministers have confidential accounts that run into millions of shillings from which they are authorised to spend money without the scrutiny of the Auditor General, or the Controller of Budget, or Parliament.
These monies are allocated directly from the Treasury and are replenished as they are spent at the direction of the Minister of Finance.
The worst abuser of this confidential spending was the Office of the Head of the Civil Service and the Presidency at State House.
I don’t know but I have heard that the President’s confidential account often runs into billions of shillings and in the last regime was the cause of the short and tumultuous tenures of many a Comptroller of State House under whose office the account is operated.
In this day and age, it is unbelievable that any office in the public service can spend millions of shillings at its discretion without any budgetary approvals and with immunity from any form of scrutiny, even from Parliament.
This picture of abandon, waste and abuse would not be complete without mentioning two other practices.
One is foreign travel. We have too many Cabinet secretaries, permanent secretaries and other senior government officers are flying out to attend meetings that are not critically necessary to the tax payer or that can be attended by diplomatic mission representatives.
In many instances, the President, Deputy President and Cabinet Secretaries are accompanied by staff and other people )whose presence and services are totally irrelevant to the taxpayer who pays for their travel.
There is no guideline in government regarding what is essential travel or who are essential personnel. In many instances, the work being done during these travels can be completed by foreign missions and the knowledge being sought can be learnt from the internet.
RETREATS
A similar wasteful practice is the going for retreats to do work that can be easily done at the office. In these retreats, all manner of staff members jump into the bus for the free tours. They collect allowances for these attendances while others, who never left the office, are also on the allowances list. But let’s not go there.
The second practice that I must mention in closing is training at the East and Southern Africa Management Institute at Arusha, Tanzania. Popularly known as ESAMI, this institute is a regional training centre owned by ten member governments to train senior government officers in critical areas of management.
However, this Institute has become the place where some Permanent Secretaries sent their sycophants at the ministry and their girlfriends to while away their time and earn allowances. Many senior officers who qualify and deserve to go don’t get a chance.
Some people are known to have attended many times over while others wait for a single chance. And when they attend, they are not only paid full salary but are paid allowances that run into hundreds of thousands of shillings for being out of station.
These are just some of the wasteful practices that are a culture in Kenya’s civil service which the President should be addressing. I want to believe that he is not being briefed on the full picture but I remember that he has served for more than a decade as a Cabinet Minister and five years as a deputy Prime Minister."


Tuesday 11 March 2014


Is this value for money?

Interrogating the outcomes and motives behind prioritisation and resource allocation in Kenya

On the East African (Edition March8 – 14, 2014) Page 33 a new report by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Researchand Analysis (KIPPRA) indicates that the average kid born in Migori, Siaya, Kisumu and Homa Bay counties in Kenya today will not live beyond 40 years.

According to KIPPRA, the counties have the lowest life expectancy, Homa Bay 39.8; Kisumu 40.4; Siaya 40.4 and Migori 46.4, compared to Bomet with the highest expectancy in the country – 66.1 years. Kenya’s average life expectancy is at 56.6. The report attributes the low levels of live expectancy in these bottom five counties to HIV/AIDS that has been highly prevalent in the Nyanza region for over a decade now.


What defeats me is how to reconcile this new statistic with the colossal amounts of domestic and external resources that have been invested in programming, interventions, research, community/organisational development and capacity building to combat the HIV/AIDS scourge in the Nyanza region in Kenya since the late 1990s.

Notably there wasn’t a significant change in the prevalence of HIV in Nyanza and in these counties despite over a decade of policy and resource commitment (both amongst development partners and the government of Kenya). The Kenya Demographic HealthSurvey (2003), the Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey (2007) and the Kenya AIDS IndicatorSurvey (2012) showed an overall lack of progress in Nyanza. Almost no change in the average prevalence rate in the region: HIV prevalence was at 15.1% in 2003, 14.9% in 2007 and 15.1% in 2012.  Of course this appreciates that the averages could mask progress amongst some counties or localities in the region.


Between 2003 and 2011, Kenya received well over US$ 1.9 billion cumulatively for HIV and AIDS programmes. If we chose to spend this money on primary education; this would pay school fees for 1,655,729 children from grade one up to grade eight at Ksh 1,200 per child (the current capitation fund sent to schools). Alternatively, if we chose to use it to employ extra teachers; this would hire and maintain 7,198 new teachers for 8 years at Ksh 23,000 per month (average salary of a P1 teacher). And if we chose to spend the equivalent of these resources on the coveted laptops project, this would procure 10 batches of the laptop project US$200 million (the value quoted by Olive). Better still the same amount of money could complete the infamous Standard Gauge Railway line from Mombasa to Nakuru (644.9 km) at US$2.9 million/Km.


Now if you know the Kenya health and aid landscape well, you will also know that the largest proportion of HIV money (the US$ 1.9 billion) has gone to these four counties, formerly Nyanza province where HIV prevalence was reportedly highest, HIV related deaths most pronounced and the socioeconomic impact greatest.

If you also know the NGO landscape in Kenya as well, you will know that in these counties (Migori, Kisumu, Homa Bay, and Sisya) cradle the largest proportion of registered civil society organisations (CSOs) reportedly working to deal with HIV/AIDS in one way or another. I know someone who argues that HIV/AIDS has been a standalone industry supporting the economy in Kisumu. I did a quick search on the Kenya NGOs Coordination Board dataset for Civil Society organisations in the country looking for any CSO located in the four counties and with the words ‘HIV’ and ‘AIDS’ or both in their name and or objectives. See the results are below. These 5 counties out of the 47 in Kenya are home to 20.2% (1428) cumulatively of all CSOs in the country (7082) operating in all other sectors.  


What then have the many CSOs established in the Nyanza region and the huge amount of aid money (largest proportion of total funding to HIV) invested in HIV/AIDS programmes in these counties yielded?

I am not even remotely trying to argue against investments in HIV/AIDS programmes and interventions. I am sure there other counterfactuals and intervening factors that could partly explain these outcomes. I am sure there is progress in particular output indicators. 

My point is that in a lot of development work in Kenya, and in many other African countries, inept prioritisation and inefficient Monitoring and Evaluation mechanisms are preventing a focus on results and achievement of value for money. Invariably, loads of resources are expended on expensive, sometimes very ambitious projects without an assessment of the value of the returns of such investments.  

How could we have funded HIV/AIDS so heavily in Nyanza province with so little returns over such a long time? How could Kenya have spent all that resources on HIV over a decade yet receive very minimalist returns? How could the declining rates of life expectancy in these counties in Nyanza be still attributed to HIV and AIDS (a decade later) when money has been spent on drugs for prolonging life, preventing new infections?

And you could ask this question to many other programmes:
The Free Primary education – beyond increments in enrolment and primary school completion rates, what else would you use to justify Kenya’s massive expenditure on basic education? In fact the quality of basic education has declined considerably. 

The Thika super highway that cost the country US$ 360 million (US$ 7.2 million per Km) - what spectacular contribution has that road connecting Nairobi to Thika (a town of little impact on the economy compared to others) made to the economy thus far, that could justify the investment? Or what could be spectacular prospects of the road beyond ‘national pride’ as President Kibaki termed it?

In the FY 2013/14, the Government of Kenya allocated 3.6 billion shillings to the Galana irrigation project. You ask yourself what the merits and motivations of such a decision were. Clearly, this is an investment best executed through public private partnerships (PPPs). Go to Siaya county, there is a private investment called Dominion farms that successfully reclaimed portions of the idle Yala swamp. Today employing loads of people, generating tax revenues for government and producing food for the country.

Clearly, we are either not paying attention to the outcomes of our investments OR our expenditures are motivated by alien interests.

Beyond the ill motivations, misallocation and misapplication, and inefficient execution of projects - a lot of development work is overly focused on outputs with little attention to the ultimate, the often non-tangible outcomes. Development partners, implementing NGOs and government are obsessed with reporting the number of bicycles bought, number of community health workers hired, number of condoms dispensed, number of people tested for HIV or the kilometre of road/railway built while the ultimate is not interrogated. How these end up improving the lives of Kenyans, increasing money in people’s pockets, making their neighbourhoods/businesses safer or putting food on dinner tables is LEAST interrogated or talked about.    

Are we measuring progress? Are we measuring the real outcomes? Or are we in the business of burning resources made available by hard pressed taxpaying citizens ill informed to demand accountability and by Development Partners least concerned about whatever we do with the money?

The public debt burden in Kenya is exponentially expanding – Ksh 320 billion (2012), Ksh 331 billion (2013) and treasury proposing Ksh 414 billion in 2014. The explanation by government is that: we borrowed to fund HIV, we borrowed to finance Thika super highway, we borrowed to pay for free primary education blah blah. The Division of revenueBill 2014 proposes Ksh 414 billion (38.5% of total government revenues and double allocation to counties – Ksh 228 billion) be allocated for debt servicing, denying the country of much needed resources for development. If we are going to end up decades after borrowing with mediocre results – then this is the time to rethink such decisions.

  • We must begin to interrogate our priorities, our plans, and the motives behind resource allocation to these priorities. 

  • We must now actively monitor and evaluate the execution of projects, especially the megaprojects financed by large sums of money, loans that Kenyans are least aware they will keep paying and bequeath their children. 

  • We must effectively measure progress, but most importantly invest in simulating the cost and benefits of foreseen outcomes; and when projects are done, evaluate the merits of such outcomes accordingly.