What Uhuru Madaraka speech should focus on

Today is Madaraka Day, the day we celebrate our attainment of internal self-rule after decades as a British colony. In other words, that day in 1963 when we declared ourselves not only willing and able, but fit and proper, to competently run our own national affairs; basically our own government.

After 55 years, we should probably also make this a national day of internal self-reflection.

Because nothing much has really happened – in terms of achievements or results – since the 2017 election (yes, we’ve done almost a year of talking without action), one expects that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s address to the nation will be a call to our patriotism and nationalism.

We’ve already heard enough about the Big Four, though its finer details are still not in public domain.

On the other hand, Mr Kenyatta has said little about the "Building Bridges" initiative. Today’s address in Meru represents an opportunity to tell us where the "handshake" is going, if it’s going anywhere.

All we know about the nine-point agenda is that yet another report is expected from the 14-person team in the next six months. This is the trouble with elite consensus, it only serves the elite!

If we step away from "Big Four" and the "Handshake", what’s left of 2018 thus far? Corruption.

The National Youth Service (NYS) saga is simply the most prominent of several scandals dominating our daily news. Each of these scandals speaks to a battle against corruption and theft. Heads are rolling, arrests are flowing and the people are ogling. Now we wait to see the prison population growing.

In other words, it’s all happening and it makes for great press headlines.

But, is the war on corruption really happening, or are these individual battles? Are current efforts sufficient to challenge what is now well and truly an established national ecosystem of corruption?

Here’s my Madaraka self-reflection, including thoughts I have previously shared.

The initial locus for any national ethics, integrity and anti-corruption effort must be government itself. I suspect that the success of Asian leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew and (the returning) Mahathir Mohamed was always based on the idea: "fix government (and politics), and the country shall follow".

From this simple notion, four ideas, reflecting the purpose of government. First, reorient government thinking towards its primary role of improving the people’s quality of life. In other words, make government a true policy institution. What does that mean?

Think about a government that focuses on outcomes for people, not projects for tender. Then roads become a connectivity tool, not a tasty procurement. Schools are built not so that we have shiny buildings, but for improved access, enrolment and learning outcomes. Hospitals deliver a healthy nation, not high-tech equipment. In other words, it’s not what we are spending, but why we are buying.

Second, address our corruption-growth conundrum. We can’t grow if we’re insanely corrupt, but we won’t reduce corruption unless we grow and share the wealth. The "handshake" fact of the matter is that Kenya’s current economic model simply isn’t delivering for our growing population. To paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi, "we might have enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed".

Our economic planning needs to move from a "pro-business" orientation that favours the corporate status quo to a "pro-markets" one that supports new entrants (read, MSMEs) and consumers. In counties, our most important ministries must be trade, commerce and industry; and market-focused agriculture (agri-business). That’s the second mindset change.

Third, we must more aggressively re-engineer and digitalise government services. Move beyond Huduma Centres to digital citizen services that offer customer journeys full of service convenience at minimal transaction cost. Huduma Centres have already done much to reduce the deleterious bribery influence of the lower to middle civil service cadre. Now let’s move to "digital by default" government.

Finally, preach and practice fiscal responsibility. Government’s much-maligned, yet award-winning IFMIS has many faults, but it is not designed to address the upstream (thinking) elements of our public finance management (PFM) cycle (strategic planning, MTEF and budgeting (costing, not data entry)). It is a downstream (doing) system (budget compilation, procurement, accounting, reporting and the like).

A big part of our corruption and waste is inspired by poor planning and fiscal indiscipline. Let’s do the PFM reform first, then change the IFMIS passwords. Start with a proper Public Spending Review before rolling out Big Four. I am willing to bet the NYS shenanigans are simply the tip of our corruption iceberg.

Back to the beginning. Today, we celebrate internal self-rule. As the Romans might have said to our leaders, "cui servire est regnare." (to serve is to rule). That’s where Kenya’s future begins and ends.