The weather, the abundant rains that have been pounding Kenya for the last one month or so have stripped naked, the corruption, the incompetence, the impunity that are the hallmarks of the public service delivery in the Republic of Kenya and Western Province and North Rift in particular. 

The infrastructures in roads, bridges, buildings structures, dykes, water systems, power-lines name them that were unprofessionally erected, that were infiltrated with corruption,  incompetence and standards compromised have all come apart and are in tatters. 

It is only in Kenya where a Cabinet Minister for Roads can go public and state in broad daylight that the recent rains have damaged roads and his Ministry requires over Kshs. 10 billion to rehabilitate them.  West fm states that it is impunity of the highest order for the Minister to make such a plea without first undertaking an audit of those roads that have been damaged to ensure that the damage is not courtesy of poor workmanship, corruption and incompetence.  The rains may very well be a scapegoat for more public resources to be plundered. 

West fm states that roads are by their very nature build to withstand the ravages of nature like the current rains.  Yes, roads are not like covered stadium, racing tracks that are sheltered from the elements of nature and hence if exposed they ought to crumble into shambles. 

The rains that are showering Kenya are like dew compared to the storms, tornadoes and quakes that ravage countries like Japan, Indonesia, United States of America and others.  Those countries infrastructures do not collapse the way Kenya’s infrastructure are doing now with modest rains.  It will be a lie for us as a country to blame the rains as the cause of the dilapidated infrastructure in our roads, our power systems, our bridges, our dykes etc.  God is not to blame.  It is corruption, its impunity, its incompetence, its greed, that are the cause of the infrastructural collapses, the power blackouts.  It cannot be that when it rains we are a country caught with our pants down and when there is a dry spell we are dying from hunger and begging the International Community for help and experiencing unending power rationing. 

West fm states that unless and until we as a country, as a region are prepared to embrace international best practices in how we construct our infrastructure – our roads, our bridges, our dykes, our institutions, our power lines devoid of corruption, impunity, shortcuts, incompetence we are doomed to run around like headless chicken every time the weather swings to one or the other extreme of more rain or too little rain. 

All the budgetary allocations to infrastructure that were poorly utilized are now falling apart and subjecting the people of Western Province and North Riftto untold suffering and inconveniences in impassable roads, interminable power blackouts from Kenya Power & Lighting Company, floods from bursting dykes, rivers that cannot be crossed due to destroyed bridges and no access to clean water amidst floods just to name a few. 

The people of Western Province and North Rift must use the test, the challenges that the rains have unleashed on them to measure the quality of leadership they have had for the past four and half years.  The dubious and corruption laden CDF projects can now be evaluated as they fall apart.  The corruptly utilized Local Authority Transfer Funds (LATF) and other local revenues poorly utilized by local authorities are bearing witness to the collapse of shoddy infrastructure projects that were hurriedly erected. 

Time to choose a new crop of leaders is nigh and the people of Western Province and North Rift as they prepare to elect a new President, new Members of Parliament, Senators, Governors, County Representatives must ask themselves the question whether they have to make the same mistakes they and their forbearers have done since independence of recycling and electing corrupt, mediocre, incompetent leaders that have put the country in a permanent state of being at the mercy of Natures cycles of too much rain or drought. 

The new Constitution gives therein under Chapter Six an opportunity to the electorate to elect leaders of integrity, vision and character to lead this country to that destiny where its independence peers like Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil are today.  The long rains have laid bare the incompetence, the corruption, the impunity that have defined the Grand Coalition Government at the National Level and in the Local Authorities.  The elected leadership of Western Province and North Rift have no answer to the collapsed infrastructures of the region in roads, power systems, bridges, dykes and others that torment the people with the rains that have and are pounding the region.  The full blame for the dysfunctional and collapsed infrastructure since the onset of the rains lies on mediocre leadership in the institutions of governance being the Presidency and the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.  It is not an act of God. 

WEST FM EDITORIAL©2012