Empowerment cannot come from bad policy-makers
By Kabii Thuo, July 19, 2025Let’s start by asking and answering a simple question: Who is getting empowered through the handouts from politicians on the government’s side?
The answer is the politicians themselves and never the people.
A quick count of the amounts involved and the actual amounts trickling down to the impoverished citizens exposes an obscene disparity.
The cost of empowering a poor Murang’a household with a meal ration to last a few days is actually enough to build a processing factory that will feed the families forever.
The best empowerment comes from enabling policies and environment for production, wealth creation and overall value for society’s wellbeing.
For instance, the economic realities from taxation to high unemployment and underdevelopment cannot be addressed with a few days of free lunches for the masses.
There are those who would rather get a good market for their agricultural produce or just capital to modernise production for high returns and value addition.
Giving people handouts is highly unsustainable, yet it is the new craze, obviously because it is not voter-centred but politician-centred.
No politician giving any handouts ever cared for policy formulation that would truly empower with dignity and sustainability.
The people themselves have been reduced to beggars, and as the adage goes, beggars are not choosers.
In the end, the politician will make political capital out of a condition they shamelessly thrust at the people that they are actually responsible for leading.
What is true empowerment? Well, we already know what it is not.
It is not exploitation of the poverty of the voter by the politician, but rather a real, well-thought-out economic policy that turns the traditional subsistence farmer into a modern one.
A producer empowered financially and technologically to be able to overcome limitations along the value chains from the farmgate to dinner tables across the country.
Such an empowered rural mass will, in turn, transform the food sector and markets, knocking down food prices and inflation and maybe bad leaders who strive to empower themselves in the name of empowering the people.
Well, we have enough resources, as displayed by the wanton spending on wasteful pursuits by the political class that runs in the hundreds of billions yearly.
We may have the resources, but we do not have the political goodwill and common sense to do the right things the right way and at the right time.
Maybe this is the right place to start the subtle empowerment of the people to rise above the shame of queueing for a kilo of rice and beans from clueless characters in the name of political leaders.
That will be a great day for the Kenyan voter when they will be empowered to disempower the leech class (pun intended) of bad policy-makers.
The writer is an Author and Researcher with an interest in advanced human behaviour