UHURU AND MUTHAURA STED-ASIDE

I was talking to a friend over the weekend about some business we want to start when the issue of management game up. My friend was of the opinion that if countries were run as companies, maybe we would not be having the problems we have in many of our governments globally.

Talking of company-like-run-countries, he said that every country should have specific objectives that it pursues. In addition to that, the managers of this country, in this case the political leaders we have, should be gauged according to how efficient they are in resource use and how effective they are in achieving the objectives the country sets for itself both in the short term and in the long term.

This idea pushed me to thinking and I realized that each country has its own prime objectives which it calls its national interests. However, the managers of the country are never accountable since the national interest in many occasions, is unknown to the common citizens who are the shareholders of this country-company. 

Dwelling still on the company; we all know that when the managers of the company are caught up in misconduct, the company has to suspend them at least to allow for investigations to clear their names. If the managers fail to pave way for free and fare investigations and stick to their posts with their bad reputations, the company if listed in the NSE or even Wall Street, will end up being punished by the market and the value of its stock will go dwindling down. Sometimes the market may react even to rumours of bad reputation for managers of a given company, and punish it severely until corrective action is taken.

It is in this light of a company, that we as Kenyans should look at the case of the Ocampo suspects whose charges were confirmed o 23^rd January this year. By them acting in the capacity of managers of this company called Kenya, their somehow tainted reputation through the confirmation of the charges at the ICC could lead to serious consequences had they continued sticking to their positions. 

Trouble would arise once foreign investors lose their trust with our country and reduce their investments here. Being that we also get lots of government funding from external sources, withdrawal by the international community from any dealings with us would had been detrimental to our own economy too.

I believe that the two gentlemen who has just acted maturely and shown political sophistication in their stepping aside to allow for the ICC case to continue smoothly; must had been guided by this very opinion. It is to this end that I would like to congratulate Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta and Ambassador Muthaura; for stepping aside to allow for better running of the government without eyebrows being raised from various sides with regard to their presence in public offices. 

This is an act of wisdom and I thought it can not go down without being mentioned and recorded for history.