Why State House has stooped too low with plastic plates and envelopes

You may not like what I have to say, but I’ll say it anyway: the recent spectacle of county delegations being bused to State House to eat and collect envelopes of cash is the lowest form of politics. Kenyans are being reduced to stomachs to be filled and votes to be bought. This is not leadership. It is transactional politics dressed up as empowerment. 

In recent weeks, the President has hosted tribal or county delegations at State House. Citizens travel hundreds of kilometres, packed in buses, only to arrive, eat, listen to speeches, and go home with Sh5,000 or Sh10,000 depending on the value State House places on them.

Kisii delegations allegedly got Sh5,000. Kiambu and Meru delegations got Sh10,000. The symbolism is ugly: Kenyans are priced differently, as though unity and equality under the Constitution were negotiable. 

This, together with the so-called “empowerment trips”, where delegations are flown around or gathered for photo-op ceremonies amounts to a monumental waste of resources. It is governance reduced to eating and per diems. It is not development, not service delivery, not accountability. It is the politics of plastic plates and envelopes. 

The President is feeding the optics while starving the country. These delegations are not about listening to the people. They are about manufacturing loyalty. A few handouts, a buffet, a photograph with the President, and suddenly, the airwaves are flooded with stories of “unity” and “support.”

But what happens when the delegations go home? The roads are still broken. Hospitals still understaffed. Youth still jobless. Schools still lack desks. It is an expensive theatre, staged at the expense of taxpayers.

Transporting delegations across counties, housing them, feeding them, and handing out millions in cash all this drains the public purse. These resources could build classrooms, buy hospital beds, or finance county bursaries.

Instead, they are funnelled into political optics. This culture is not just wasteful. It is unconstitutional. Article 201 of the Constitution demands that public money be used openly, efficiently and accountably. Article 232 requires public service to ensure value for money. Handing out envelopes of cash to delegations bused to State House is the opposite of these principles. 

It is also divisive. When delegations are priced differently — Sh5,000 for one group, Sh10,000 for another. It sends a dangerous message that some Kenyans are worth more than others. This is not how a nation heals its divisions.

For the next year, redirect the millions spent on buffets, envelopes and motorcades to urgent needs: refurbish hospitals, supply drugs and support schools. At the same time, embrace digital town halls.

In a connected Kenya, the President can listen to the people without bussing them to Nairobi. Digital forums would cost a fraction of these spectacles, reach more citizens and generate genuine accountability. This is what I call politics of the future.

A politics that respects citizens as equal voices, not as mouths to be fed or bodies to be counted in photographs. A politics that invests in long-term solutions instead of short-term handouts. 

The politics of plastic plates and envelopes is an insult to the dignity of Kenyans. Our freedom fighters did not struggle, so their grandchildren could be bribed with food and bus fare. Our Constitution did not enshrine equality, so leaders could rank communities by envelope size. 

If the President truly wants to show leadership, let him lead by example. Kenyans are not hungry for handouts. They are hungry for justice, jobs and opportunities. They are hungry for a government that treats every shilling of public money as sacred. They are hungry for leaders who look beyond today’s optics to tomorrow’s legacy. 

The politics of plastic plates and envelopes feed only a few stomachs for a few hours. The politics of the future can feed a nation for generations. 

So, Mr President, pause the buffets. Stop the empowerment trips. End the delegations-for-cash circus. Give us a year of serious, disciplined governance.

Show us a Kenya where public funds build schools instead of buffets, finance bursaries instead of envelopes, and unite citizens instead of pricing them by county.

Kenya deserves better. The politics of plates belong in the past. The politics of the future is waiting.