LETS RETHINK FORIEGN AID

Lets rethink Foreign Aid
Corruption has seemingly become a way of life in Kenya. One of the ongoing scandals is at the Education Ministry. Money meant for free primary education has been diverted to private accounts owned by Ministry officials. Some of the money was from foreign donors who have since frozen further funding until audits are done, culprits punished and the money recovered. Details of the story can be found HERE
It has become glaringly clear that funds from foreign sources, meant to alleviate poverty or implement development, are not making it to the intended recipients. Even food aid meant for the starving populace is impounded by corrupt officials and later sold on the open market.
The primary recipient of foreign aid is the government. It is in turn supposed to disburse this aid to citizens according to the donor’s intentions. Our moribund government bureaucracy instead concocts schemes to siphon off all the money to phony accounts for their personal benefit. This practice has now become putative and even celebrated in the corridors of power and it will continue unabated if we do not put in a system of monitoring how these funds are disbursed.
The situation has become so dire that even when the government did distribute funds as in this recent example shown HERE, the groups charged with implementing the intentions of the government distributed the money among members and disbanded!
We now have to seriously reconsider the role of the government and the way it delivers its services. It is our contention that government should not be engaged in funding any income generating projects. We are not talking about government run corporations but funds given to self help groups to run micro businesses such as posho mills. The government’s role should be to provide the following:
• Infrastructure. This means passable and well maintained main roads and feeder roads that should make travelling around the country a thing of ease. Said roads should also be well lit, secure from banditry and should take into account flooding
• Education. Build, maintain and adequately supply all government schools. The free primary education has been a good initiative but it has been riddled with scandal as noted above. The government should train and recruit enough teachers. Pay them well. Avoid overcrowding in the classrooms. If possible, provide a free meal to children during school hours. We should overhaul our current curriculum that stresses passing exams and replace it with training students to become entrepreneurs, trades people, science professionals or excel in any other areas that promote nation building as per their predilection
• Medical attention. The government should build enough regional hospitals with the capability to perform even the most complicated procedures. They should be adequately staffed with personnel and have enough provisions. The government should train and hire enough medical staff and compensate them well. Health awareness, healthy eating and disease prevention should be a part of the school curriculum together with similar campaigns aimed at the general public.
• Security. It is the right of every citizen to be protected from nefarious elements from within and from marauders without. The government should train and recruit enough police personnel to deal with any eventualities that may threaten our safety. There should also be a department specially trained to deal with mishaps that require large scale coordinated responses.
What then do we do with the foreign aid that the west feels so compelled to throw into our laps? We think that foreign aid in the form of money should be rejected by African governments all together. If we have to have foreign assistance, let it be in the form of:
• Technical assistance. Our foreign friends may lend us technical experts to help train local professionals in development projects
• Equipment. We will accept donations of heavy equipment for use in infrastructure projects or other equipment for use in rural projects.
• Election monitoring. We will accept personnel to monitor our General Elections and report back to the world as to their fairness.
These things among a few others we may accept. The only item that we should summarily reject is foodstuffs. It is totally unacceptable for Kenyans to be dying of starvation while we could be producing more than enough to eat and a surplus for export. We will deal with self sufficiency as it pertains to food in a later article.
Conclusion
We are of the opinion that foreign aid should be completely factored out of the working budget of the government of Kenya. In A previous article, we put forth the proposal to fund all government expenditure through the use of the Land Value Tax. In a future article, we will look at how we can move away from a dependent, groveling citizenry to establishing vibrant, local, green, self sustaining communities that will hold government accountable.
As usual reader comments and suggestions are welcome.