Cost and impact of public projects must concern us

If Kenya were a serious country with serious institutions, tables would be turning on the heat of the ‘Vampire Diaries’ that details launched but undone projects.

Unfortunately, things seem to be moving on as usual, yet the revelations are just a tip of the iceberg. This matter of launching projects and making promises for the camera is a curse not limited to the top leadership. It is also in the private sector and non-governmental sectors.

For instance, the annual NGO report for the year 2021/2022 revealed Kenya received over Sh130 billion in donations from various agencies. Can the amount be accounted for? Are the projects serving the intended purpose? What about the business world? Don’t employees benefit from some projects they invest their employees in?

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There is an assumption that the anger should only be on undone projects. The truth is we will need even more accountability for the corruption of funds in completed ones. For instance, businessman Jimi Wanjigi has argued convincingly that cost of the Standard Gauge Railway may be several times more than the initial cost.

By the time it was completed, the project had gobbled up close to Sh500 billion. According to news reports attributed to some leaked documents, of the project cost, over a Sh1 billion was budgeted for planting grass and another Sh1.4 billion for a chain link fence. Digital voice recorders were said to have been acquired at Sh341,000, while they can cost as low as Sh3,000.

That aside, the 28-story Bunge Towers began at the cost of Sh5.6 billion and was completed 15 years later at a total cost of Sh9.6 billion.

The cost at which some roads have been built has been questioned before. We have another multibillion-dollar road in the pipeline between Nairobi and Mombasa. The over 470km ‘Usahihi’ project is budgeted to cost 3.6 billion dollars.

In auditing, the question should never be just about numbers. There must be an element of return on investment visa a vee attendant costs. Can we then say Kenya is in dire need of a multilane highway between Nairobi and Mombasa? Who is to benefit the most from such project?

A project meant for good must first be completed in time and have the intended user involved in its implementation.

Many of the white elephant projects are not necessarily so because they were not useful but because they were undertaken under a faulty top-down development model and thus the users never bought in.

That is where we have giant market stalls remaining unutilised. We have more lined up under the bottom-up economic approach. The bottom-up aspect of it means it is the traders who should tell the government a market built in a certain design and within a certain location.

They know their customers better than the government. BETA must not be just a beautifully coined phrase for impressive speeches but to truly deliver the much-needed change.