Why it’s Impossible to have a Government Shutdown in Kenya, and Why that is a very bad thing

First of the new column for the Business Daily. A version was published on 17 October 2013, at http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion-and-Analysis/US-style-shutdown-impossible-in-Kenya/-/539548/2035286/-/jabtw5/-/index.html This is the more complete one.

Hollywood director John Woo had a spectacular signature shot. In many of his movies from the 1990s, the protagonists would eventually end up in a two-way, or even three-way, standoff – with everyone pointing guns at everyone else’s head. None dare shoot, but none dare put their weapon down either. The rather spectacular move is known as a Mexican standoff, but for the past few weeks, the world has been treated to a version of it from north of the border. The American President, Barack Obama, has been in a deadlock with the leaders of the Republican side of both Houses of Congress, over America’s fiscal health and its standing as a creditworthy member of the family of nations.

The American government has been in shutdown for more than two weeks, and additional fears over possible default have caused many policymakers to prepare hammers to break open emergency plans, and to prepare for possible global recession and, at the worst case, depression and the upending of seventy years of currency stability.

At the same time, ten thousand miles away, the Auditor General of the Republic of Kenya released a report that indicated that the government had, in effect, lost hundreds of billons of shillings. Only 6 percent of the government’s expenditure can be accounted for cleanly, and 94 cents out of every shilling the government spends is misused, misspent, misaccounted for or simply stolen. There are many ingenious ways that government officials spend money badly, but most are depressingly humdrum. Two billion shillings in imprests that cannot be accounted for (in effect, taking money from the government for a trip and simply pocketing it); seven billion shillings spent without satisfactory paperwork. And, most worryingly, another seven billion shillings spent without authorisation from Parliament – in effect, money spent illegally.

And this is where our two stories come together. For, the United States, by taking all of us to the brink of financial Armageddon, ironically shows how well their system works. In Kenya, the shocking, but mundane, misappropriation of taxpayers money, shows why we can never have a government shutdown even if we tried.

The twin crises in America are borne of a system that was designed to never give one branch of government too much power over the other, but which has now reached the limits of its checks and balances. At the same time, one of the major parties in that country has been taken over by a nihilistic, extremist wing, which sees compromise as weakness and is thus prepared to countenance the unthinkable.

Here’s how the shutdown happened – the American government needs what is called a continuing resolution – passed by Congress – to spend any money. Traditionally this has been a routine issue. But, in the past (most recently in 1995 when Republicans were in a catfight with Bill Clinton) and this year, when Republicans wanted to scuttle Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, the process has been anything but routine, and the continuing resolution has not been passed. In effect, the US government has no permission to spend money it already has, and most parts of its operation have thus been shut down.

And this is what brings home the fact that this is an illustration that the system actually works. The US President and the rest of the federal bureaucracy cannot even fathom spending money that has not been authorised by the legislature. Civil servants have been sent on furloughed (sent on leave with no pay), and many services, including national parks, have been shut down. Even when both sides have realised that some government services needed to be re-opened because it was becoming politically untenable to keep them closed, congressional leaders have had to resort to legislative contortions to pass laws that allow them to spend money.

Contrast this with the Kenyan system. One ministry (that of Education) spent five and a half billion shillings without parliamentary approval, and, instead of outrage and a mass decapitation of entire ministries and departments, we had a tepid request for an explanation by the Cabinet. It is entirely conceivable (because it has happened already) that the government would continue to blithely spend money,  absent any permission from the guardians of the public purse – who neither know, nor care much, about what’s being spent and how.

And so, we have the strange phenomenon of a government that has ground to a halt being the best illustration for a working system; and a largely-ignored report being the avatar of lack of working systems.