My thinking of PPP has just got ticked off by a submission of memoranda in the newspaper where “The Basic Education (Amendment) Bill 2017 seeks to amend the Basic Education Act, No. 14 of 2013 to provide for establishment of Public Private Partnership schools, as a category of schools in Kenya apart from public and private schools”
Under the #CurriculumReformsKe I prdict that all public schools will, by 2030, be run by private enterprise. Public-Private School is the true definition of an oxymoron. PPP in Kenya today seems to be the underlying excuse for pathetic public facilities. It seems clearer daily that Kenya’s new Vision 2030 is to privatize everything public.
PPP is not in itself a bad thing. But the way Kenya’s Public Private Partnership is being implemented is neocolonialism. It is being forced on us by a government that is DELIBERATELY collapsing public facilities for private gain. This is evil.
PPP & MEDICAL EQUIPMENT SCHEME (MES)
In #Lipakamatender I predict that all public hospitals will be run by private enterprise by Vision 2030.
The much hyped MES is a perfect example of private gain on public money. When Central Government pushed medical equipment down the County throats the Governors – lead by one Munya fervently rejected equipment and rightly so!. They argued that they did not ask for the equipment and indeed some counties already had the equipment that they were being asked to take. After some time something changed. All of a sudden the equipment was PUSHED to the counties and those who refused were bullied to acceptance. The counties were forced to be repaying the “lease” for equipment they did not ask for despite central government having paid monies in billions to purchase them. Some hospitals for instance were given ultrasound machines (yet they already had functional ones) and had to pay “lease” for them. When the time came to pay back an installment for the “leased” equipment came the Kenya government MISSED paying back. When repayments of a “lease” are missed a penalty called INTEREST is charged on the lessee. INTEREST has already started accruing on the MES. I.e. Kenyans owe the foreign suppliers of MES. Failure to manage industrial action in the medical sector has also meant diminished utility and returns on MES. INTEREST will continue accruing.
With the nurses strike in its 11th day and with no end in site, and with SRC still in office, the MES continues to accrue interest despite it not being utilized. This is a win win for private enterprise because afterall it is public money and who cares about it anyway!
There are many examples today that PPP is being used to siphon public properties to private enterprise. It is happening in medicine and in education, fields that have massive repurcussions on a populace.
What is my point?
Kenyans must wake up and reject deliberate collapsing of public utilities for private gain. PPP should come after the government has done everything in its power to ensure public facilities are running. PPP is the icing on the cake of a public job well done. It is not the alternative.