2009-01-16 East African: If Obama was an African President

[Lemmy]

Hieman avaa paikallista "poliittista todellisuutta" kun luetaan maanosan uutisia.
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/opOrEd/comment/-/434750/515974/-/item/0/-/f1adqi/-/index.html

Poor Michelle, she and her daughters are going to starve...
by Charles Onyango-Obbo

On Tuesday, Barack Obama will make history when he is sworn as America's first African-American (or Kenya-African-American as many Kenyans would have it) president.

If America were Uganda, we would say he is "falling into things." There is almost already enough written about Obama. If America were Africa, it would be necessary to also focus on his wife Michelle. This is because, a woman who gets to be First Lady in Africa, also becomes a special gift to her family in ways that no American would ever dream of.

As an America president, it is only Obama's side that will eat. Even then, mostly his political allies, college friends, and so on. And parliament (the Senate) must approve their appointments first. In Africa, the presidency is by far a more equal-opportunity and gender-sensitive institution, because the wife's side too gets to eat. Many times, in some countries that shall remain unnamed, even more than the president's side of the family.

Michelle's elder brother, for example, would have been appointed finance minister or, at the minimum, ambassador to London. Her younger brother would have become army commander. Her sister or cousin would be appointed governor of the Central Bank.

Two days after the inauguration, a construction company owned by her uncle would be at her mother's house refurbishing and building a high wall around it, after "winning" the tender for the job without competition. And, yes, he would inflate the cost of the job 500 per cent — and be paid before even before starting the job.

One of the things that must be truly puzzling old-style African political practitioners, is that ever since Obama's election, a lot of the news about his daughters Malia and Sasha has been about what pet dog they will get.

Look around Africa. The first order of business would have been to set up separate companies for the girls.

Malia's company would be allocated the national food reserve, and a contract to supply milk and flour to schools. And Sasha would have been handed the national fuel reserves. In most African countries, it would emerge than Obama had a 16-year-old son out of wedlock. The young man would now be brought into the limelight, and sent to train as an army cadet. Upon graduation, he would be shipped to Sandhurst to raise his game for a later appoint as deputy head of military intelligence to prep him further for his appointment to replace his uncle as army commander in the years ahead.

Meanwhile on the president's side, his folks would be better fed. Modern democracy is young in Africa so the controls on a president and ministers are limited, if they exist at all.

An African country that has had parliament for some years, didn't have a public accounts committee (PAC). After a lot of international pressure, it recently brought in experts to help set up the committee and its rules. It accepted the best practice of having an opposition MP head the PAC. However, it insisted and got one thing — the opposition member chairing the committee is appointed by the government!

In addition, because of poverty, the function of politics is not to create opportunities. It's to distribute hard goods — the money in the Treasury, government contracts — to relatives, supporters, kin (and fellow church members) of the president and First Lady.