The devolution conference in Kwale County last week was an
interesting one. The sight of hundreds of Members of the County Assembly – from
the rowdy, to the focused, to the ambitious and the clueless – was
illuminating. The underlying current, of tension between devolved levels of
government and the central government, may be what’s remembered from the
conference, but there were other interesting insights. I moderated a session on
health and education outcomes, but that’s not where the insights came from.
As usual, when you squint a bit and let your sight go out of
focus, you begin to get perceptions and patterns that are not readily apparent
in plain sight. As it is with this set.
The first one came from sitting on the podium in the massive
tent. The Kenyan coast is a sweltering place. By the middle of the morning, one
is wilting, with sticky clothes, an even stickier mind and the inability to
process thoughts at anything faster than a slow crawl. It was when later
driving past a secondary school, an idly wondering how students could
concentrate in such conditions that it hit me. How much could widespread air
conditioning add to the economic output at the coast? The devolution conference
was only able to take place because of the dozens of air conditioners placed
all around the tent, which meant that conditions were comfortable enough for
people to pay attention all day.
Of course, many will raise arguments about the energy cost
of air conditioning most public and private facilities in coastal areas (and
consider the shores of Lake Victoria in that formulation), but innovation has
reached the stage where low-energy solutions are possible. To put it into a
wider context, it is said that Washington DC in the United States is one of the
most uncomfortable places in the whole of North America. The city was built
largely on a swamp, and its oppressive heat and humidity meant that it lost
many months of productivity when the summer months rolled around. It was only
when air conditioning became widespread that the city could become operational
year-round.
The other insight came from watching the MCAs respond to
sessions. One session I managed to catch was on investment in the counties (and
which was moderated by Uduak Amimo). Whether it is because it was at the end of
the day, or because it was on a subject that may have been deemed ‘dull’ by the
MCAs, the room was empty, even as the possibility of billions of shillings in
investment were discussed. An earlier session, though, was full of loud
cheering, jeering and hollering. The reason was that the Chair of the Salaries
and Remuneration Commission, Sarah Serem, was one of the panelists, and the
MCAs hoped that their loud ovations would predispose her to granting their wish
for bigger perks and allowances.
But then, if you think about it, maybe our model for public
service is all wrong. No one will deny that elected officials serve an
important and timely service. No one will deny, too, that the expense of it has
become ridiculous (and this is the case whether you buy into the government’s
wage bill reduction argument or not).
But it is not automatic, though, that our elected officials
all have to be full-time. Think about it – the primary role of MCAs and MPs is
to legislate. Apart from the very heavy period when there was a need to pass
legislation related to the constitution, much of the time is spent debating the
silly stuff (such as an entire afternoon spent arguing about who should fly a
pennant on their car). If both sets of Members (and you’re free to throw
Senators here as well) met for only part of the week, and only for a few weeks
a year (and in emergencies if need be), we would save ourselves a bundle. All
we’d need to pay them is sitting and travelling allowances (justified ones
these time), and we’d allow them to conduct their normal trades the rest of the
time. One may argue against this, claiming it’s an avenue for corruption, but
for two things. First is that many legislators engage in business and trades
anyway (the concept of blind trusts has never caught on here), and rules can be
made to avoid conflicts of interest. Second is that this model has been tried
in other countries. Many state legislatures in the United States, including in
the broad swath in the middle of the country, have citizen legislators, who
operate on a part-time basis. The rest of the time, these farmers, lawyers and
traders attend to their businesses, and the states are none the worse for that.
Maybe these ideas are slightly cuckoo (in which case you can
blame the coastal heat). Or maybe a bit of tangential thinking is what we need
to solve some of the intractable problems that bedevil us.
This was also published in the Business Daily on 8 April 2014.
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