MARK NYAMITA: It’s time to merge parastatals, shut failing ones

There are a number of parastatals whose mandates are duplicated and, for that reason, they are serving the same purpose.

This is not what the parastatals were meant to do.

There has also been a comprehensive report done by a presidential task force about the state-owned firms, which has not been implemented.

The Parastatal Sector Reform Report analysed the role, structure, and performance of parastatals in Kenya, with the sole aim of making appropriate recommendations for reforms.

The report gave an array of reform recommendations that must be gathering dust on government shelves.

I think it is time the government became bold enough to merge these parastatals and collapse the ones that are struggling.

In know, for instance, in the last budget there were a couple of parastatals which were struggling and which were not given any budget, except for salaries.

People were actually waking up in the morning to report to office only to draw salaries at the expense of taxpayers.

They cannot do any training, they cannot do any activity outside the office, but they get salaries and allowances.

Parastatals were not meant to be platforms where people get salaries. They were meant to promote indigenous entrepreneurship, increase citizen participation in the economy and accelerate economic and social development.

The entities were also meant to redress regional economic imbalances as well as promote foreign investments.

This has not been happening in most of the agencies, hence the need to have a critical review of their relevance.

For the ones that are really struggling, the government needs to be bold and rationalise them and only focus on those that make a profit and take care of their bills without support from the Treasury.

The staff of those parastatals should be transferred to their mother ministries, so they can offer services and justify their pay or to parastatals with shortage of staff.

Parastatals cannot be used as platforms for drawing salaries with no value for Kenyans. The earlier this is realised the better for our economy.

Uriri MP spoke to the Star