In much of Africa, Kenya being a prime
example, bribe and tribe are important variables in politics. The value, many
of us derive from supporting political candidates from our tribe is very much
like what one gets by supporting an English Football club – whether its
Manchester United, Arsenal e.t.c. I would term this value or utility as fanatic
utility. When a club you support wins, one derives some utility in the form of
joy that cannot be converted into real physical value.
The same applies to when a person from your
tribe wins a political seat. Many Kikuyus and Kalenjins may perhaps feel good
about the Uhuru-Ruto win, but in real terms, they will live to enjoy or suffer
from the “Kenyan experience” in the same way as every other Kenyan. Just like
Marketers who have realized the potential that can be exploited in “fanatic
utility,” by advertising during football matches, politicians exploit primal
tribal feelings to advance their own personal or class interests.
They do however facilitate this fanatic
utility through token gifts (i.e. political bribes). The bribes become enablers
of continued tribalization of politics. A more technical term for this
relationship between the political class and the masses is neo-patrimonialism.
Unfortunately neopatrimonialism is so entrenched in African politics.
In real terms, “Fanatical utility” cannot
be converted into real value in the market place. There are times when a few
people close to these politicians get some gifts – political bribes. In our
patron-client kind of politics, these gifts often come from either the inflated
salaries paid to Politian or corrupt deals. Either way, the money comes from
public taxes.
It is the general public who subsidizes the
cost associated with “fanatical utility.” And by public here, we mean everybody
from all tribes. Not many of us are keen
on how much tax we pay each month and each year, hence fail to realize that we
are consistently underwriting the costs of our sub-optimal political
arrangement.
How then do we begin to extricate ourselves
from this situation? One of the ways we can do that is to consistently collect
information on the amount of tax we individually and collectively pay – daily,
weekly and monthly. Every day we pay taxes, for goods and services that we buy.
Those in formal employment, pay income tax
(P.A.Y.E), but also together with those working in the informal sector pay
sales tax – the VAT on goods and services.
Every time we shop in a supermarket, we pay VAT – but very few people
check to see how much that is, or even collect these receipts to see how much
they have paid to the government in a month.
Collecting this information individually
and then asking your friends to do the same is an important personal financial
management exercise. It becomes even more valuable, when you begin to require
of the government to provide services commensurate with the amount of tax it
collects. Very soon, the political class will begin to realize there are no
free lunches. Indeed, if we were to coordinate this activity with full-fledge
budget advocacy (which just means tracking the budgetary allocations against
actual delivered services), we shall have solved very many problems associated
with underdevelopment, marginalization and exclusion.
People like myself, who are forced to live
at the margins of the society through an unfavourable colonially inherited
legal system, begin to question why they should make tax contribution to a
society that disregards their social value. Moreover, it becomes possible to
demonstrate how much we subsidize for the lives of others in the society.
Those living in the mainstream however, are
placed in a privileged position, in which they can actually demand for full
value for their tax contribution.
