Emeka-Mayaka Gekara Sunday Nation "One of the more shocking habits we have as a country is the overzealousness with which we throw away what we have and go begging the following day. The other is our sense of priorityIt is possible you may not have read this. In April more than 300 kidney patients sued the government for failure to provide adequate dialysis equipment for their treatment. There are 20 dialysis machines at the KNH, but 14 have broken down. Yet this is the same country which charters a plane for millions to deport three criminal suspects to Nigeria. Technocrats budget Sh700 million to buy an office for a former president, who is yet to occupy a Sh500 million retirement home, built by taxpayers.The money requested for the office could buy seven cancer treatment machines. All this after Deputy President William Ruto returned from a begging trip in Japan and persuaded taxpayers to invest their Sh30 billion for expansion of our port. The British on Thursday added Sh4.2 billion into the project.Then there is the small matter of Sh53 billion allocated for the purchase of laptops. History has shown that even the best of leaders can make a “computer error”. The challenge is to prevent a repeat.This is a scandal waiting to happen. To execute such a project, you need to develop software, train teachers and install required infrastructure such as electricity or solar power in schools. The speed with which the project is being pushed is suspicious. There is simply no infrastructure today for such an investment. As one able MP asked, how can you provide laptops if classrooms are not “tarmacked”? If you go to most of our rural schools, he said, “most of them have jiggers”.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 06:40:33 +0000
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