Fikira and Maoni on the Kenyan Crisis 13

Wamalwa to tell you the truth follow up the Kenyan Budget for the last two years, you will be surprised how Kenya has not been depending on donars!

what is a Budget? Those are just proposals. That is why, you and me, speaking together as researchers, when we check out government expenditures, we read actual and approved estimates. My friend, when we hear Kimunya saying we will budget within our domestic limits, to me these are just theoretical political jokes. Please check well.

Donors themselves realized how NGO(Nothing goes on) sector was misusing their money (few individuals gain and come up with a juicy report) and they decided to partner with the government.

You are right; the new move to give assistance directly to the sector other than the projects on the ground is an idea that came in the early 90s widely known as the new ideas modality. It comprises of two items- SWAPS and DBS. Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAPS) comprise a combination of policy advice and project investment across a whole sector such as health, supported by basket funding from a group of donors, while Direct Budgetary Support (DBS) involves the large-scale transfer of funds from donors directly to the treasury, which then becomes part of the government budget, which can be utilised as required along with internally generated resources. There are all sorts of tangible evidence that civil society organisations are misusing money. But , my question is, who funds these SWAPS and DBS? Why have governments in Africa accepted them? By the fact that we are working within these new aids modality framework should tell you how important aid is. There is a lot of research carried out on the effects of SWAPs and DBS in Tanzania , Uganda , India by Chambers- (IDS Sussex ).

Now Donors usually have unsatiable apetite to spend their money in Kenya they will enback on NGO funding as it was in the days of Moi. So start your NGO!

Ha ha ha, I will soon.

I stand to be corrected, My projection is that without donor funding in the projects they were funding mainly free primary education, health and Roads.

Yes, the fact is, without donor funding we cant fund capital investments like social overhead capital- roads, rails etc as well social sector investments like free education etc.

The poor will be more poorer but the economy will deteriorate if we continue to allow the senseless killing in the name of mass action.

You right and logic is this, when we kill people, we erode human capital- both skilled and unskilled. We also reduce the demand and supply base, since its people who engage in the production and consumption of goods. Killing is also juxtaposed with destruction of physical capital which needs a lot of investment and time to reconstruct. So we need to be careful. Perhaps that is why countries like Rwanda have to depend so much on foreign skill outsourcing to restructure their economy.

I also predict some regions becoming more poorer as the sanctions hit hard especially those that were already on donar funds such as Great North road.

You are right. And that is why a social democrats like myself could easily ask,’ why is there a likehood that some regions are bound to become poor than others?’, has it do to with distribution of initial factors of production? Is that some regions are politically upright, closer to the centre and hence at the centre than others that are wallowing on the periphery? Does this explain the current political crisis in the country, if so, what we do we do?

For Zim, its not a good model to compare Kenya with! Coz Kenya is a country that has very complicated social structures and the current situation will only see food prices to sky rocket especially in the fighting zones coz farmers might not settle down to farm.

You could be right but I think Zim and Kenya are comparable. My justification:
Both these countries are part of the Sub-Sahara Africa . Both these countries have at one point or another experienced hostile relationships with the international development community. Their political experiences and history are almost alike. Both these countries have witnessed ethnic violence as a result of political instability, infact regions in each of these countries are balkanised along ethnic blakans. ZANU-PF has dominated Zim for over four decades just the same way KANU still influences political waves in Kenya . Looking it from a macro-economic perspective, if the current post-elections persist and donors stand on their threat to withdraw aid and perhaps impose sanctions on us, then we are bound to experience the same problems that common wananchis of Zim are experiencing. Both of these economies are not well enough to absorb these external shocks.

Kibaki might be unpopular in your language and illegitimate but do you know that with or without rigging majority of Kenyans who voted for the other 8 presidential candidates you dont support represent more than half the Kenyans popn?

I will not regret and relent to make this submission- Kibaki is unpopular. Is a proxy of hundreds of African presidents who have seized power through a coup-detas.

I will try to abstain from Politics and join the praying Nation appeal. I will aslo seek for truth and justice but not through mass action coz this leads to loss of innocent life and properties.

Mass action does not led to loss of life unless the so called armed forced descent on people by flushing bullets on them as we are witnessing. You may consider revisiting what we saw in Kapsabet, it was so peaceful. In the West (Europe, America, etc), people demonstrate, even if they are demonstrating against the government, they are protected by the government security agencies.