BONYO'S BONE: When public awards replace service delivery

Over the past few weeks, senior government officials have flooded social media with photos of awards they have received.

These awards were ostensibly meant to recognise top-performing officers. Hard work indeed deserves recognition. But is recognition the point of public office, or is it service delivery?

Principal secretaries and their bosses, the cabinet secretaries, already sign performance contracts. These are cascaded down the ranks as the official yardstick of performance. That should be the matrix for assessing their output, not trophies and photo opportunities.

The natural question then arises: how exactly were these awards conceived? Who determined the top performers, and what science, or lack of it, guided the process?

According to statements released to the media, a scorecard unveiled at the event showed improvements in integrity, governance and digital reforms. It further claimed that 79.4 per cent of public entities achieved clean audit reports.

Impressive on paper. But is this the lived reality of public service? Does the ordinary Kenyan recognise this rosy picture?

What we are witnessing is an escalating addiction: state officers craving rankings, applause and public validation for work they are already paid to do.

This craving has birthed a cottage industry of shadowy pollsters, some so brazen they do not even bother to follow basic polling principles like sample size, methodology or statistical analysis. Their product is simple: feed egos, mint money, move on.

The danger is that state officers now routinely weaponise these questionable polls to shore up their performance image. It is common to see them circulating in community WhatsApp groups, complete with calls to “vote for our own.” Equally common are rankings that feature officials whose dockets many citizens cannot even name.

This preoccupation must stop. The true measure of public service is not an award or a dubious ranking. It is a citizenry that feels the impact of efficient, honest and reliable service delivery.

We cannot claim integrity and governance victories while the healthcare system is struggling, education is gasping for air, and many of our towns have become havens for criminal gangs.

Governance is not a popularity contest. It is a responsibility. A trophy is not a service. A poll is not a performance. And ranking is not a result.

These awards and polls are elaborate distractions masking uncomfortable realities. The obsession should be with delivering first-world public services, Singapore-style.