Archive for January, 2009

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January 31, 2009

Davos: Why Is Africa Talking Democracy and Not Economy

The World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of government and corporate leaders in the Alpine ski resort in Davos, Switzerland, runs through to Sunday, Feb. 1 2009.World leaders look for hope amid the gloom of an economic slowdown as they turn their attention to a long-stalled global trade deal, increasingly seen as a necessary bulwark against the rising threat of protectionism. Every year  (Africans) travel to  Davos to  talk democracy !!!!   Do Africans eat and live on democracy?

The Arab world and most of Asia is at Davos talking economy.They are not democratic!! So why is it that we Africans are always  talking democracy at Davos. Africans dont need democracy we need free and fair trade. Our leaders are just  stupid they keep falling for this democracy talk(its just another road block to keep us from free trade)

I would rather live like an Arab with no democracy and food on my table than as an African with democracy and no food on the table .

Wake up Africa.What we need is free and fair trade not aid or democracy.

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January 29, 2009

IDPs

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless  it means we side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life.

We were taught under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ”Am I my brother’s keeper?” That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.

Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself.

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January 28, 2009

Muhadhara

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January 24, 2009

Politics of Efficiency-Public Admininstration -Muthaura question?

The relationship between elected and appointed officials constitutes an enduring and important issue both in democratic theory and in the practice and behavior of public administrators. Practitioners and scholars continue to puzzle about this relationship because they have not reached consensus on what is called the proper “meshing” of elected and unelected officials in “an optimal mix” in democratic governance. 

The need to understand the relationship better is noted by public administrators , who indicate that , “The founders of representative government expected that the formal arrangements they advocated would somehow induce governments to act in the interests of the people, but they did not know precisely why it would be so. Neither do we today.Public administrators also point out that “politics, policy, and expertise meet uneasily at the top of the bureaucracy.”

The quest for defining the appropriate relationship between elected and appointed officials includes the optimal mix of expertise and technical knowledge with the political preferences developed by elected officials, the discretion appropriate for unelected officials in a democratic government, and the mechanisms to insure that governments will act in the interests of the people. Public administration scholars have developed three models to characterize the relationship between elected and appointed officials in democratic governments: the orthodox politics-administration dichotomy, the modified dichotomy, and partnership models.

One of the most important and enduring theoretical constructs in public administration is the politics-administration dichotomy model. It has been useful for marking off the boundaries of public administration as an intellectual field and for asserting the normative relationship between elected officials and administrators in a democratic society. This model, as many have interpreted it, “remains important as a normative standard in the profession of government management.” 

I and others express the view also held by many practitioners that the dichotomy model is useful because it provides a rationale for insulating the practice of public administration from political interference.Muthaura has always been  right the only problem is that he is a “regional” man and Odm cant see beyond his region .Dismissing or accepting  his experience as a public administrator and a scholar only comes second to his regional origin

The Prime Minister(a politician) cannot be allowed to have Muthaura’s Job 

Joe Ndungu(MPA)
 

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January 18, 2009

music

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January 17, 2009

The Republic Is Dead

Since 1963, much has changed in Kenya and the world. And much remains the same. The struggle for fairness, equal protection, equal opportunity, self-determination, the struggle to defend the poor and the needy, a fairer distribution of wealth and resources, continues in the face of the hostility of the vested interests, power and domination of the few.

Patrick Henry a prominent figure in the American Revolution, known and remembered for his “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” speech once said

” It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts… For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

How long shall we continue dreaming of a great and glorious Kenya ? Isn’t it time we accept the painful truth and provide for it   !!

The republic is dead !! my good people,the republic is dead


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January 16, 2009

The Curse of Negative Ethnicity

While my number one wish for 2009 is resettlement of the internally displaced, I feel that history defines governments and leaders, not by their claims to greatness, but by great goals they may have achieved or the unforgettable tragedies they may have caused or resolved.To earn a mention in history, leaders require tremendous courage or cowardice. Speaking of courage in leadership and human survival, Sir Winston Churchill said: “Courage is the first and most important attribute of human beings because it ensures the presence of all others.”If courage is the greatest virtue in politics, cowardice is the greatest vice. Courage has made nations great and cowardice destroyed many. Indeed we owe what we enjoy to courage and what we suffer to cowardice.Remember, courage is not killing and silencing critics but liberating the downtrodden by saying no to dictatorship, injustice and hunger.

Today, Europe, America and East Asia have been hoisted to the pinnacle of political and economic greatness by political generals of great valour like Churchill. On the other hand, Kenya and Africa in general, have been hurled into depths of unspeakable poverty by some of their leaders.In our case, if there is one example of political cowardice whose creation and failure to resolve will earn President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga notoriety in history, it will be their midwifery of post-election violence, ethnic cleansing, displacement and abandonment of the displaced.Unavoidably, the displaced are a creation of President Kibaki’s lack of courage in defending those who voted for him, and Premier Odinga’s manifest unwillingness to defend the democratic rights of those who voted against him. The two seem to agree with Mr William Ruto that Kenya belongs to tribes, not Kenyans.In 1997, members of a community were killed for voting for Mr Kibaki. Powerless, they knew Kibaki could do nothing until he became president.

In 2003, I tabled in Parliament a motion for the resettlement of the displaced that was duly passed. President Kibaki and his two ministers of Lands, Mr Amos Kimunya and Prof Kivutha Kibwana, however, refused to resettle the displaced in pursuit of the votes of Rift Valley MPs in Parliament.By doing this, the President betrayed his MoU with the displaced the same way he had reneged on the one made with Mr Odinga.Architects of ethnic mayhem did not fail to notice this. When, during the 2007 elections, two communities voted for him, hundreds of thousands were attacked, killed and chased away from their lands.And though armed with executive powers, President Kibaki moved not a finger to protect them. He had intelligence that his supporters would be attacked, but he did not order the army to protect them.When they were attacked and killed, he sent soldiers to ethnically cleanse Rift Valley by taking the displaced away from their homes and lands. Since then, the Government has denied these people security to return to their farms, and also failed to give them alternative land.

To compound the problem, President Kibaki’s partner in Government, Raila, does not support either their return to their former lands or resettlement elsewhere. Like Kibaki, he too is scared of giving security to the returnees in fear of alienating the support of Rift Valley MPs.To court their support, the Prime Minister has also become a champion of majimbo, ethnic federalism that fuelled the post-election violence.Finally, because of voting for his adversary, Raila is quietly punishing the displaced with neglect the same way he spearheaded the disbandment of the Electoral Commission for refusing to pronounce him president.

Like heartless elephants locked in a permanent struggle for supremacy, the two principals have trampled on the rights of the displaced and condemned them to embarrassing landlessness and destitution.In the meantime, the two are running the Government like a cartel for the exclusive benefit of themselves, their families, business partners, cronies, foreign companies and the Qatari Government whom they have given 100,000 acres to grow food for their people, as the displaced die of hunger.

Mr Wamwere is the author of “Towards Genocide in Kenya: The Curse of Negative Ethnicity.”

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January 13, 2009

Anglo Maizing Scandal-Corruption In Kenya

Even as the country stands on a brink of starvation more twists are emerging in the maze importation deal that has shifted from an intervention measure to what appears to be a mega scandal. Fears now abound that the tax payer could loose billions, unless the well executed cartel is nipped in the bud. The shady deals have now boiled to the surface with ministers trading accusations as to who could be behind the maize importation scams. Prime Minister Raila Odinga is the latest victim of the emerging saga. The legislators said the PM has stood in the way of engaging another grain handling company slowing down the clearance of the imported cereals. They also accuse the PM of favouring a member of his family in the maize importation process that is becoming more of a financial scandal than crisis solving mechanism.

The latest hint that taxpayers in Kenya are losing billions to corrupt elements in the government was dropped by Justice Minister Martha Karua who blamed some cabinet colleagues for the looming food crisis stopping short of calling it artificial. A section of parliamentarians claimed that an estimated Sh2 billion could have already been lost in the corrupt deals involving maize importation. Though Agriculture minister William Ruto has banned all exports of maize by invoking section 30 of the NCPB Act, the rogue middlemen are still getting away with the same.

Once in Southern Sudan, the commodity goes for more than three times the cost compared to Kenya. While NCPB sells the maize to millers and middlemen at a price of Sh1750 per 90 kilogramme bag, the middlemen repackage the commodity and export it to Southern Sudan where it goes for about Sh6000 for the same quantity. The situation is getting so desperate that the even the low cost maize flour unveiled by the Government a month ago has served little purpose as more and more Kenyans join the list of those in need of urgent food rations to avert a food crisis.The situation is compounded by the fact that thousands of maize bags valued at over Sh150 million have been allocated to questionable millers in what is fast developing into a huge scandal in the wake of a seemingly divided government. Middlemen and brokers that the Prime Minister and Agriculture minister William Ruto promised to eliminate in the maize importation deal are reported to be on the loose and more vicious than before.

They are taking advantage of a desperate situation to cut deals with willing government officials denying the bona fide beneficiaries of the imported maize and making quick kills while the government officials are in for huge kickbacks even as thousands face starvation. Initial reports indicated that out of the 144,000 bags of maize given to large milling companies by the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB), only 40,000 could be accounted for in terms of milled flour

Over 100,000 bags remained unaccounted for even as the government remains mum on the issue. Some briefcase milling companies with no known physical addresses are said to have inflated their milling capacity leading to a situation where hey were allocated more than they can manage. Surprisingly, no serious follow-up measures are being undertaken by the government to reign in these crooks casting aspersions and doubts to where the government stands on the matter.

A report on the investigations into the corrupt deals associated with milling companies is expected to be handed to Attorney General by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission for possible prosecution. Insiders in the industry however point to a possibility where the NCPB could have colluded with the millers to inflate their milling capacity and therefore blackmailed the government on the issue.

Story by: lumiti khabuchi

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January 12, 2009

ANC = ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL CRIMINALS (ZUMA)

South Africa will soon be just another African country,They want to elect criminals thinking they are different(A special breed of Africans) . ANC ,I am sorry  is not special neither is South Africa .In kenya we had KANU that was unshakeable.Zimbabwe had ZANU. But look at Kenya and Zimbawe today ! You are 10 years away  from where we are today .History repeating itself. 

SOUTH Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal last night reversed a decision to dismiss the corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, leader of the ruling African National Congress, clouding his prospects for this year’s presidential election.The ruling clears the way for Mr Zuma to once again face prosecution, but the ANC said he remained the party’s presidential candidate in the poll, expected as early as April.

The decision – taken just two days after Mr Zuma launched the ANC’s election manifesto – complicates the party’s campaign as it faces a new political challenge from a breakaway party created in the fallout of the Zuma case, which has roiled South African politics for years.Judge Louis Harms, the court’s deputy president, handed down a scathing verdict, overturning a lower court ruling that had tossed out the charges against Mr Zuma.The earlier ruling had implied that former president Thabo Mbeki meddled in the case.”Political meddling was not an issue that had to be determined,” Justice Harms said as he read out the verdict at a nationally televised hearing.”Nevertheless, a substantial part of his judgment dealt with this question, and in the course of this discussion it changed the rules of the game. It took his eyes off the ball.”

The earlier ruling by judge Chris Nicholson failed “to distinguish between allegation, fact and suspicion”, Justice Harms said, saying the lower court had made “gratuitous findings”.Judge Nicholson had thrown out the charges on a technicality, saying that the prosecutors had a constitutional obligation to speak to Mr Zuma before proceeding with the case.However, Justice Harms said the prosecutors had not violated Mr Zuma’s rights in taking the case forward.

“Mr Zuma relies on self-created expectations based on his own perceptions of the law and the facts, which have always been in dispute,” the judge said.The National Prosecuting Authority said it would seek a date for Mr Zuma to stand trial.Spokesman Tlali Tlali said the existing charges would stand — corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering relating to a multi-billion-rand government arms deal in the late 1990s.

“Mr Zuma is regarded as a charged person,” Mr Tlali said.

The ANC had used Judge Nicholson’s findings to sack Mr Mbeki, sparking a split within the former liberation movement that successfully spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.Senior ANC members frustrated by Mr Mbeki’s sacking have launched their own party, called the Congress of the People, which is gearing up to challenge in the elections.Political analyst Dirk Kotze said the latest judgment would loom over the election campaign, especially if prosecutors decided to move quickly with the case against Mr Zuma.”There are definitely going to be political considerations, and a decision to prosecute will have big political ramifications,” Dr Kotze said.

Mr Zuma had faced charges ranging from money laundering to racketeering in a long-running corruption investigation dating back to 2001, during which the accusations were dropped and then revived.The main allegation was that Mr Zuma took bribes for protecting French arms giant Thales inan investigation into a controversial multi-million-dollar weapons deal.The arms deal has caused controversy since the decision to purchase the expensive military equipment, and several high-ranking South African politicians have been accused of using the deal to enrich themselves.

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January 8, 2009

Grand Coalition(of Evil) Government Will Be Burried First

There is confusion in Rift Valley  over how to deal with bodies piled in the town of Eldoret’s morgue for more than a year.

The deceased died in a church burnt down by a mob during ethnic violence after elections in December 2007.Thirty-seven bodies were to have been buried on Wednesday but after the first 10 were interred they had to be dug up amid furious protests from relatives.Families want their loved ones laid to rest on ancestral lands but some bodies remain unidentified a year on. Eldoret, in the Rift Valley, was hardest hit by the clashes following the disputed presidential election, which left 1,500 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.The BBC’s Wanyama Chebusiri in Eldoret says furious families, some wailing with grief, demonstrated at Kiplombe cemetery on the outskirts of the town on Wednesday.

Tense stand-off

After a tense hour-long stand-off with armed police, the authorities agreed to disinter the bodies and take them back to the morgue.

We got the shock of our lives this morning when we came to discover that bodies have been removed from the hospital mortuary
Grieving relative in Eldoret
    

Our correspondent says some relatives are still awaiting DNA test results to positively identify their loves ones.

Families have said the victims should be buried in a mass grave beside the church if they cannot be identified.

Local community groups have objected and said the victims should be laid to rest on their own ancestral lands.

But up to 10,000 internally displaced people remain in Eldoret, a year on from the post-election bloodshed, and many fear being attacked if they go home.One of the grieving protesters at the graveyard told the BBC no official had made contact to inform them of the planned burials.”We got the shock of our lives this morning when we came to discover that bodies have been removed from the hospital mortuary,” he said.

The victims were among people from President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu ethnic group who were seeking shelter in Kiambaa Pentecostal church when the building was torched by a mob.

Shocking BBC interview of Kalenjin Church Burners and Jackson Kibor

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January 6, 2009

Kenyan Media Bill 2008 PDF

(PDF File)The Kenya Communications Bill

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January 2, 2009

Andu aitu “We Shall Overcome”

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January 1, 2009

Dry Bones -Day 1 Happy New Year

Ezekiel 37:1-9

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.  He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!  This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath  enter you, and you will come to life.  I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ “

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ “  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

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