Appointments of County Commissioners illegal

May. 20 | PAUL MWANGI The appointment by the President of 47 County Commissioners has been widely condemned as unconstitutional. However, most of the debate has centred on the issue of regional balance and proportionate gender representation. There are however more fundamental grounds on which these appointments have to be nullified. Firstly, in Kenya there are no counties. The administrative unit called the county does not exist. Article 2(2) of schedule 6 states that the provisions of the Constitution relating to devolved governments are suspended until after the date of the first elections under the constitution. One on the provisions in the Constitution that is deemed therefore to be suspended is Article 6(1) which says that the territory of Kenya is divided into counties. The President has therefore appointed Commissioners to non-existent administrative...

Police reforms is more than mere obsession with numbers

May. 18 | BY OCHIENG M.KHAIRALLA Police Reforms are at the very crux of the emerging dispensation since the spirit of the Supreme law resides in the just rule of law in so far as strict fidelity to the law is of utmost value and therefore the resultant constitutional culture ordinarily referred to in legal parlance as constitutionalism. As a consequence, the ongoing police reforms are critical to the overall well being of the state and therefore must be shielded from the vagaries of vested interest, political calculations and myopia. The current hullaballoo on police deployment during elections is instructive as it constitutes a serious subject as well an indictment on the reform agenda as to the ignorable failure to anchor reforms on the greater good of the nation. Suffice it to note that police reforms are more than mere preoccupation and obsession...

My tenure as CMC Chairman was clean

May. 16 | BY JEREMIAH KIEREINI I have served this country in many senior positions; both in the public sector as Chief Secretary, Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet and in the private sector as Director and Chairman of many companies including East African Breweries Limited, CMC Holdings Ltd and many more. In a lifetime of dedicated service to the country and the business community, my conduct has always been beyond reproach and following considerable media reports regarding events at CMC Holdings Limited (“the Company” or “CMC”), I now feel compelled to clarify some of the issues raised as follows: 1. I was at all material times a non-Executive Chairman of the Company. In such capacity, and as is the usual practice, I did not deal with the day-to-day details of accounts and management responsibilities. That was the exclusive...

Safety, Efficiency and Convenience a must for transport sector

May. 14 | BY DANIEL MAKDWALLO It is an open secret that efficient and well-maintained transportation systems have been a critical ingredient for the success of the Asian Tigers, thus confirming the view that, very often, all that is needed to develop an area is a good road, a railway, a well-run port or an efficient air transport network. The rest should thereafter belong to the people with occasional little supplementary input from the Government. This maxim is reflected in Vision 2030, which lays heavy emphasis on transportation. The next Government must continue with this effort, especially the flagship Lamu-Sudan-Ethiopia Corridor road, a major legacy of the Kibaki Government, which promises to bring unprecedented change to the northern half of our country. But whether it is the Lamu-Sudan-Ethiopia Corridor road, the Nairobi-Thika road or the...

How NGOs are indoctrinating young African politicians

May. 11 | BY YAHYA SSEREMBA In a 2010 science fiction action film, Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio plays an exceptional thief whose specialty is to extract valuable commercial information from the minds of tycoons. Like a hacker who penetrates computer systems and secretly accesses data, DiCaprio enters into the subconscious of his targets and digs out their secrets as they dream. His excellent espionage skill prompts a wealthy businessman to use him to bring down the business empire of a competitor. Thus DiCaprio embarks on his toughest mission ever, this time not to steal an idea, but to plant one in the mind of the competitor that should drive the target to destroy his own business empire. In real life and in Africa particularly, western organisations are busy playing DiCaprio by indoctrinating whoever they expect to gain political influence sooner...

Raila Odinga is a genuine leader

May. 9 | NGUNJIRI WAMBUGU Two months ago I was on Kameme FM discussing issues around the ICC Kenyan situation when an interesting thing happened. Uhuru Kenyatta called into the show and asked me 11 questions, especially as regards positions that I have held that have been contrary to his. However one of the more memorable comments he made was that I must be careful about my new friend, Raila Odinga. He advised me that this man cannot be trusted and that I should be careful in putting too much faith in the man. The Deputy Prime Minister was voicing something that has been voiced by even trusted friends around me who are concerned that I am leaning more towards Raila Odinga politically. Issues that keep coming up include whether a Raila-led government would socio-economically disenfranchise certain regions from benefiting from his government; whether...

Bare knuckled attacks between Raila and Musalia

May. 8 | The Secretariat, RAILA ODINGA for President 1. We wish to advise Kenyans to ignore the unsavory remarks that Mr. Musalia Mudavadi has taken to making against Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the guise of an election agenda. 2. These are the tantrums of a spoilt child who is used to free things. They cannot make an election agenda. Elections are about people and issues that concern them. They are not about insulting other leaders while calling yourself “a humble gentleman.” 3. These babyish tantrums should be dismissed with the contempt that they deserve. Mr. Mudavadi is bereft of any meaningful agenda for Kenya. In any event, his history does not give him any helpful agenda. That is why he fears this word, history. But you cannot run away from your history. People are known by their Curriculum Vitae. In this regard, Mr. Mudavadi is the...

What really happened at the NHIF?

May. 7 | BY DIANA PATEL The recent scandal involving NHIF and two private providers of services to the Civil Service Medical Scheme was a predictable event. Whether or not there was corruption involved in the awarding of contracts to various providers, this scenario was inevitable for two reasons. First, the infrastructure was not in place for services NHIF promised, and second, NHIF was not straightforward about what they could and could not accomplish within their unrealistic budget. The private sector has been repeating since 2004 that the capacity to introduce National Social Health Insurance to 40 million Kenyans does not exist. The Minister for Medical Services refused to see this as a stumbling block, and the management of NHIF agreed to go along with this delusional view. To bolster their position, NHIF did a “pilot study”, the results...