Sunday, December 13, 2015

Publish or die.

Raila Odinga is a like a Jedi Master. He has managed to make the President's anti-corruption war all about him. He has so discombobulated the Jubilee Alliance that the ruling alliance's members simply don't have a rational way of taking him n except threaten the doyen of Opposition Politics with "dire consequences" and sundry other bad things. Mr Odinga, in his own inimitable way, has gotten under the Jubilee Alliance's skin, and that itch is becoming a full-blown rash.

When he orchestrated the resignation of the former cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning, Jubilee had more or less uttered the Kimunyan "over my dead body." He did it using Shaka's, of the Zulu fame, two-pronged flank attack by training not just the CORD's guns on the former minister, but key members of the Jubilee team's too. She was the darling of the presidency: keen, hardworking, intelligent, youthful and got things done. She most likely had nothing to do with the loss of the 791 million that is missing from the National Youth Service's coffers, but that matters little because she had said she wouldn't resign, the president had said she wouldn't resign, his party had said she wouldn't resign, but resign she did.

Mr Odinga alleges that there is something amiss with the sovereign bond Kenya floated on the Irish Stock Exchange. The explanations from the National Treasury have not done much to inspire confidence that the issuance of the sovereign bond is on the up and up. Nor have the self-conscious shrieks from the presidency or the ruling alliance. There is a fear abroad in the alliance that if the former Prime Minister has trained his guns on the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary, there is a slight chance that he too will be forced from office. This is an embarrassment that the alliance would like to avoid at all costs.

That says something about the people making decisions in government: few of them have the measure of Mr Odinga. He has them in a corner but they can still get out of it if they are smart. Panicky reactions, like the Jamhuri Day addresses, will not do. Knee-jerk reactions, like the ones by the alliance's parliamentary leadership, are a waste of time. They need to take on Mr Odinga in the one arena where he is vulnerable: messaging and propaganda. It will also require the kind of tough decisions that they have been unwilling to take so far.

The Eurobond was undoubtedly a success. It was oversubscribed and priced at a very competitive interest rate. Everything after its issue was wrongly handled. Being the first one Kenya has ever issued, the main aim should have been to keep everything on the up and up. Accountability and transparency were jettisoned in the mad rush to get things done. That was the same mistake the former devolution minister made and it cost her her job. So far the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary has done a piss-poor job of explaining things. It is only a matter of time before the presidency has to consider the viability of letting him go and finding a new minister.

More importantly, every scrap of paper that has anything to do with the Eurobond must be published. Mr Odinga wins when the presidency instinctively retreats to secrecy and threats by the anti-corruption commission, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the the parliamentary leadership of the ruling alliance. That secrecy gives Mr Odinga the opportunity to say that Kenyans are being swindled. Publish everything and he loses the oxygen for his fires. Keep things secret and Mr Odinga thrives. If the ruling alliance is not careful, its penchant for secrecy will cost them another minister. Losing seven ministers in one five-year term is not an appealing prospect. Losing two to resignations is a disaster. But doing so because of Mr Odinga's machinations will be catastrophic. Like they tell doctoral candidates, publish or die!

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