SLC-S29/W1-“Thinking and Ideas!| If You Were in Charge!”

_{From personal perspective to public responsibility}

Hello steemians,

I am glad to be part of SLC-S29/W1 “Thinking and Ideas!| If You Were in Charge!” by @ninapenda, because I genuinely want to see how each of you would think when power is not just a dream or a complaint you whisper at night, but a real responsibility that forces you to choose one direction while knowing that every other direction you did not choose will produce angry voices, disappointed faces, and uncomfortable questions.

If you were given full authority for one year in your community or country, what is the first issue you would address?

If I were given full authority for one year in my community or country, the very first issue I would address would not be a flashy headline topic like big corruption in the dramatic sense that people like to share online, but rather what I call the Invisible Leakage Crisis, meaning the everyday, normalized, almost boring looking losses of public money, public time, and public energy that happen through scattered micro contracts, vague procurement, endless maintenance that never truly fixes anything, duplicated projects that keep getting funded again and again, and service delivery systems that hide behind complexity so that citizens cannot easily see what was promised, what was paid, who was paid, and what was actually delivered.

_{Scattered leaves, scattered micro contracts}

To fight this, I would launch a national or community level project called The People’s Dashboard, which is a simple but unavoidable transparency and performance system where every essential public service, including water supply repairs, road patching, street lighting, clinic supplies, school maintenance, waste collection schedules, local infrastructure, and small municipal spending, must be displayed in a public, readable, constantly updated format that includes the planned budget, the approved budget, the amount actually spent, the contractor or supplier, the timeline, the delivery evidence, and a citizen feedback mechanism that allows people to report working or not working with photo proof and location, so that public spending stops being a ghost story and becomes a visible track of promises that can be checked by ordinary people without needing connections, insiders, or special knowledge.

Why did you choose this issue over others?

I chose this issue over others because, in real life, many countries and communities do not fail primarily because they lack good ideas, but because they lack trustable execution, and execution cannot be trustable when spending is not trackable, when responsibilities are not pinned to names and timelines, and when citizens are forced to believe rather than verify, because once the system becomes a fog, every plan, including youth empowerment, security, jobs, healthcare, education, sanitation, housing, agriculture, and local development, gets swallowed by that fog, and we end up with the painful cycle where leaders keep announcing policies while the streets keep telling a different story.

I also chose this issue because it can produce measurable results within one year, which is important because a one year mandate is short, and I would rather fight a battle where ordinary people can see proof with their own eyes, like shorter repair times, fewer repeated contracts for the same broken thing, clearer pricing, cleaner delivery standards, and a public record of performance, than fight a battle that requires many years before it becomes visible.

Finally, I chose it because it is one of the rare reforms that does not require everyone to agree with me emotionally, because even people who dislike my face or my politics will still benefit from faster service, more reliable infrastructure, and a public system that reduces the space for nonsense, and I believe that leadership is not about collecting applause but about building mechanisms that work even when the leader is not loved.

What is that one difficult decision you would have to make?

The one difficult decision I would have to make, and I say this knowing it would create noise and resistance, would be to freeze and audit a major portion of non essential public payments for ninety days, not because I want to punish honest workers or create suffering, but because a system that leaks constantly cannot be repaired with polite speeches alone, and sometimes you have to stop the bleeding first before you can treat the disease, especially when the disease survives by hiding inside routine procedures that everyone pretends are normal.

This would mean that some contracts would be suspended until they prove value, some suppliers would be forced to justify prices and deliverables in a clear and verifiable way, some officials would be rotated or removed from sensitive roles where they control spending without oversight, and penalties would be applied quickly rather than being delayed into the future where they become meaningless, and yes, I fully understand that this kind of action would be unpopular because it disrupts networks of habit, and in many communities those habits feed entire families, but leadership is sometimes the art of choosing long term survival over short term comfort.

How would you explain this decision to people who disagree with you?

I would explain this decision to people who disagree with me by speaking to them like adults who deserve honesty rather than propaganda, and I would say, I am not freezing payments because I enjoy suffering or because I think everyone is a thief, but because you cannot pour water into a basket and then argue about why the bucket is still empty, if we do not temporarily pause and verify where money goes, then every future budget will keep disappearing, and the people who will suffer the most are not politicians, but ordinary families who need clinics, schools, safe roads, functioning water systems, and working streetlights.

Then I would add something very important, because fairness matters if you want legitimacy, this is not a blind shutdown, it is a targeted pause with a clear timeline, clear criteria, and a clear restart plan, where honest suppliers who can prove delivery will be paid faster and more reliably than ever, while dishonest suppliers will be blocked and exposed, and the savings we recover will be redirected into three visible areas, clinic supplies, street lighting in high risk zones, and urgent school repairs, so that within months you will not just hear my words, you will see the proof in your daily life.

And because people also fear being ignored, I would institutionalize disagreement instead of fighting it emotionally, by organizing town hall style sessions and digital reporting channels linked to The People’s Dashboard, where people can challenge entries, submit evidence, and demand correction, because a government that says trust me is weak, but a government that says check me is building a stronger social contract.

My one year practical plan because ideas must touch the ground

In the first two months, I would map and publish essential spending and service indicators in a simplified version of The People’s Dashboard so that citizens immediately feel a new visibility, in months three and four, I would run targeted audits and the ninety day pause on non essential payments while setting a reference price system to stop inflated billing, in months five to eight, I would relaunch contracts under strict proof of delivery rules using dated evidence and clear acceptance checks, and in months nine to twelve, I would reward units that meet service timelines and quality standards while applying automatic penalties for repeated failure, so that performance becomes a habit rather than a miracle.

I invite @josepha, @mahadisalim, and @radjasalman to participate and share your entry, because if you were truly in charge, the hardest part would not be dreaming, but choosing the first unpopular decision that still protects the future.

Best Regards,
@kouba01