Constitutions worldwide are meant to provide a general framework to guide the enactment of laws by way of legislation, for the good of society. This arrangement works well in countries where the ruling class works selflessly in their people's interest and uphold the rule of law.
However, in countries such as Kenya, which has one of the most progressive constitutions, majority of legislators focus on serving themselves and their financial sponsors; and public officers are generally more concerned with their own political survival than services.
It therefore becomes necessary for the people, who are the owners of the Constitution, to take charge and include in the supreme law details that would otherwise ordinarily belong in Acts of Parliament, and which have been ignored since Independence.
It is such failure that gave rise to the bloody events that led to the current Constitution. Sadly, it seems we never learnt any lessons. Fresh agitation such as was witnessed in the lead-up to the handshake are as a result of unfulfilled constitutional promises.
Take for instance Article 10, which covers national values and principles of governance and in particular 10 (2) (b), which in my view underlies the awakened calls for a referendum. While devolution has made some headway in devolving power and, to some extent, redistributed country resources equitably, a lot more needs to be done when you consider equity of resources at individual level.
This is one area that legislators have not been keen on reviewing in the past 55 years and there is no hope that they will have it in their minds in the foreseeable future. It is possible that the ruling class fears empowering Wanjiku economically, considering that such action would allow her some measure of independence.
We are all concerned with the ever escalating wage bill, which only benefits the ruling class. The recurrent expenditures leave us with negligible amount for development, forcing us to rely heavily on borrowed money. A large proportion of this expenditure is greedily swallowed by a very small percentage of our population. Austerity measures are meaningless as far as the Executive and the legislators are concerned. Yet, it is poor Wanjiku who always carries this burden.
It is in light of this that Wanjiku should wake up to the reality that she is on her own, and further realise that she has the sovereign power to fight for her rightful share of the national cake. One way of doing this is to demand an input in the Constitution that will allow for a fair distribution of resources to all.
A formulae should be introduced in public service to tie the lowest wage to that of the topmost earner. I suggest that the minimum wage should be pegged on a percentage of what the top public servant earns. In my view, the lowest-paid public servant should not earn less than 10 per cent of the topmost earner, ie if the President's gross salary is Sh1 million, the lowest earner should get Sh100,000.
Among the lowest paid will be teachers who form one very large group of employees in the public service and whose income easily finds its way to mama mboga, boda bodas, etc, thus allowing for wide distribution of the country's resources.
Hopefully this will tame our politicians' greed and restrain them from increasing their salaries/allowances at will. The consequence of this formulae will be that any changes positive or negative in salaries /allowances at any one level/cadre of the public service will equitably affect all.
I believe this will also attract result focused public servants, well and equitably remunerated, having been selected on merit and not tribal or political loyalty. The need to root out passengers/parasites in public service who are earning huge salaries for turning up in their offices every morning only to read newspapers cannot be over emphasised.