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Our law makers, besides debating and passing bills have the mandate to represent their constituents and nothing explains proper representation than ensuring they get appropriate service delivery from especially national institutions. Unfortunately, most of our MPs and Senators have never grasped the work cut-out for them. Now that the ICC issue has been put to rest - which pre-occupied our lawmakers so much - let’s revisit this matter of service delivery.
It’s becoming common to have individuals heading different sectors grilled by relevant parliamentary committees for a few hours and then go back to the usual mundane way of doing things. No wonder corruption is still alive and well despite the numerous interrogations of culprits by our lawmakers.
How can Parliament go beyond mere summoning and compiling reports and actually affect positively service delivery? And why is it appearing impossible to have proper service delivery in public institutions, especially after devolution? Already, Mathari hospital, the only referral psychiatric hospital is operating at double its capacity.
It’s not just hospitals, Kenyans and the country in general is losing billions of shillings unnecessarily because of shoddy road constructions. The Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) had to order a contractor to rebuild a road diversion on Mombasa-Nairobi highway to save what KeNHA refers to as “regional economies”. The decision came after commuters and transporters wasted 16 hours on the road.
Chaotic scenarios are brought about by lawlessness and lack of proper policy that can be adhered to for purposes of ensuring proper service delivery. While these disorders are also as a result of the public’s inability to operate within the limits of the law (read: payment of bribes for services); it is largely because of the helplessness and inability to see rule of law observed with regard to the service.
The mission and vision statements in most public institutions are therefore mere public relations stunts and reflect not an iota of truth. Perhaps if our MPs also used the same services as the people they represent they may be interested in articulating issues around service delivery. For example: It doesn’t make sense to get services from a private hospital but claim to champion for better services in a public hospital.
If law makers are unable to ensure proper service delivery to the people besides calling individuals for questioning without follow-up then perhaps it is time the public exercised their power through the constitution. The clause that any candidate seeking to represent the people through the County Assembly, National Assembly or Senate utilizes the same services as the people they represent should be added. That should also be extended to their families, including the schools their children attend.
Only then shall we have a guarantee that those vying for office are inspired by leadership rather than the perks that come with the office, otherwise this hypocrisy by our law makers will continue and sooner than later we shall begin to accept these poor services as the best we can have.
In the same breadth, feel free to give us your thoughts on how better we can handle service delivery in public institutions.
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