Please, first things first.

In the ongoing tussle between the citizens of Kenya and the government which is trying to raise its revenue while the mwananchi is trying to survive, the two positions are totally understandable. Government needs to raise funds to cater for services, but then again, it needs to be frugal in its expenditure. It would be in order to point out some pertinent issues that need not be obliterated by the dust that is bound to be raised by all the busybodies who are clamoring to be seen to represent the cornered mwananchi. I'm holding my breath to see how the Jubilee coalition in the National Assembly is going to help check the government and the complementary maneuvers from the CORD coalition.

When the politicians promise wananchi 'goodies' during electioneering periods, they are cheered on and no one goes the next step to question how the 'goodies' will be paid for or whether they are 'freebies'. The last electioneering period offered us a very appropriate forum to interrogate the candidates and their policies, unfortunately most of us were fixated by the very idea of being able to question the aspirants and lost sight of the intended objective. We dwelt too much on the hype of the moments during the debates and gave little or no attention to the core issues at hand-income versus expenditure in our national and county budgets.

The Jubilee coalition had promised laptop computers to all children entering Std One once elected and most of us cheered them for this but did not question them how they were going to fund this project. We even lost sight of the fact that the said children were mostly starving or on the verge of starvation. They are studying under trees for lack of classrooms and are poorly sheltered at home. Surely, had we been a little sober in our deliberations with our leaders, we would have sought to feed, cloth and shelter these kids before giving them the laptops. We would have learnt that the Jubilee two did not have a concrete strategy for funding their policies without increasing the taxation base and this does not in anyway imply that their CORD opponents had anything better or credible to offer.

During the debates, everything was painted rosy red, honey yellow, and all the other colours of the competing coalitions. The resulting kaleidoscopic display dazzled and hypnotized most of us into the euphoria of voting without thinking. Now, we are all bitter that the first order of business by the newly elected leaders was to raise the national and county wage bills without disclosing where or how the funds will be obtained. We are witnessing a near-dysfunctional nation due to supremacy turf wars between the National Assembly and the Senate, get-rich-quick leaders bent only to lining their pockets before the next elections,  and inoperable county governments due to direction-less county executives and representatives.

While the mwananchi is being forced to dig deeper into pockets that are already empty, just to feed and cloth, we see blatant extravagance by both national and county governments; spending nonsensical figures to pamper retired leaders with freebies while we are paying hefty retirement packages, the fuel guzzlers of yesteryears are back on our roads ferrying the leaders, We need to tax all items of luxury fullest, including the unnecessarily expensive vehicles used by our politicians before even considering taxing the basic necessities like maize meal, rice, 'mafuta taa', farm inputs, etc
And could someone please correct the spelling on the Deputy President's podium..