It’s about time Kenyans took their fair share of responsibility for the problems bedeviling the country. If the past few General Elections in this country have shown us anything; it is that we have a very ignorant population that is less factual and more emotional.
Majority Kenyans are either servile or too lazy to fact-check their leaders when making public utterances that only makes it easier for politicians to manipulate them.
It’s not clear how the voters decided that development was the most useful parameter in deciding MP’s performance. What is clearly though, is that this thinking has its roots in the advent of multiparty system when MPs in government came up with several shiny and tiny development projects to woo the voters in a bid to survive the opposition wave.
Several years’ later, voters still think of MPs only in terms of these small time developments and contributions to building things in the name of Harambees. It’s the reason MPs spend a great deal of their time in attending fundraising activities and promising to build this and that – even when that which they’re promising to build is not within their Job description.
Fewer Kenyans think about the Bills their MPs are sponsoring in Parliament or their level of debate in laws that come before Parliament. Which by-the-way is the main function of Legislators.
The problem with this skewed version of appraising MPs is that, besides making elections an extremely expensive affair; the likelihood of their MPs becoming corrupt as a result is also very high. Needless to mention the public end up paying little attention to the laws being drafted hence unable to be fully involved or fully take advantage when the Bills become law.
Take the Access to Information Act that became law in 2016 for instance.
Many Kenyans are still hounding their MPs and MCAs to know when the road they were promised will be done when they can easily take advantage of this Act and get that information from the relevant office with no charge. The only time one is likely to be charged is when they are making copies of whatever information you requested. But this should be very reasonable.
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