The Coming Devolved Government: How well do we understand it?

When we go to elections on March 4, 2013 we will be saying goodbye to our current system of centralized government. We will usher in a decentralized government through creation of county governments. These 47 units will have powers and functions to deliver certain public services. They will effectively take up roles that were initially carried out by the provincial administration and local authorities, though not all as some will be taken up by the national government. The coming changes are immense and need wisdom in instituting them.

Kenya's devolved system bestows power in the executive and legislative bodies in the county governments. At the top of county government system there will be three important organs.

1. County Executive Committee (CEC): Each county executive will be headed by a popularly elected governor and deputy governor. The governor shall form a 'cabinet' known as the county executive committee of at most 10 persons who are not elected in any office of the public. Thus the CEC shall be comprised of 13 persons including the County Secretary
2. County Public Service: Below the CEC will be the County Public Service headed by the County Secretary working working with the County Public Service Board. All public officers appointed in the county will be recruited by this board competitively.
3. The County Assembly (CA): This will be comprised of persons elected from each ward in the county as well as those nominated from party lists based on proportion of votes won. The county assembly is the legislative body of the county. It will be headed by the Speaker working with the County Assembly Service Board. The CA is responsible of making county laws, policies, approving budgets and providing oversight in service delivery within the county. County Assembly representatives are not allowed to be involved directly or indirectly in service delivery. This is in accordance to the principle of separation of powers.

 Within each county there shall be various service and governance units all of which shall be under appointed officers or boards. This are:-

1. Cities and Urban Areas which shall be categorized as either City, Municipality or town. Each of this unit shall be under a board. Such board shall have members appointed from various professions and interest groups and they shall work on part time basis. The secretary of the board shall be the city, municipality or town manager. This shall be a professional officer charged with the day to day service delivery within the specific city or urban area.
2. Other areas that shall fall under sub-county which shall be equivalent to Constituencies. Each sub-county will be divided into wards and each ward into villages. Each of this units shall be headed by an appointed administrator.

All appointments within the county shall be vetted and approved by the County Assembly.

From the foregoing one observes that we have to be extra vigilant in deciding who to elect as the county governor as well as county assembly representative. A governor with an unsurpportive county assembly will not function. The elected governor should be a people and resource manager. One with a vision and clear strategy to get the county headed to prosperity. A negotiator who can convince the county assembly, national government and other investors to support the county. A mobilizer who can rally people to support his policies and pay taxes to ensure efficient service delivery. An innovator who can lead the county to great investment paths that will see less money leave the county and more come in. A common sense thinker who will deal with problems as they are and lead the county towards prosperity. In this we the citizens have to take up our responsibilities and demand our rights.

This we need to do knowing that future generations will celebrate or mourn our decisions. This we do in Service to God and Our Country.

Abraham Rugo Muriu

Homecoming

It is great to be back home. Now I appreciate home than even before. I have seen the said first world and indeed its advanced. Germany is a rule based society where efficiency and time keeping are the values of honour. Where your word is to be trusted and where what you see is what you get. They are technologically advanced and have very reliable public funded safety nets. Their public transport is great and the general organization of their economy well run. They have food for their people and shelter for all. They are a very hard working people and for them if you cannot do it perfectly then don’t do it at all. Now we know why Made-in-Germany is always a trademark of great worth.

They have a good decentralized government and many small functional cities. The land side where they produce their food and the forest covers are well guarded. Thus most people live in the cities and towns hence freeing land for large scale production. We found that farmers especially for dairy, wheat and barley are among the very rich people. Those who live in towns and cities have the possibility to hire small plots for kitchen gardens. They thus can produce their own food...but not for sale.  Their system of education is rather relaxed and hence children get an opportunity to explore their interests at an early age. They also get to specialize rather early. Most schools are public and in almost all states education is publicly funded for all persons below age 30. Based on the right to information principle, teachers are obliged to give pupils at all ages all the necessary information including on reproductive health. It is then expected that the students would make the choices that best serve them.

All this said, what have I brought back? As as some of you may be aware, I did graduate with a Master of Public Management specializing in Public Policy and Administration. By the grace of God I topped my class. I was in an international class of 26 - 2 Ghanaians, 1 Ugandan, 1 Cameroonian, 3 Egyptians, 1 Rwandese-Canadian, 1 Kosovorian-Swissish, 1 Mongolese, 1 Guinean, 1 Japanese, 3 Vietnamesen, 2 Indonesian, 1 Brazilian, 1 Argentinian, 4 Chinesen and one Kenyan. And in some classes a few Germans. This has enabled me to get a glimpse of how the rest of the world views various issues.  My biggest concern is how I translate both the attitudes, skills and knowledge that I got into productive ideas in building our country. How do we translate the efficieny and time management of the germans, the hardwork of the Japenese, the tenacity of the chinese, the compassion of the vietnamese, the beauty of the rwandese and the elegance of the ghanians just to mention but a few into practical ways of a national lifestyle. For having looked at our country from outside, I am more than ever convinced that attitude change is a critical starting point. The heart of our problems is the problem of the heart. We need, starting with me, to search and turn our hearts. From easy income to earned income. From Godfathers to God the father. From do I know you? to are you qualified? From just speaking our mind to minding our speech. From living for the now to living with a vision. From just saying what should be done, to doing it. This turn will be unconformtable at first but is definately worth pursuing. Afterall, shall we pass out as flowers that never shined or as a clouds that never rained?

We have work to rebuild our country that we can neither delegate nor abdicate. Only we can do it. As we register and prepare to vote a new government at National and County level. Let us not plan to leave it to them to lead as they wish, we need to be involved. The Constitution provides a prime place for citizen participation in decision making. Let us apply ourselves to every opportunity that is there. Let us live and teach our children to live by the labour of their hands. To aim high and work hard. To seek to excel in all our ways. Let us raise the standards in our body politic and service to humanity. And when all is said and done, let the be much done than said.

Abraham Rugo Muriu

Farewell

Our dear friends. It has been a great pleasure meeting and knowing you during the 19 months that we have spent in Germany. Our only wish is that we had spent more time with each other. When we arrived here, we little could have imagined how fast time would fly. You have showed us great kindness and we remain forever grateful. Our son had many of you to play with. You opened your homes but more importantly your hearts to us. You have given us the opportunity to learn from you but also to share with you what we knew.

Be it in the university where we lived and studied or in the church where we shared in our faith, you did not fail to support us. We encouraged each other to do our best and sought God's guidance in our lives. For others we interacted in social forums where we discussed that which concerned us most. We remain grateful to you for helping me to see the world from other angles. We have enjoyed your beautiful country despite the cold weather. We have enjoyed your trains and buses, your cities and land, your bahns and bicycles. Yes ours has been an enjoyable time in Deutschland.

Now comes the time when we must go back home. While it would be desirable that we stay, it is of necessity that we should go. That we should go to join our fellow country women and men in delivering the promise of our generation. That we should go and share with them the ideas we have accumulated during our stay here. That we should take our son to see the great country where he was born. Some of you have expressed your concern as to the state of our country Kenya and of Africa at large. Indeed challenges do abound and I must not pretend that the road ahead will be easy. But as we have suggested before the opportunities far much out way the challenges. Our brothers and sisters have what it takes and are making a difference for good. It will take time but it shall surely come to be. The fact that the past has been bad does not mean that the future is hopeless. Just like you my friends, we are not so proud of some of the pains that we have inflicted on each other through self-centred leadership. And now that we know that which inflicts us then we are better placed to deal with it. This is the generation that shall see our country turn towards prosperity for all.  

What we ask of you is to support our country where you can. Not much with money and techniques but more with space and freedom to invent our solutions, make our mistakes and build our legacy. With the encouragement and moral solidarity that seeks to bring out the best of what we have. With  fair trade conditions that see both sides benefit. With time and patience that has been known to bring out all solutions to bear. This we ask of you and this we shall hold ourselves to. To build our country for the common good. To advance justice for all within and beyond our boarders. To support the weak and encourage the faint. To be all we can as God gives us the strength to be. We wish you well and hope to remain in touch.

Abraham, Faith and Amani Rugo.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

As we Graduate....

UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM
MASTER OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 2012 GRADUATION CEREMONY

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Speech on behalf of the Graduating Class

By

Abraham Rugo Muriu

Distinguished guests and my fellow graduands, it is my pleasure to share this moment with you. First of all I congratulate you for making to this day, we have all worked hard and today marks a great day in our lives. It is 1 year since we set foot in this university seeking to better our knowledge, skills and attitudes in public management. Then we were like the blindfolded persons who had came into contact with the proverbial elephant. Some of us thought public management was as rough as the skin of the elephant, others as smooth as its tasks, others as a heavy and rough a blanket as its wide ears and still others as a firm trunk as the elephants legs. But today, we have, thanks to our very able professors and supporting faculty, have a feel of these different aspects of the elephant. My fellow speaker has ably elaborated the experiences we have heard both in and out of the seminar rooms.

We will remain forever grateful to the MPM office for all you have done. Long before we arrived in Potsdam, you kept us informed and helped us prepare. Georg received us and showed us the city, Tjorven and later Felix ensured all logistics and paper work we needed was done, and Martina never rested until we had filled the last course form correctly. Dr. Gebhardt and Ms. Carboni not only ensured the programme run well but also kept encouraging us and gave us an ear whenever we needed one. Ms. Carboni brightened us with her constant smile even when she had all reasons to be angry at us. What you have done and been to us will remain etched in our hearts and professional foundation.

Our professors and their supporting faculty have taught us with all dedication possible. Each course was well organized and delivered. You patiently listened to us share our experiences of our feel of the “Public Management Elephant” and helped us see and feel the other side of the elephant. You managed our cultural and other differences and worked to bring the best out of us. You taught us that with hard work and discipline one can achieve great results. We thank you for every effort.

Our supporters, Family, DAAD, GIZ, governments, just to mention but a few, it’s your support that has seen us successfully complete this programme. For this we thank you. Our family and friends for all the encouragement and support, we thank you. You cheered us when we were flying high and supported us when we were crawling. All in an effort to make sure we kept moving forward.

Unto my fellow graduands. For 12 months, we have spent time together studying and sharing experiences. Sometimes we agreed, other times we disagreed but at all times we remained together in the MPM boat. We have remained stronger and better together. Our representatives, Jing jing and Ganimeti, we thank you for never tiring in listening and taking our concerns to the appropriate table of decisions. To each of us, I thank you for making effort to make the class enjoyable. Today we can proudly say that we are better, enlightened and wiser than when we first came. We came with little and now we are loaded with much. We came expecting to receive and now we leave to face a world that expects to receive from us. We came to get and now we go out to give.  Our graduation marks the end of our studies here and the beginning of a new life. A new life of seeking to apply what we have learnt.  A new life of greater and wiser engagement in the public sector.

Our guests today represent all those who impacted our lives during this one year. The support, lessons, insights, knowledge and guidance that they gave us was their lifetime gift to us. Our gift back to them, I suggest, is to serve humanity without fear or favour. To serve out of a clear conscience, and not just serving to clear our conscience. To make it our personal and collective responsibility to build our part of the world towards prosperity. To serve with our eyes on a better future and our hands on today’s labour. To advance the course of justice to the extent possible and relieve humanity of the pains that abound. This calls us to be firm at work and clear in our mind. It calls us to do the right even when it may be unpopular to do so. And knowing us all, I have no doubt in my mind that this is something we can do. While none of us will manage to change everything, everywhere; let’s make it our aim to change something, somewhere. Let us make it our aim to leave a legacy wherever our career road will take us. And when all is said and done, let there be much done than said.

Danke, Danke, Danke Sehr and God Bless You All.

In Service to God and Our Country

Abraham Rugo Muriu

Doing and Being in this Election Period

This piece is inspired by a sermon on what Christians should do in an election year in Kenya by Bishop David Oginde. We are already in a period of intensifying politics. This is as the March 2013 general election draws near. There are several efforts towards peaceful and fair elections. One would wish a state where we did not have to think of conflicts and pain during elections. However, the past has not been the best in this regard. The key question is, what then should we do? This question is worth answering. It points that we have an outward obligation to make our society run smoothly even when we have differing opinions. So we need to participate in the elections, preach peace and respect opposing opinions. But while this acts are all in order, there is another side that we rarely give attention to. This is on what we should be individually in such a period and at all times?

I have long held the opinion that our outward actions are a reflection of our inner state. We only advance peace if we are peaceful within ourselves. We are honest and just if this is a virtue we have individually purposed to live by. Hence while there is need to do something, lets choose to be something. To be peaceful. To be honest. To be fair. To be just. To be respectful. To value life. The doing will be more enriched if it is supported by a being. Lets us be what we want to do. The famous saying by Mahtma Gandhi was that we must be the change we want to see. It is one thing not to forward that mail or SMS of hate; It is another to love the person who you want to hate. So as the election period sets in, lets use the time to deeply search our hearts and cultivate individuals who are virtous, God fearing and loving of others. Long after people have forgotten what we did, they will remember what we were.

As we do much to build a peaceful country, let us be much more inwardly. Will we?

In Service to God and Our Country
Abraham Rugo Muriu

Of the Destruction of a Country......

I write this with pain in my heart as I see all that is happening to our great land of Kenya. I write it because  I want to see change and I want it to start with me and you my reader. The country is reeling in pains of hunger, hopelessness and unrealised dreams. Many a person feel trapped. Everywhere they turn they find a person offering help but at a price. The politician asks for their votes, the pastor asks for a seed (money), the teacher asks for better pay, the hospital asks for a deposit before a life saving operation can be done and the bank asks for your most valuable asset as colateral for a loan whose interest is as high as the amount given. Where do we turn as a people? And in the midst of all this pain, are there genuine people who are willing to serve for serving sake, to earn their just income and be contented with it? People who are willing to pay the price of building a just system. I hold strongly that there such people in all facets of our society. People who are keen to see justice flow like a river and that every Kenyan is accorded the due dignity s/he deserves.

But where is the problem and who holds the solution for it? Is there hope beyond this dark phase our country is in?

There have been prophesies and amazing words of knowledge to the effect that Kenya holds a unique place in the map of the world. This is undiniable given the great interest the international community gives to Kenya. I have to qualify that the interest may not necessarily be in line with Kenyans aspirations for their country. That aside,will Kenya realize that position through a miracle or is there something each individual citizen must, and immediately so, do? Will Kenya develop in the real sense where we no longer struggle with problems of putting food on the table and giving basic education to our children?

Yes we will, but first two things stand on the way - Greed and Personality Cults. The oxford dictionary defines greed as excessive and selfish desire for wealth, food, power etc. It further notes that this desire is despite the fact that one has already enough e.g. one is not hungry but just wants more food. A look around Kenya reveals to you how much greed has become a driving factor. I hold the position that the fuel behind corruption and clashes is simply greed. Someone has a salary but still wants more and thus exploits others by virtue of his position, another has power but wants to gain more or retain it at all costs including taking others  life. The situation is even worse, as ours has become a greedy society. This is where the giver and receiver are both greedy. Everyone wants more with no regard of the process. The end seems to be all that matters. This is what has led to many people loosing their money in dubious Quick-return investments.

But what hurts most is the greed advanced in the name of God in some congregations. It is not ours to judge but it is hurting to see all the emphasis on money by many of our preachers. And they are leaving no stone unturned. Every sermon and service seems to be geared on one thing - Giving. And its not giving of your time in serving in the church, but giving of your Money. This they will say is a way to attract Gods blessings. And as in investments terms, the more you give, the more God will bless you. This is based on warped interpretation of the holy scriptures. The interesting thing is that only the top man or woman (bishop, apostle, pastor) seems to be getting blessed. She or he, drives a state of the art car, lives in the suburbs of the city in a house that only appears to us in dreams, does shopping in abroad and flys fast class. The rest of the congregation keeps waiting for God to bless them as they continually plant seeds for all manner of blessings. So are the congregations also made of greedy people? Who are not contented with what they have and want more without necessarily working so hard for it. Who want only what God has to give?

Next is the greed for power that has turned our national arena to place of unending fights. Many a politician is seeking allegiance of his ethnic community so that they can have a bigger bargain on the power opportunities. Kenyans are having to pay a huge price caused by greed. Politicians and government officials in senior positions continually advance themselves more pay and allowances, which some don't want to even pay tax for. And this is justified on the name of "my people are gaining".

Greed has no limits and no dignity at all. A greedy person will take a poor persons last coin.

Can a country be built with this kind of foundation? Even God worked for six days in creating the world. Closely associated with greed is personality cults. This is where the man or woman at the top becomes the symbol of the life we desire to live. It is when s/he has the final word of how we should do things. One sees a lot of personality cults in religious and political circles. Where the Pastors or Politicians word is final. The followers do what the top person says without even stopping to engage their own conciuosness.

I observe that greed and personality cults is the bug eating on the foundation of our country. We must face it or face the destruction it will eventually bring. Kenyans must be encouraged to make choices of their own. One should stop and ask, how comes everything focuses on just money and power. We need to question the actions of our leaders in every aspect. That means we must also stand the test we employ on others.

Two last thoughts. In the spirit of openness and accountability, it will be of necessity to have all churches and political parties accounts audited and the said accounts made public. This is because they both use money contributed by the public. Leaders of any institution found exploiting or misusing funds should face the law. Secondly, I am keen to see a culture of work and reward fully instituted in Kenya. Every country has been built on the sweat of its people. The bible does say that God will bless the work of our hands (Psalm 128:1-2). Our national anthem calls us to build this our nation together.

Lets change where we are wrong and let us build on a foundation that will never be destroyed. I believe its never too late to do the right things the right way.

In Service to God and My Country.
ARMS

Amkeni Ndugu zetu, Tufanye sote Bidii

Amkeni ndugu zetu, tufanye sote bidii

Nasi tujitoe kwa nguvu

Nchi yetu ya Kenya tunayoipenda

Tuwe tayari Kuilinda 

Over the weekend I spent time thinking about responsibility. It occurred to me that regardless of what excuses and nice reasons I give for all I do, only I can do my part in making the world a better place. Our national anthem calls us to arise and work. The direct translation of amkeni ndugu zetu is actually "wake up or arise our brothers and sisters" and tufanye sote bidii "we all put effort or work hard at the task". Looking at what has happened in the years since independence and especially after passing the new constitution, there call to wake up has never been more urgent.

What we are witnessing is a determination by a few to get well as the rest of us pay all the fare. Its a determination to get and maintain power regardless of whether they serve the people or not. It is a determination to get all from all and give nothing in return. It is a determination that will only get our country into deeper troubles. 

It is said that the first step towards your dream is to get out of bed. To wake from your slumber and work towards your goal. We cannot afford to sleep at this time not even in the future and hope that somebody somewhere is working for our good. We need to do our part in nation building by being faithful in our work today, doing justice in all that we are doing and seeking what unites us than what divides us. There is always the temptation to do wrong because everyone is doing it anyway but that will only make things worse. This we must resist.

Winston Churchill during the WWII spoke to the soldiers and adviced "The heights great men reached and maintained were not by a sudden shot but they while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night". We are in a war to redeem the soul of our country and we cannot afford to sleep, we must be found toiling upward in the night too. 

In Service to God and My Country.
ARMS