Nairobi — Generally speaking, there has been order in managing public resources during President Kibaki's three-year tenure. Illegalities - like allocating land to politically-correct individuals and giving public utilities to private people - have been rare.

But doubts are beginning to emerge. Will this sobriety continue to hold? One case that raises this question is the decision to degazette the Amboseli National Park and return it to the Maasai community.

A national park is an institution which the Government is managing for the public. The Revenues it generates goes to the central Government and thus benefits everybody when used to finance other public services.

This will cease once Amboseli becomes community property, benefiting only those around to it.

Even then, procedures exist for transferring a national park to a community. But none was followed in returning Amboseli to the Maasai.

The rules were put in place simply to guard against subjective and whimsical decisions by political leaders, who - if left unchecked- are apt to meddle with public utilities to gain certain political advantages..

At a time of deep political tensions, degazettement of a park can only be seen as a desperate attempt to bribe the Maasai into supporting a certain political agenda.

If the plan is allowed to go on, then an extremely dangerous precedent will have been set. Future presidents and ministers will have the justification to change the status of national parks and other public utilities at will.

At any rate, what will now hold other communities from seeking direct ownership of animal parks in their respective neighbourhoods?

And it raises the perennial question of a community's financial and organisational ability to run such an institution - especially faced with the local governments' dismal failure to manage anything successfully.

Game parks are at the heart of Kenya's tourism industry and any action that jeopardises their survival is a direct threat to the sector and to the entire economy.

There are many ways of granting favours. Using a national heritage is not one them. Amboseli, therefore, is a path to disaster.