Tag Archives: Daniel Arap Moi

william ruto suspended from cabinet

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The road to Rule of Law in Kenya is just beginning to take shape. For sure, politicians will continue to flout the constitution but things are no longer the same. Today, as required by law, President Kibaki suspended higher education minister Hon. William Ruto because of the latter’s pending criminal trial over a fraudulent land deal. Section 62 of the Anti-corruption and Economic Crimes Act states: “a public office charged with corruption or economic crime shall be suspended at half pay, with effect from the date of the charge.”

Given the stature of Mr. Ruto as the ethnic chief de facto political leader of the vast Rift Valley Province, this is a big deal.

The next big test for how committed the ruling class in Kenya is committed to the Rule of Law will be when Ocampo and the ICC come calling with arrest warrants later in the year or early next year. Bigwigs in cabinet and close confidants of both the president and his prime minister are expected to be among those indicted.

provisional kenyan referendum results

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Provisional results indicate that 67% of Kenyans voted in favor of the proposed draft constitution. In all provinces but the Rift Valley and Eastern, Kenyans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the document. Rift Valley saw the stiffest opposition to the new constitution, recording a 62% NO vote. This was however expected since the regional political supremos, William Ruto and former president Moi, had vigorously campaigned against the document. In Eastern Province vice president Kalonzo Musyoka was left exposed after a strong showing by the NO side in his backyard. The vice president campaigned for the document but faced insurgent local politicians who appear to have proved that Mr. Musyoka does not have as much influence in the region as he would have us believe. Given Kenya’s highly regionalized national politics, the poor showing by Mr. Musyoka in his own backyard will have interesting implications for the Kibaki succession politics.

Of interest later today will be the breakdown of how individual MPs fared in influencing the vote in their own constituencies. Sadly, outside of Nairobi and other major urban centres most voters did not vote for the new constitution on its merits but followed the advice of their representatives, or their opponents. The most vivid example of this was in North Eastern province where quite a few number of voters turned up expecting to vote in a general election. It might be time the government issued free radio sets to families in the arid north of the country.

In other news, Kenyans appear to have learned their lesson in 2007 about election-related violence. Throughout the last few days the tv screens have been filled with programs and advertisements reminding people to keep the peace.

it was never going to be an easy ride

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The two decade-old clamour for a new constitution in Kenya has not been an easy ride. One is reminded of the saba saba rallies from the early 1990s. Most vivid of all was the shocking image of Rev. Timothy Njoya being clobbered by armed police men. Then came the Bomas constitutional conference under the NARC Administration that produced the document that was rejected at the 2005 referendum. The current constitutional review process also seems to have acquired a lot of enemies. On the surface – and this is what the mainstream Kenyan media seems to trumpet – it appears that those who are politically opposed to the draft are wary of the massive head-start that a YES victory would grant Premier Odinga in the 2012 presidential election. I beg to differ.

Me thinks that most of the political opposition to the document are founded on distributional concerns. The new set up will take a lot of power from the centre and redistribute it to the people. This will significantly alter resource allocation processes, including the management of land. It will also render obsolete the patronage networks that we call the provincial administration. It is not a coincidence that the biggest opponents to the draft also happen to be the biggest landowners, including former President Moi, among others. Imagine this for a second: President Kibaki is on the YES team, but the treasure continues to dilly and dally with the allocation of money for civic education… how can this be?

Mutahi Ngunyi has a different, but interesting take on things. Kwendo Opanga, shares his thoughts on the same, while Mutua tackles the rather risible decision of the courts to declare the current constitution unconstitutional!

daylight robbery

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Edit: Lands Minister James Orengo has since declared that the mentioned piece of land is state property and promised to do “what is right for this country [Kenya].” Let’s wait and see.

This is daylight robbery. It appears that private investors have consistently robbed the government of much needed revenue in relation to the land on Museum Hill in Nairobi, Kenya. Kamlesh Pattni, the man who famously robbed the Kenyan treasury of billions of Shillings in export compensation fees for fictitious exports of gold, is yet again in the middle of another scandal to rip off the Kenyan taxpayer.

Lands Minister James Orengo, Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, and the chief taxman at KRA Mr. M. G. Waweru should come clean with the facts.

the mau list of shame

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Prime Minister Raila Odinga has tabled in parliament a list of those who acquired land in the Mau based on their well-connectedness with the government. Top of the list are those closely associated with former president Moi – including his son and former Baringo Central MP Gideon. The task force on the Mau issued a report that claimed that 80% of the titles to the land in Mau were issued to undeserving people.

I like this dose of transparency from the Prime Minister (Although for good practice he should have made the list public as soon as he got it in order to allow for a more mature progression of the eviction debate). My hope now is that Kenyans will realise exactly what the interests of those against the government directive to conserve the forest are. Indeed if I had it my way, the millionaires who unlawfully acquired public land should be made to pay a fine.

The popular consensus seems to be that the government should compensate the regular “wananchi” who have titles and who unknowingly legally bought illegally acquired land. But the “wenyenchi” who grabbed public land should not be given a cent. Shame on them.

And on a different note, kudos to the Kenya Revenue Authority. I was surprised that I was able to get my pin number online. The first time I tried getting one I had to wait in line at Times Tower and left because the line did not move for the more than 45 minutes that I was there. My only problem now is that I can’t seem to be able to print my pin number certificate. Anyone with a clue?