In Kenya, gubernatorial appointees censored by the public for their incompetency or corruption allegations would rather die than resign. This is because there is nothing like resigning in the interest of the public. That is just hot air. Until and unless the appointing authority sacks or forces such an incompetent or pilfering appointee to resign ,he or she would deride the tax payers and continue to draw huge perks courtesy of the same tax payers.
It is therefore easy for one to understand why the Basic Education PS insists on the presumption of innocence. He believes that public opinion is unfairly hanging him. Yet all and sundry know that it is his incompetency that has bred “lootocracy” in the ministry. But even as he cries fowl, cryptic details of the FPE scandal continue to emerge and so do the calls for his resignation increase by the hour.
Surely, the PS must know that management of the public funds is too sacrosanct a duty to be anybody`s partisan or ideological play thing! In the absence of sound management systems, the public`s interest is sure to be deeply hurt. It does hurt really badly when the future of the children of the hoi polloi is auctioned.
And there is no denying that the Basic Education Ministry has not put in place any of these checks and balances. His spell in office as the CEO has and is still totally devoid of Efficient Management Information System (EMIS). To say that his tenure is continually plagued by a litany of questions about financial impropriety would be an understatement.
FPE which is the President`s brain child and which is a component of the larger Kenya Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP), became a cropper immediately after its operationalization. If it is not the loss of FPE funds, it is subsidized secondary education funds, infrastructure development funds, capacity building funds or funds meant for procurement of science equipment in schools et cetra. He has been unable to reign in on rogue functionaries in the ministry. Every time a red flag was raised, the PS truly struck his stride in demonstrating his penchant for rubbishing claims of the muck docking in his ministry.
He seems to believe that he can continually abuse public trust and get away with it. This explains why in spite of being advised that the interest of the nation must always come before any personal considerations he has emphatically declared that there is no question of him resigning in response to the current snowballing corruption.
Yet there is no doubt even in his own mind that his legacy is a negative one, and that he has done far more harm to the country than good. When he comically denies that no FPE funds have been lost, he himself knows too well that there is a great mountain between what his heart knows and what his tongue says!
Lest the President forces him to resign now, or sacks him, he too like the PS will have no legacy to protect. The President would be deluding himself were he to think that the constant barrage of criticism leveled against the PS is about to wane. It will not wane now nor in the near future.
As for the PS, he has a simple choice but one that will at least leave him with some level of respectability; and that is for him to leave office quickly, take a plea deal, and go quietly to prison.
TOME FRANCIS,
BUMULA CONSTITUENCY.
http://twitter.com/tomefrancis