Hillary Clinton's Agenda Four shock

Hillary Clinton is in for a big shock. When she visits Kenya as President Obama’s Secretary of State she will discover that Kenyan leaders say one thing and then do the complete opposite. Armed with the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation matrix of implementation agenda , the American politician will be eager to see what progress the country has made in implementing Agenda Four; and when she talks to various Kenyan leaders she will discover they have no plan whatsoever to practice what they preach.

Among the first promises broken by Kenyan leaders, concerns constitutional reforms. Mrs. Clinton will obviously be aware that Kenyans had promised to enact a Constitutional Review Statute that would have included a clear time table indicating when the country was to get a new Constitution. President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga will not be short of words when describing to Hillary that every effort was being made to achieve the goal of getting the country a new Constitution “as soon as possible.”

The two leaders will even tell the Americans the country already has a referendum law that will enable Kenyans to either reject or accept the Constitution the experts will draft. Raila and Kibaki will tell Hillary that Nzamba Kitonga is dealing with the matter of drafting the new Constitution but hey will not tell the good lady when Nzamba will finish his task. The good story that Hillary will hear about the new Constitution is that the new Minister for Justice , National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs, Mutula Kilonzo, is a no nonsense man.

Secondly the American leader will be interested in knowing what progress Kenya has made in reforming the Judiciary. Mrs. Clinton will know in advance that Kenyans had promised to make Constitutional changes to introduce a number of measures affecting the Judiciary including its financial independence. She will want to know what has been done to introduce transparency in the Judiciary which will include merit based appointment of judges.

The American Secretary of State will be shocked to know that nothing so far has been done to bring about any meaningful changes in the Judiciary. She will also be shocked to know that no disciplinary measures are being taken against the suspected corrupt judges who have yet to prove to be committed to human rights and gender equality. Mrs. Clinton will also be shocked to know that the country has done nothing to reconstitute the Judicial Service Commission to include other stake holders and enhance independence and autonomy of the Commission.

Mrs. Clinton’s biggest disappointment will be the story she hears about reforms in the Police Force. She will learn that nothing has been done to establish an independent Police Commission which was expected to review and define the role of the Administration Police. She will be dismayed to know that no review laws have been enacted in Kenya concerning security and policing to establish an independent complaints commission that will give citizens an oversight of police services. Such a law would make Kenya join the international league of modern democratic norms. Kenyan leaders will not have a satisfactory explanation for failing to recruit and train more police officers to raise the police-to-population ration to the UN standard. Though the timeframe for this recruitment and training is expected to be 2012, there is no evidence today that the exercise has started.

The other institution reform Mrs. Clinton will be concerned with will concern the Civil Service. Whatever Raila and Kibaki tell the Secretary of State, she is bound to discover that the Kenyan authorities have done nothing to review the Anti-Corruption and economic crimes Act of 2003. The two Kenyan leaders will have a hard time to convince the American politician that the Public Officers Ethics Act of 2003 is all that Kenya needs to fight corruption in the Civil Service. The Secretary of State will most likely discover that Kenya has done nothing to review the legal framework for the declaration of incomes, assets and liabilities with a view of establishing an efficient and devolved administrative, compliance and analysis institutional framework.

Kenyan leaders will explain to the Secretary of State that Kenya has already taken steps to facilitate parliamentary vetting of senior public appointments. They will give the examples of the manner in which members of the IIECK and the TJRC were appointed. But Kenyans will have no convincing argument to show Mrs. Clinton why no appropriate constitutional and legal reforms have been undertaken to facilitate similar parliamentary vetting for all other senior public appointments particularly permanent secretaries and ambassadors. Mrs. Clinton will be shocked to know that Raila and Kibaki have taken no steps whatsoever to bring about new legislations on whistleblowers protection or freedom of information and the operationalization of the Witness Protection Act of 2006.

The positive stories that Raila and Kibaki will tell Mrs. Linton will concern reforms in Parliament Standing Orders which have been reviewed to enrich quality and output of Parliamentary debate. Strengthening of multi-party democracy in Kenya, however, has not been achieved as political parties still belong to individual politicians though some MPs have shown signs of rebelling against their political parties. Though Kenyan leaders will proudly tell the former American First Lady that Kenyans enjoy live coverage of Parliament, they will have nothing to tell her about electronic voting in Parliament.

Though the Kenyan Parliamentarians have yet to succeed in enhancing oversight role of the Legislature over the national budget, impressive steps have been taken to strengthen organs of Parliament such as the Parliamentary Accounts Committee and the Parliamentary Investment Committee to promote transparency and accountability in the utilization of public resources. An important step that Parliament has yet to take and about which Mrs. Clinton is bound to ask, concerns steps to be taken to improve transparency of MPs by creating a register of interests and opening up Parliamentary Committee works to the public.

In view of the ongoing debate on Mau Forest, Mrs. Clinton is bound to ask what progress has been done on land reforms. She will be disappointed to know that nothing has been done to make any Constitutional review to address fundamental issues of land tenure and land use. She will also be shocked to learn that nothing has been done to develop and implement land policies that are intended to take into account the linkages between land use, environmental conservation, forestry and water resources. May be the biggest shock for the Secretary of State will be the discovery that nothing has been done about land ownership document replacement for owners affected by post election violence.

When Secretary Clinton asks Raila and Kibaki what has been done about the country’s poverty, inequality and regional imbalance she will be shocked to realize that nothing has been done to ensure equity and balance are attained in development across all regions including in job creation, improved income distribution and gender equality. The President and the Prime Minister will most certainly draw Mrs. Clinton’s attention to Uhuru Kenyatta’s budget which made a major attempt at achieving some form of devolution but there will be little that the two leaders can show Mrs. Clinton how they have implemented policies and programmes that minimize the differences in income opportunities in the arid and semi arid districts, urban informal settlements and pockets of poverty in high potential areas.

The Kenyan Government will not be able to show Mrs. Clinton what is being done to improve wealth creating opportunities for disadvantaged groups and regions through increased infrastructure spending in roads, water, sewerage, communication, electricity targeting poor communities and regions.

Another Agenda Four topic that will shock Secretary Clinton will be about unemployment, particularly among the youth. Raila and Kibaki will be quick to tell Mrs. Clinton about their “Kazi kwa Vijana” programme but they will not be able to prove to her that the programme generates an average of 740,000 new jobs each year from 2008 to 2012. Clinton will want to know how youth polytechnics have been revitalized and expanded in all districts to facilitate the training of young people in technical, vocational and entrepreneurial skills to equip them with relevant skills to participate fully in productive activities. Apart from failing to answer that question adequately the two Kenyan leaders will not be able to show the Secretary of State any youth empowerment centres which they have either rehabilitated or established in all constituencies.

About Consolidating national cohesion and unity, the two Kenyan leaders will have a lot tell Mrs. Clinton about the Ethnic and Race Relations Bill; but they will not be able to tell her anything being done by the Government to establish and operationalize a policy and institutional framework for a piece-building and conflict resolution programme (PBCR) and an early warning mechanism on social conflict including a PBCR monitoring and evaluation system and a restructured Secretariat, and enactment of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Bill.

Raila and Kibaki will have a hard time to convince Mrs. Clinton that something is being done in the country about transparency accountability and impunity. She will want to know what specifically is being done to strengthen the policy, legal and institutional framework for increased public transparency and accountability, anti-corruption, ethics and integrity, including through the development of national anti-corruption policy, enactment of necessary legislation, and systems and capacity enhancements to strengthen the National Audit Office. The two Kenyan leaders will have no satisfactory answer to that question.

Though her stay in Kenya will be so short and she will be busy doing vital AGOA assignments, Mrs. Hillary Clinton will be extremely disappointed with Kenyan leaders’ efforts to implement the now most demanding Agenda Four which the international community would like to see operationalized in Kenya. Yet Kenya’s future depends entirely on how that agenda is adopted and adapted.