Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 18:08:24 +0100
Kenya-
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5403/A_year_of_living_precari
ously> A year of living precariously
The ICC's case against President Kenyatta is in disarray but so are his own
political forces and the managers of his grandiose public spending plans.
26th March 2014
At the presidential inauguration of
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/389/Uhuru_Kenyatta>
Uhuru Kenyatta last April, few would have predicted the chaotic current
state of the Jubilee Alliance government. Then, almost his sole
preoccupation was to avoid trial at the International Criminal Court. The
government has since expended so much energy on the ICC case that the
business of running the country has suffered.
One year on, the ICC case, which Kenyatta once described as 'a personal
challenge', is all but over, say political sources in Nairobi. Witnesses,
one of whom was scheduled to give extensive testimony on the meetings at
State House that preceded some of the 2007-08 election violence, have
recanted or disappeared. There have been indications that the Office of the
Prosecutor,
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/3321/Fatou_Bensouda>
Fatou Bensouda, has been looking for the right moment to announce that the
trial cannot go forward.
Yet Kenyatta's government is now deep in a war with an unexpected foe -
itself. The President and his allies are fighting battles against the
bureaucracy inherited from the previous government but are not prevailing.
The conflicts are whittling away at the President's authority and preventing
his government from carrying out even some of its basic functions.
Crime, inflation and grand corruption have risen sharply in the last year.
Expectations of an economic take-off have dimmed since the cheers that
greeted Kenyatta's disputed election victory. The government has incurred
new debt and inflated the public wage bill against a background of falling
tourism revenue - the result of the Westgate terrorist attack and Islamist
activity on the coast. Beside concern about
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5403/A_year_of_living_precari
ously> loanshttp://savingsslider-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png
from China and elsewhere, mostly for infrastructure expansion, there are
worries about the growing cost of the new, devolved counties (AC Vol 55 No
4,
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5234/No_way_to_run_a_railway>
No way to run a railway & AC Vol 55 No 5,
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5296/Jubilee_lays_into_Americ
a%2c_too> Jubilee lays into America, too &
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5297/Warning_shot_or_loose_ca
nnon> Warning shot or loose cannon?).
Presidential pay cut
The public sector pay crisis has most starkly revealed the tensions within
the government. On leaving a cabinet retreat a fortnight ago, Kenyatta
announced that he and his deputy,
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/3056/William_Ruto>
William Ruto, would take a 20% pay cut, along with their cabinet. The
reason: the public wage bill was fast becoming unsustainable. For the
President himself, scion of one of the country's wealthiest families and
with numerous perks and privileges of office, the salary reduction was
little more than a gesture. Wags in the media pointed out that the cost of
his accommodation during the four-day retreat exceeded the pay cut he had
taken.
The presidency did not get the joke. State House officials summoned senior
executives of the offending newspaper, The Standard, and forced them into a
humiliating public apology for inflating the cost of the retreat.
There appeared to be something more to the State House encounter than a mere
flexing of authoritarian muscle - a habit that Kenyatta displays with
increasing frequency. When, in an ostensible initiative to confront the
public pay crisis Jubilee members of parliament tabled a bill proposing that
the 47 counties be cut to ten, it was clear a full-blown assault on
devolution was under way. The bill also proposed to eliminate all nominated
MPs and women's representatives, as well as reduce the county
representatives from ten per county to three.
The Jubilee government's first year has been characterised by an impatience
with the new constitution and a disregard for other arms of the state,
notably the judiciary, which until recently was widely considered an
independent champion of the new constitution. Kenyatta and Ruto have
maintained a rhetorical enthusiasm for the constitution but neither
supported it in the 2010 referendum.
The President's troops in Parliament began an assault on devolution almost
as soon as they had been sworn in. They first rejected Senate proposals last
May to increase subsidies to the counties. The case was heard by the Supreme
Court and dismissed. Displaying its now established tendency to go rogue,
Parliament - where Jubilee enjoys an unrivalled majority - then took on the
judiciary, attempting to curtail its budget and dismantle the Judicial
Service Commission late last year. Both the Speaker, Justin Muturi, and the
leader of government business, Aden Bare Duale, are unashamed presidential
loyalists. With the politics of sycophancy reminiscent of President Daniel
arap Moi's era now in full flow, it is hard not to see these assaults as
coming directly from State House.
The swift and irregular impeachment of Embu County Governor Martin Wambora
looked to be part of the same campaign. A Jubilee man and a district
administrator known for his closeness to Moi, Wambora was impeached by the
county legislature based on corruption claims. He went to court, at which
point the Senate, at odds with the Council of Governors, ignored a court
order staying his impeachment and enforced his dismissal. Muturi remarked
that he would not enforce what he termed idiotic orders from the courts.
Centralisation
In rapid succession, Parliament has now tabled bills limiting the authority
of the governors and threatened to reduce sharply subsidies to the counties.
If the attack on the constitution is part of a slide back to authoritarian
rule, the contest between divergent factions of the executive appears
connected to controlling resources.
Kenyatta has admitted that corruption cartels have touched his own office
but he blames the Deep State, the cabals of top securocrats who were so
powerful during Moi's rule. The most recent scandal concerns procurement for
school computers, a US$300 million pledge high on Jubilee's manifesto which
is now stuck in the mud of corruption claims at the Education Ministry.
Tellingly, the President has been unable to act, an indication that the Deep
State may be tying his hands.
Both securocrats and the judiciary angrily deny claims that senior civil
servants leaned on the Supreme Court last March to reject ex-Prime Minister
Raila Odinga's petition against the election results. Yet the influence of
the likes of former civil service head Francis Kimemia remains undiminished
(AC Vol 55 No 5,
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5297/Warning_shot_or_loose_ca
nnon> Warning shot or loose cannon?). Demoted for unexplained reasons during
the Westgate attack and its embarrassing aftermath, Kimemia continues to be
a key figure in the administration. Similarly, it escapes no one that no
senior military official, including the Chief of Defence Forces, General
Julius Waweru Karangi, has been punished for their handling of Westgate (AC
Vol 55 No 1,
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/5170/Chickens_come_home_to_ro
ost> Chickens come home to roost). Moreover, while Ruto's supporters
demanded the dismissal of several key State House officials for allegedly
coaching ICC witnesses to testify against Ruto, Kenyatta emphatically
defended them.
Many believe that Kenyatta is beholden to the securocrats for trying to get
him off the hook at the Hague but does not like it. Key securocrats continue
to wield significant influence but he is only biding his time, say State
House observers, until he can move against them.
Meanwhile, accountants are delivering their litany of bad news about
out-of-control public spending. The debt portfolio is being pushed towards a
crisis point by grand infrastructure projects, like the new railway project.
Devolution is making the public wage bill balloon and former President
<http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/43/Mwai_Kibaki> Mwai
Kibaki's tax-and-spend policies are still feeding through the economy.
One year ago, the threats were all external. It was the ICC and the
challenge of Odinga on the rostrums. Out of Parliament and government,
Odinga is a much-reduced figure although he presents a potential threat to
Kenyatta in 2017. It is the enemy within that is Kenyatta's main concern.
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