Thitifini wrote:limanika wrote:KulaRaha wrote:limanika wrote:mikanjoroge wrote:limanika wrote:Why does govt make promises to IMF they know to realise same they would have to rely on parliament? Parliament which can decline?
Cause when you have thieves in government negotiating on our behalf and money is being dangled, they will agree to any conditions. Damn the consequences.
When you make promise you know you don't have 100% capacity to fulfill, that's what we call living a lie.
And who, when you haven't paid rent, takes the only cash at hand and goes on holiday? That's what we're doing ---
spending 10's of billions tarmacking village cattle tracks just coz people are obsessed with tarmac, yet you will strain to count 10 vehicles down that road in a whole day,
building electricity infrastructure in every nook and cranny just to light homes yet people could still survive with kerosene lamps if the pending debts were paid first..the list could go on
This, my fren, is the only way to steal...give the people infrastructure they dont need! And, dont give them too much credit. You don't build bypass around chalbi desert just so you can steal. This is what they're doing
The money causing our troubles didn't even do the village cattle track you guys are talking about. It's a very small % of the total debt - the one babu was shouting about some time back....
And we will pay for it because we are sheep.
Roads are just one example among many. But overall the elephant in the room is county govts. No economist worth his salt would have recommended the kind of devolution we have. Kibaki did'nt want it either, it was forced on him by people who wanted to devolve 'eating'. Do you know that the 300b disbursed to counties is usually borrowed money which central govt pays with interest? Then the counties spend it to pay fat salaries, foreign travel, buy goods at inflated prices, tarmarc roads that just needed to be upgraded to all weather status, etc etc. The worst is that counties that dont contribute much to GDP (Hence don't help govt repay the loan) receive the most allocation. If this cycle continues the next 5, 10 years, we are looking at a debt crises like the one below
https://www.nation.co.ke...68550-3pefmu/index.html
Back to roads. During colonial times and soon after independence, there was strategy how roads were built. The first priority roads were international trunk roads. The next were roads linking provincial head quarters to the international trunk roads. Next were roads linking district headquarters and then the divisional headquarters.
This is the kind of masterplan jomo left. When mo1 came in, he did NOTHING to maintain existing roads or finalize the masterplan. He only built some cattle tracks in baringo. So much so that virtually all the existing roads jomo or mzungu built were in a state of disrepair by the time he left in 02.
Kibaki comes in and what did he do? He changed strategy. His main focus on Roads became facilitation of TRADE. So he re carpeted all the roads. He built the bypasses. In rural areas, he built additional roads purely for trade e.g. linking tea factories to the main roads.
Enter the dynamic duo come in and what experience do they have on public finance management and how to grow economy? Zero. I dont blame them. I blame the one who brought them into the arean. So nowadays there is no strategy on roads, no masterplan. PORK or DEPORK will visit a village (probably a home coming party for CS) and the village elder requests the road leading to the village be tarmacked. The wish is granted immediately. No feasibility, no nothing. You will strain to count 10 vehicles down that road a whole day. In contrast, my estate road, used by 1000+ vehicles every day, is not tarmarked. Assuming each of my neighbors spends 30k a year to repair their suspension due to bad road, that's 30m down the drain, money that could have been used in some other productive way.