The proposed constitutional amendments to address the following among other areas:-
1. An Economic Council complete with a secretariat is required, and this should be immortalised in the constitution. Its main duty would be to formulate long term economic strategies e.g. vision 2030, complete with list of projects to be undertaken within the period.And then keep track.
2. All our economic planning should be based on a long term plan and not on the whims of ruling elite. Currently, a party comes to power based on a manifesto drafted by advertising executives, and implementation of the same can easily cause economic meltdown since cost benefit of the projects in the manifesto have not been evaluated critically. Manifesto of winning party needs to be reviewed against a long term plan / strategy before implementation.
3. Currently, during budget making, ministries are given a blank cheque. So you have a case where ministry of devolution is allocated 45B. Since they didn’t have any plan to start with, the money ends up being misappropriated. We need a system where ministries do their own budget before the main budget and these should be made public. At the end of financial year, we are able to hold them to account.
4. The system of revenue allocation to counties is flawed. Counties should also prepare their own budget before receiving any disbursements. The budget should show how much is being allocated to development – with list of projects and recurrent expenditure.
5. There is need for proper national debt management. The present scenario is wanting, as the ministry of finance KRA and central bank seem not to work in harmony.
6. So far, our justice system has been unable to hold corrupt individuals to account. This means the system is flawed and we need some fresh thinking to address these weaknesses.
7.
No ruling elite will implement the above since it will reduce corruption and opportunities to make free money at the expense of electorate. Hence, we need get wise and do it ourselves. Let’s not wait till we get to Greece. Church, Civil Society, over to you.