Nathan Okowa, a construction manager, author and Director at Beacon Africa/HANDOUTThe government recently stated via a Cabinet memo that all professional organisations currently categorised as State Corporations will be declassified and will no longer receive government funding.
It is going to sound strange, but I cannot help agreeing with this Cabinet direction. I say strange because I have hardly agreed with this administration's major decisions.
I have incessantly been writing articles bashing most of the government’s decisions. Today, rightfully so, we find ourselves on the same side. So, why do I think this is a good idea?
First, let me confess that I have a penchant for disrupting status quos. It is probably a bias; however, I believe that Global South countries like ours will only change course if we boldly disrupt the norms.
We have done so much the same way, in virtually every sector, over and over with modest results. We need to change how things are done, and there is no better way to start than with the professionals—the country’s lungs from which it must not only breathe but grow.
There could be other reasons for declassification and defunding of professional bodies; however, my raison d'être is that this move returns professional bodies to the members.
Most government-regulated professional bodies are in the shackles of ‘old-guard thinking.’
They are under the spell of a cabal with philosophical dreams of absurd utopia—an elitist deep state—whose only interest is to see the status quo maintained to preserve their self-interest. Members hardly have any say in how the bodies are run or governed.
Most of the professional body's board members lack the most important basic qualification for serving on these boards:A deep love for the professions.
Look at the people against this decision; they have an immaculate common denominator—they are the establishment.
The crux qualification to be appointed to the professional board is your connection to the government and your lobbying potential to the Cabinet Secretary.
These professional body boards have become an elitist rotational club. The profession's core matters are usually, unfortunately, relegated.
Defunding of these bodies, in my view, returns accountability to the members.
The lethargic, do what you want, and I don’t care attitude that is synonymous with government professional bodies will begin to cease as professionals can begin to regulate themselves.
The monotonous bench-marking trips luxuries and retreats will cease as members tighten on the need for financial accountability and living within their means.
I rejoice that for once, in the goodness of time, members will decide who sits on these boards and even more importantly who chairs the boards.
Talk to any professional who is a member of these bodies and you won’t miss a ranting on the exorbitant mandatory fees they charge and their profound wastefulness. It has to come to an end!
The cynics, on the other hand, postulate that this move by the government will cripple these bodies. I ask, how? That somehow these professionals are incapable of regulating themselves without government funding.
We must remind them that history is replete with examples of self-regulating professions. Then they conflate the meaning of declassification and defunding with abandonment and neglect.
The cabinet memo didn’t state that there won’t be any government involvement going forward, it stated they won’t be able to fund.
The government will still sit on these bodies for the public good. Or even better, the government may still assist the bodies get donor funding. It is feigned ignorance by elitists to continue with the deluging status quo.
About six years ago, while I was the Chairman of the Association of Construction Managers of Kenya, we had an elaborate discussion and agreed with other built environment association leaders that we needed to adopt self-regulation of the professions. And this just didn’t come from us, there was a consensus by all our members that this was going to bring lasting and impactful changes and growth in the professional industry.
I refuse to be persuaded that given a chance Project Managers, Accountants, Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, Architects, Planners, Nurses, etc., are incapable of raising their resources and regulating themselves.
That they would need the eternal cavalry hand of the government to help them do so. The pro-status quo would want us to believe so but these are narcissists with blasphemous self-interest.
The writer is a construction manager, author and Director at Beacon Africa
