Public service has lost meaning, it should be changed to ‘self-service’

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”

The American civil rights icon’s quote was repeated to a group pursuing religious unity at a recent roundtable discussion by a member, Dr Ng’ang’a Gichumbi. And it is apt as the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) is locked in a legal tussle with MPs over the latter’s self-allocated Sh250,000 house allowance on top of a Sh20 million mortgage. So hell-bent are the lawmakers on retaining the house allowance — condemned by its critics as illegal — that they have sworn to use whatever means, including reducing the SRC’s perks, to maintain the status quo.

Although there is something equally wrong with the commissioners’ Sh1 million monthly allowance for part-time services, the problem with the MPs’ approach to the issue is its motive. Why did the SRC’s pay become an issue only after they contested the MPs’ allowance?

The SRC may have forgotten that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Still, that does not change the fact that the MPs’ act is grossly unjust. Their threat to slash the commissioners’ perks is both vindictive and infantile. It betrays a modus operandi that is irrational and guided by moods.

Do the MPs know that public servants’ salaries — specifically those of top civil servants — make a mockery of the word ‘service’? An internet search of the meaning of ‘service’ brings up “an act of serving, occupation of an attendant servant”, a term dating back to around 1200AD that defines “assistance, help; a helpful act” like “provision of food”.

Going by the obnoxious salaries and other perks of top civil servants and employees of constitutional institutions, public service might as well be renamed “self-service”!

Kenyans go to the polls periodically to supposedly elect ‘servant-leaders’. Sadly, those that they elect end up picking tribesmen, cronies and relatives to join in looting public coffers. So, instead of providing justice for all, the political leadership is caught up in frenzied grabbing of whatever they can lay their hands on during their tenure.

These are among the issues the International Ecumenical Movement – Kenya, whose membership includes Justice Lee Muthoga, is grappling with.

At the roundtable, a keynote speaker addressed the topic, “Towards Justice for All in the Society: Socio-Economic, Religious and Environmental Justice in Kenya”. “Why justice for all?” Fr Peter Mbaro posed.

The senior lecturer and director of the Centre for Social Justice and Ethics at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) strove to explain accusations levelled at the Church, that it has abandoned its preferential option for the poor and is cavorting with the high and mighty. In the ongoing MPs-SRC debacle, the Church has been largely silent.

Fr Mbaro explained: “…whenever the Church raises her voice [on] issues of justice, there are voices… especially politicians and political groups, that tend to silence [it] by calling her to remain at the pulpit and preach the Gospel.” But can the Church afford to be silenced amid injustice?

To paraphrase Dr King, the Church cannot be concerned about souls when it doesn’t bother about the faithful’s harsh economic conditions. MPs seem to be oblivious of this, hence their greed, which the Church should lead in condemning. Shouldn’t it be either the house allowance or the mortgage? Shouldn’t championing voters’ welfare be MPs’ priority?

Do they have any conscience?

It is about time the Church lived its mission of liberating the poor from oppressive socioeconomic structures and systems. “It has to walk with the poor,” to quote Fr Mbaro, who notes that, although there is no ‘justicenometer’ to “measure and demonstrate how just or unjust our society is… issues of justice and injustice are on the lips of every Kenyan”.

Ms Kweyu is a consultant revise editor at the ‘Daily Nation’.; @KweyuZita