The president is right – a slight reduction in bureaucracy can result in massive transformations in the country

The President has re-organized the government via the latest executive order that has clarified more responsibilities and functions of government. The executive order has clarified the roles of the Deputy President and the Prime Cabinet Secretary such these offices can invoke workable synergies than duplication of roles. The creation of separate state departments for Investment promotion, climate change and the increasing of the number of foreign missions from 60 to 66 shows that the country is ready to increase investments to create more jobs and employment opportunities, is ready to address fully the effects of climate change and global warming which can undo our positive developments so far if not fully mitigated, and also the clear intention to leverage our foreign missions and embassies for increased investments and attractions to the country. We should now move with speed to ensure transformative projects like the Dongo Kundu special economic zones and others in that level are fast tracked and completed so that we start leaping the benefits. The president also gave a moving speech at the forum for top government officials closure in Nanyuki.

In all these efforts, the president has demonstrated his resolve to ensure reduction of bureaucracy and too much formalities in undertaking the government business. Max Weber noted that bureaucracy is a way of understanding organizations as systems that are characterized by hierarchical chains of commands and control, in addition to the use of written or oral rules to control an organization. Max Weber further defined the Bureaucracy theory in order to explain the ideal bureaucracy that would include clear division of labour, clearly established hierarchy, existence of comprehensive rules and regulations and the impersonal relations. These characteristics would ideally make organizations behave like machines and hence Max concluded that ideal bureaucracies did not exist and what is seen is just selective reconstruction of reality. George Rathmann who founded the biotechnology company Amgen, observed that the sole purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, a problem that goes away if you have the right people in place. The president has put the right people in place and as a philosopher king, he expects, and that is the expectation of Kenyans that services will be provided unhindered.