Mzee Savalanga

Father | Husband | Leader
Nguvu Mpya | Kasi Mpya

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

“But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain —and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.”
Exodus 18:21

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

@citizentvkenya Don't tell us about @HonJBMuturi , stop sycophantic thinking. We need all abductions ended. Produce all abducted men

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

@citizentvkenya @KoinangeJeff @citizentvkenya this man is a sycophant.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

@FGaitho237 Weeuh wamefika wapi

[Dr. Ekuru Aukot @EAukot]

The #RiggyG saga. This Judge, yours truly and the finest from the north, is saying it as is. You want something said boldly without fear? Look for a nomad.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

Abra K

[Samwel Wekesa @bungomaduke]

@citizentvkenya Someone should remind Ongoya that the Senate is not a court room. This is a political matter with political Interests.
His friend will be impeached tomorrow..
Whatever is happening is a just a formality. Decision has been made.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

This presser has turned into such wealthy emotional blackmail and manipulation. Now it's boring.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

Drama festivals. Finals tomorrow in the National Assembly, and the Gala at the Senate.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

Using the dead for sympathy… I don’t know how to feel about that… Wueh siasa is not for the faint hearted

[Bonnie Mwangi, CPA, LLM, MBA @MwangiBonnie]

My fellow Kenyans,

About a week ago, I told you that my next County to review would be Nakuru County. I also told you, around the same time, that I was analyzing how all county governments are using (or, more appropriately, misusing) tax revenue allocations.

I appreciate the opportunity I have to be able to use this platform to provide much needed civic education to my compatriots.

Corruption is a cancer that is devouring our country right before our very eyes. It destroys everything in its wake. It robs innocent children of an opportunity to attain a decent education. It deprives innocent citizens of the right to basic services such as access to healthcare, security, and a functioning government. Our country, and the vast majority of its citizens, will not achieve their potential if we allow this deadly cancer to continue to devour our country.

I am sure you know that I dedicate so much of my time to fighting this scourge. We all should do it, because I believe that while we have different talents and strengths, all those diverse talents and strengths, while marshalled together, can and will defeat corruption.

And while we are very much aware of the danger that corruption poses to our country, there is a brother to corruption that lurks underneath the surface, and in the shadows, but is equally, IF NOT MORE, as deadly as corruption.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about INCOMPETENCE, corruption’s diabolical brother.

And so today, I want to devote more of my attention to addressing corruption’s diabolical brother, Incompetence, as opposed to spending so much time discussing Corruption. I will post about my review of Nakuru County’s corruption later in the week coming up.

A couple of important notes:

One: As I always say, 100% of the information I use here is in the public domain. 100%. The people I refer to here are aware of it, or should be aware of it.

Two: For purposes of highlighting the impact of Incompetence in our country, I have taken and analyzed the expenditure of all our 47 counties for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. The question I am trying to answer is the following, as I review this data: Who is the current system of government serving? Is it mwananchi, or the politician? That’s the profound that I am trying to answer.

Three: Here, I define “Incompetence” as “ineptitude”, or simply, dumb, stupid, or imbecilic behavior. Sadly, the vast majority of our “leaders” fit in this category like a glove on your hand.

Four: I summarize my findings for all counties in attachments 2-4. As you review, please remember that data is in “millions”. For example, when the Budget of Turkana is shown as KSH 17,924, this is 17,924 million, which equals 17.924 billion.

To get started, I want to set the stage by reminding you of where we are as a country in terms of our economy, because that is the backdrop to our entire discourse. That is the context.

Take a look at Attachment 1. That attachment has three pictures in it. The first one at the top is a summary of our fiscal behavior (or misdemeanor) over much of the last decade. Remember, while our new constitution is from 2010, the implementation of it is only about ten years old.

What I want you to note from that picture and the one right below it is that that every single year since we have had this structure of government, we have run a budget deficit of approximately KSH 1 trillion every year. In other words, we spend more money than we make as a country, to the tune of KSH 1 trillion. We are therefore adding about KSH 1 trillion annually onto the liability side of our balance sheet.

That is debt we incur to maintain our lifestyles, as opposed to development.

The next thing I want you to note (while it is not shown on any picture) is that we have been sending approximately KSH 400 billion to the counties every year, as part of the “devolution”.

So, if we are borrowing KSH 1 trillion annually to support our lifestyle, which includes maintaining and funding a structure of government that is ridiculous and nonsensical, like sending KSH 400 to the counties and “hoping for the best”, it follows that 100% of this money we are sending is borrowed money. You agree? Please remember that once we send the money, there is absolutely, positively, no mechanism in place to ensure fiscal discipline, or that the money won't be spent on debauchery.

So now, every year, we take a credit card and hand it to our 47 children, the vast majority of whom are barely adults in temperament, who have demanded to be allowed to go out and play adult, but with our dime. They are adults in name only, and will not show the maturity and discipline expected of adults. But they insist on being treated like ones.

At this point, you are wondering what am getting at, so let me help you.

You see, in our system of government, we have 47 counties and a national government. In this system, our 47 counties receive from the national government the equivalent of 15% of the national budget, designed to “devolve services and development” to the counties. But my review of how this “devolution” reveals a hellish state of affairs.

The first issue with this arrangement is that it is purely a figment of someone’s imagination that a certain geographic area should be a Self-governing County.

This is what I mean. I live in Texas, one of the states in the US. Texas has an economy that is 2.3 trillion US dollars. That economy is bigger than the economy of Canada, and virtually all Europeans countries. In fact, if Texas was a country, its economy would be the 8th largest in the world.

To manage an economy like this, Texas, a state with 30 million people, needs to have elected officers to help manage the state’s affairs, as it competes with other states in the Union. That is why Texas has 181 politicians in its Senate and House. And it makes sense, does it not?

Texas, like the vast majority of US States, virtually funds all its expenditures (the state receiving most help from the Federal Government is Montana, and it receives only 30% budgetary support).

So, let’s take a tour of our Counties and see how they are doing in that regard.

But before that, let me some numbers on the table, from my analysis, to frame the discussion.

KSH 1 trillion. This is the amount of debt we are adding to our balance sheet every year to support our system of government, and the lifestyles of our politicians.

KSH 400 billion. Average allocation to the counties, which is 15% of our national budget.

6%. The average County is only able to support 6% of it’s annual budget, meaning it has to be supported by you and me, and a small number of international grants. A great many counties can only support 1% of their budgets, despite receiving more than KSH 100 billion in allocations in ten years. For example. For the year under review, Turkana had a budget of KSH 17.9 billion, but could only raise KSH 178 million of it, or 1%.

32%. Of all our counties, the County that supports itself the most is Nairobi, which in 2022, bore 32% of its costs.

6. Only 6 of our counties bear more than 10% of their annual expenditures. That is Nairobi, Mombasa, Narok, Laikipia, Machakos, Kiambu, and Embu.

10%. 10% of the county budget amount, on average across the country, is consumed by the County’s MCAs, who number between 20 and 125 at the most. This means that on average, less than 0.005% of the population in a county is consuming 10% of the budget, right off the bat. Please refer to Column B in attachments 2-4.

20,572. On average, there is an MCA for every 20,572 people. For context, in Texas, there is a representative/senator for every 166,000 Texans. Think about that ridiculous level of over-representation.

KSH 38 billion. Our 47 counties combined in 2022, were only able to raise KSH 38 billion within the county (“own source revenue”) (Column E of attachments 2-4).

KSH 43 billion. Our county assemblies, with 2,227 members, consumed KSH 43 billion of the budget by themselves. Think about that. This is more money than all Counties spent on "Development" projects.

KSH 21 million. Across the country, every MCA is associated with KSH 21 million in costs to the citizens, every year. Stop for a second, and ask yourself, what is the value that your MCAs offer to you.

KSH 2 billion. During the year under review, our counties spent KSH 2 billion on “foreign travel”. Virtually all this travel is wasteful, and I give an example of Turkana below.

KSH 15.3 billion. During the year under review, our counties spent KSH 15.3 billion on “domestic travel”. Some counties spent 10% of their budget on such travel, such as Migori.

KSH 7.9 billion. Our county politicians including governors and MCAs allocated themselves KSH 7.9 billion in 2022 for just cars and mortgages, on the back of citizens making less than KSH 20,000 per month in income. KSH 7.9 billion.

KSH 1.3 billion. Our MCAs across the country, earned an additional KSH 1.3 billion in “sitting allowances” during the year under review, over and above their already inflated salaries.

KSH 6.7 billion. Our 47 counties, having spent KSH 2 billion on foreign travel, KSH 15.3 billion on domestic travel, KSH 7.9 billion on cars and mortgages, and KSH 1.3 billion on MCA allowances, allocated only KSH 6.7 billion on “education/bursary programs” in their ALL 47 counties. That’s right, for every shilling they spent on education or bursaries, they spent 3 on travel. And they spent more money on their cars and mortgages than they did on education/bursaries in all counties.

The above data is enough to reasonably conclude that:

1) Most “Counties” have no business being “Self-governing counties”. Frankly, if you can only support 1% or 3% or 5% of your budget, you don’t get to play adult, with other people's money. The same thing I would tell any child of mine who wants to call daddy every time there is a bill in front of them. That is point number one.
2) We are a seriously over-represented people, which itself speaks to incompetence. What justification do our politicians have, for insisting that we pay them more for doing less than 10% of what other politicians do in developed countries? A representative in Texas is representing an average of 166,000 people, and in Kenya an MCA is representing roughly 20 thousand. Never mind that these counties have absolutely no economy or real affairs to manage!
3) We have a catastrophic level of incompetence in terms of the management of our resources and prioritization. Let’s not sugarcoat it. A poor country, which is adding KSH 1 trillion in debt annually, spending KSH 2 billion in foreign travel for things like to learn about poverty in Dubai is dumb as hell. No two ways about it. To spend KSH 15 billion in domestic travel when the average citizen makes KSH 20,000 per month is dumb as hell, and almost criminal. To spend KSH 7.9 billion on cars for politicians who are already highly compensated, and then only spend KSH 6.7 billion on education is beyond incompetent and shameful.

With that out of the way, I will proceed to pick on Turkana just to demonstrate the sheer stupidity of what we are doing today.

Let’s put some numbers on the table for Turkana.

Population: 900,000 (approx.)
Average annual income: KSH 129, 040
Budget Size: KSH 17.9 billion, of which the county can only raise KSH 178 million locally.
Poverty rate: 80%
Literacy rate: 20%

With the above in mind, let us look at how County leaders in Turkana spent their billions.

KSH 1 billion on 48 MCAs. That is the equivalent is 21 million per MCA! Remember, unlike those representatives in Texas who have to work to manage, and help develop the economy that is 21 times bigger than the entire economy of Kenya, these MCAs in Turkana have absolutely no economy to manage. The entire economy is only able to bring in KSH 178 million per year, much of which is from slaughterhouse fees, cess, or market fees. We have spent KSH 100 billion to establish a slaughterhouse and market operation that makes KSH 178 million per year, but which has a budget of KSH 18 billion. That is what we have here.

KSH 38 million in Foreign Travel. To some “interesting” places, such as:

Sending 63 members of the Governor’s team to Ethiopia for “stakeholders peace forum”, which cost you and I KSH 20 million.

Sending 26 members of the Governor’s team to Uganda for “consultative meeting”, which cost you and I KSH 6.5 million.

Sending 5 members of the Governor’s team to Uganda for “opening of the Kamion-Oropui road”, which cost you and I KSH 1.8 million.

Sending 4 members of the Governor’s team to Dubai for, please sit down first, “facilitation for receiving food donation”, which cost you and I a cool KSH 1.2 million.

They spent KSH 1.145 billion, with a freaking B, for domestic travel. This is roughly 4 times the average spend by any county on domestic travel, nationally. What the heck is going on in Turkana? What is going on?

KSH 148 million on cars and mortgages for Governor, Deputy and MCAs. In one year.

6 million in MCA allowances.

KSH 386 million in bursaries, for close to a million people. In other words, they spend three times as much on travel than they allocated for education for close to a million citizens!

Folks, this is not the behavior of competent leadership. It is not the behavior of genuine public servants. It is not the behavior of people with common sense and the fundamental decency we like to associate with human beings.

This is the behaviors of idiots and criminals.

You cannot tell me that spending KSH 1.3 billion for domestic travel in Turkana is acceptable, when the vast majority of the citizens earn less than KSH 10,000 a month. How is that even possible?

And so, in this country today, when you ask questions such the ones am asking, you become public enemy number one. You become a traitor. You are called treasonous.

I have said before that our country is on the precipice of total collapse. We are on the way to becoming Haiti or Somalia.

I know that it is easy to dismiss such an assessment as overly dramatic, but I challenge you to ask how such countries ended where they are.

In our country today, politicians go in and steal what is often 20% of the budget outright. They pay themselves another 20-30% of the reminder in salaries and very generous benefits.

Then they use the vast majority of the reminder on cars, official mansions, and almost non-stop travel across the country and indeed the globe, at the expense of people who are trying to eek an existence.

Governor’s in this country are spending millions to go to Dubai to learn about “poverty”, instead of opening their damn windows and seeing the utter poverty that is eating up their citizens. Others are spending millions to fly to Dubai to “accept food donations”.

The stupidity of these politicians is beyond comprehension. It is diabolical. You will never make sense of it, in a million years.

I have not even talked about, and won’t need to, talk about what they spend on building their mansions, or paying themselves.

I use Turkana to give a picture of what is happening across the country. The picture we see here in terms of the brazenness, the callousness, the incompetence, the stupidity, is virtually the same story in every county in Kenya.

Spend a little bit of time on Attachments 2-4, and pick any county, and you will see the behavior is virtually identical. It speak to a diabolical perversion of what it means to be public servants.

And so, where do we go from here?

The most important thing to remember is that we have nobody else to look up to, other than ourselves. Nobody. We are on own. Politicians have cut a deal in State House and country clubs to protect themselves and are trying to insist that we continue playing this game that is obviously rigged. We have to reject this game and this system with all our might. We won’t take it. We will not.

We need to organize and strategize. We need to look these criminals in the eye and hit them with the truth right between the eyes and tell they we won’t stand for this. Not any longer.

@EAukot @MigunaMiguna @OkiyaOmtatah @ledamalekina @NationBreaking @citizentvkenya @HillaryGondi @MoGAbdi @daniel_muli @WilliamsRuto @rigathi @KenyaGovernors @TurkanaCountyKE @Senate_KE @NAssemblyKE

[Kones. @BCherich]

4.31 carats (0.862grams)of Tsavorite goes for $8400. Damn. Kenya is rich.

Among others, this is just a single mineral being mined behind Citizens' backs. Listen to the end

[James Ole Kiyiapi @JamesOleKiyiapi]

@ProfKibwana @RailaOdinga Many believed in his reform credentials now made plainly clear that this was all about him. A very painful truth for millions who believed the promise, that a Nation devoid of cronyism was the goal. BUT we hold the belief, a new Nation will still arise, hope never disappoints!

[Gabriel Oguda @gabrieloguda]

And you people still say you have a country.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

TUESDAY

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

@PropesaTV Killing justified

[The Government Critic 🇰🇪 @magwaz3]

No recycling of leaders

Aden Duale - NO
Davis Chirchir - NO
Kithure Kindiki - NO
Soipan Tuya - NO
Alice Wahome - NO
Rebecca Miano - NO

Tupatane Tuesday 23rd July. #RutoMustGo

[utd Sigilai @Ndizi_Aii]

The supremacy of the people and supremacy of the constitution. Tupatane Tuesday.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

“Any killer cop who who went beyond what is provided for by law…” at what point does the law allow killing

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

@C_NyaKundiH He can only send it back with reservations which should be addressed to by Parliament.
That's all.

[Mzee Savalanga @savalanga]

Fellow Kenyans ,

The CoK states If he doesn't assent to a Bill passed by Parliament, it automatically becomes law within 21 days. There is no provision for withdrawal of a bill by the President once passed by Parliament.
@C_NyaKundiH