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Kenya: Portfolio Balance Doesn't Mean Bloat
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
EDITORIAL
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 26 March 2008
Nairobi
While Tuesday's meeting over a new coalition Government ended in disagreement over the control of key ministries, it is encouraging that proposals for a significantly expanded Cabinet - complete with a raft of new junior ministries - were abandoned.
As we have argued here before, a bloated Cabinet that does more to reward political allies than organise Government efficiently is not what the people want or expect.
President Kibaki and Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga face a major political and practical challenge. Keeping to the principles of portfolio balance agreed on under the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement while accommodating political partners and designing an efficient Government will not be easy.
Less than ten days into his first term, Kibaki argued convincingly that a 15-man Cabinet was all that was needed for effective service delivery.
However, political considerations and the need to balance ethnic representation led to a Cabinet close to twice as large.
While it was not perfect, this pre-Referendum Narc coalition Cabinet largely dealt with both the ethnic and political issues.
Its crucial flaw, seen with the benefit of hindsight, was in how it shared out the most powerful ministries.
We believe a broadly representative Cabinet is possible without enlarging the team too much. Early proposals for a bigger team are disconcerting given the large public service wage bill.
While an argument could be made for breaking up the Ministry of Education, for instance, especially given planned increases in its budget and activities under Vision 2030, some of the other proposals for enlargement seem unnecessary.
The development of the Greater Nairobi area and the implementation of Vision 2030 hardly require fully-fledged ministries.
Get things done
Neither does national cohesion and harmony. Given the administrative burden extra ministries bring, new Cabinet positions must be justified by practical considerations and not just a need to accommodate more members.
Portfolio balance is more critical, both to demonstrate there is real power-sharing and to avoid Government paralysis.
Just as the fear of paralysis should not harden Kibaki's position on crucial co-ordinating ministries, the sharing of power should not lead to a Government that cannot get anything done.
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Balance and action are only possible where the Orange Democratic Movement and the Party of National Unity/ODM-Kenya coalition are more interested in working together than in blocking each other. Without it, the danger we warned of last week - that grand coalitions tend to squabble and get little done - could see any Cabinet become a formula for stalemate.
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