Every country has its own challenges. Most of it driven by the traditional politics and values. These challenges range from economic, security, culture or political. They lead to poor quality of life and unnecessary loss of lives.
Kenya is unique. Our country espoused eradication of poverty, ignorance and disease as a rallying call since independence. Unfortunately, progressive mismanagement by successive regimes has not been helping things, they have just made them worse. Public hospitals are death traps, our public schools are poorly facilitated and tertiary education is becoming impossible to access. Entrenched exorbitant taxation with poor business environment has created a great mass of poor unemployed hustlers. The majority have become sickly, poor and illiterate.
Bad politics and leadership. The politics that has been in existence since independence that does not appreciate professionals. Politics that devalues professionalism. Politics that does not appreciate skills. Politics that kills hard work and meritocracy. That is where the rain has been hitting hard and destroying the country. We underpay professionals and reward unprofessional leaders. The country is paying the price through recurrent labor disputes.
We need a permanent solution to these recurrent strikes. The patchy nature the elected leaders are proposing will not solve the problem. Health workers are intelligent and understand their worth and mandate. Arm-twisting, intimidation and threats will only embolden the strike. The attempt at making professionals collateral damage in an economy bleeding from corruption may not succeed. They can only succeed in suppressing them for sometime but with consequences.
Making health workers to be the beasts of burdens to carry the weight of mismanagement and corruption in the country is impunity. Its a vain attempt at dehumanizing and belittling excellence. We may not know what might come out of this, but I suspect mass exodus of skills to other countries. An alternative way the government would handle the situation is by providing free adequate basic needs to the workers. They may then make the low payments they propose. It would work in a socialist/communist state. But in a purely capitalist society like ours where everyone has to fight for himself, the government cannot purport to underpay employees. It is even bad when the top people are living extravagantly.
The solution that the country needs is a radical revolution by completely new leadership. Ideologists. People who are not stained or mentored by the current leaders. A new crop who will bring radical ideologies to the table and enforce them to bring about true progress and development.
This new leadership needs to create a system that promotes innovation, support talent, encourages manufacturing, creates employment, order and security for everyone.
The strikes by health workers is just a tip in the iceberg of the wrong inclination and lopsided priorities of our countries leadership both nationally and locally.
It has only been magnified by the current regime that is composed of clueless people with an extreme deficit of ideology. An attempt to mix socialist ideologies with capitalism.
