Kenyans have complained about the hefty taxes imposed on them, and as usual, we are not able to account for what these taxes are doing because we have no choice.

However, I will ask Kenyans to follow how tax-funded organisations are using the taxes and call them out.

While we are busy, there is a massive legal wrangle happening in the corridors of the Nairobi County Government that everyone needs to understand. By looking at the public civic logic of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) through Ms Faith Odhiambo and her peers, they feel that this petition is unfair on them.

My ‘housewife thoughts’ on professional standards:

I wonder why the legal fraternity and their peers are against this and would rather the Exchequer be extorted for their interest. As much as we respect the legal career on their responsibility and service to the public, it appears we want to remind them that we expect responsibility, morals, integrity and social ethics from their side.

Let’s take for instance doctors and architects. Doctors and architects who work for the government to supplement their income have their own private practices. Why can’t lawyers do that? On the doctor’s side, the government does not go and outsource or procure private doctors to come and treat patients in a public hospital and then pay them.

Why don’t they want to work for the government and then supplement their income from a private practice like any other career people? Architects do that; nurses do that. Even doctors and teachers. Why do they feel they should be given preferential treatment?

Now they are even blaming the judiciary!

Integrity gap

This is a perfect example of how a massive deficit of integrity among the Kenyan government officers and judiciary costs us. As a housewife/opinionated public legal educator who believes in procedural perfection, I find it heart-breaking that we have the laws – like the County Attorney Act – to protect our money, but we lack the integrity to follow them.

When a system ignores its own internal legal office to favour private attorneys to act in place of the County Attorney, it is proof of a massive scarcity of integrity.

LSK representatives led by Ms Faith Odhiambo and her peers came guns blazing and these is what she presented some of their grievances following my civic knowledge acquired from my life experiences emanating from my kindergarten degree I want to put my two-cents of the shillings:

Livelihood is Not a Guaranteed Contract

The Fact: “Economic rights” mean you have the right to work, not that you have a right to a specific government contract.

Public civic logic: If a private doctor’s “economic right” doesn’t force a public hospital to hire them over their own staff, why should a private lawyer have that right? A livelihood is earned in the market, not through an entitlement to the National Exchequer.

Specialisation excuse is a professional failure

Fact: County governments recruit state counsel and county attorneys specifically to handle their legal affairs.

Public civic logic: If these in-house lawyers “lack expertise,” then the problem is a hiring failure or lack of training, not a reason to outsource. You don’t pay for a permanent cook and then buy every meal from a five-star restaurant because your cook “isn’t specialised enough.” You train the cook or hire a better one!

Discrimination vs prudence

Fact: Ms Faith Odhiambo calls the ban “discrimination” against private lawyers.

Public Civic logic: It’s not discrimination; it’s Article 201 of the Constitution, which requires “prudence and responsibility” in spending public money. Hiring two people to do the job of one is not “economic right” – it is a financial crime against the taxpayer.

Doctor/architect litmus test

Public civic logic: If every professional used their “economic rights” to demand government outsourcing, the country would be bankrupt in a week. Doctors work their shifts and then go to their private clinics. They don’t sue the government for not “outsourcing” surgery to their private firms. Why are lawyers the only ones feeling they have this entitlement?

Summary of my public civic logic

LSK claim: Violation of economic rights

My reality: A right to work is not a right to a taxpayer-funded check.

LSK claim: Specialise expertise needed”

My reality: If that’s true, then why are we paying salaries to “unspecialised” internal County Attorneys?

LSK claim: Threat to the profession

My reality: A professional career should be supported by private clients, not by extorting the public “X-checker.”

Let’s stop being ignorant about how our tax billions are being used.

• A Tell Media report / By Faith Mirunde Hakala – Ms Hakala is a public legal educator and a long-serving paralegal in Kenyan judiciary.