Tag Archives: Kenya

Quick hits

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No surprises in the Ethiopian elections. Sunday’s elections most certainly resulted in a mandate for Meles Zenawi. It still will be interesting though to know how many seats the opposition won. Final results are not out yet.

In other news, the junta in Niger has decided that future presidential candidates must have university degrees. Don’t tell them anything about President Lula of Brazil who has done a fabulous job over the last ten years even though he did not finish primary school. My suspicion is that there is a specific Nigerien who is planning to run for office but does not have a university degree. It’s hard to imagine that the junta had the plight of Nigerien peasants in mind when they came up with this requirement.

And lastly, it is beginning to appear like the referendum on Kenya’s new constitution may not be a done deal. The NO camp just got more ammo thanks to this court ruling.

Kadhi’s courts and abortion revisited

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It appears that after more than 20 years of waiting Kenyans will finally have a new constitution after August 6th. The Attorney General Amos Wako (I can’t believe this man is still in office) published the document today. The electoral commission will formulate the referendum question and announce the campaign period for the August 6th referendum. It is almost a foregone conclusion that the document will be passed by a majority of Kenyans. The latest poll indicated that 64% of Kenyans support the document compared to 17% who oppose it.

The Church and a section of politicians are opposed to the document because of its wording in relation to abortion and Kadhi’s courts (see below) and on matters of resource allocation.  With regard to abortion, my stand is that the constitution does nothing against Kenya’s conservative bend. If anything it still needs some doses of liberalism on family law and social justice in order to protect our mothers and sisters and other marginalized peoples from the rather dated views of the Kenyan patriarchy.Our mothers and sisters are not crazy child-killers. They too are very conservative when it comes to abortion. In this case the law will only serve to bring out of the shadows the thousands of illegal abortions that result in the death of many women in our towns and cities. Also, if the church is so concerned with abortion, how about doing so by promoting birth control? I still don’t get the church’s justification for its consignment of millions to an early grave (thanks to HIV/AIDS) and orphanhood because of its bizarre policies on the use of contraceptives.

And on the Kadhi’s courts: the wording speaks for itself. It only applies to Muslims’ personal issues and even then only with their consent. No Christian will ever have to face a Kadhi. Plus as I have pointed out before, the church’s attempt to impose Christian morality on Kenyans through the constitution is not consistent with their opposition to Kadhi’s courts.

On Abortion:

Abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law.

On Kadhis’ Courts

(1) There shall be a Chief Kadhi and such number, being not fewer than three, of other Kadhis as may be prescribed under an        Act  of Parliament.
(2) A person shall not be qualified to be appointed to hold or act in the
office of Kadhi unless the person—
(a) professes the Muslim religion; and
(b) possesses such knowledge of the Muslim law applicable to any  sects of Muslims as qualifies the person, in the opinion of the
Judicial Service Commission, to hold a Kadhi’s court.
(3) Parliament shall establish Kadhis’ courts, each of which shall have the jurisdiction and powers conferred on it by legislation,   subject to clause (5).
(4) The Chief Kadhi and the other Kadhis, or the Chief Kadhi and such of the other Kadhis (not being fewer than three in number) as may be prescribed under an Act of Parliament, shall each be empowered to hold a Kadhi’s court having jurisdiction within Kenya.
(5) The jurisdiction of a Kadhis’ court shall be limited to the determination of questions of Muslim law relating to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance in proceedings in which all the parties profess the Muslim religion and submit to the jurisdiction of the Kadhi’s courts.

kenyan mp Dick Wathika to lose Makadara seat

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Following a petition by former MP Reuben Ndolo (of the “weka tire” infamy), Lady Justice Kaplana Rawal has nullified the election of Dick Wathika as Makadara MP in the 2007 general elections. Mr. Wathika becomes the 5th sitting MP since the chaotic 2007 vote to lose after an election petition in court. The 2007 elections were marred by irregularities that almost plunged Kenya, previously an oasis of peace in a turbulent part of the Continent, into civil war. 1300 people died before a power-sharing agreement was brokered between incumbent Mwai Kibaki and his challenger Raila Odinga. Given that most Kenyans voted “three piece”, the apparent widespread irregularities at the constituency level must be highly correlated with those of the presidential vote. Neither PNU nor ODM can claim innocence. The real culprit, however, is one Mr. Samuel Kivuitu. The former boss of the electoral commission presided over a sham election with a straight face and got away with it. Shame on him.

Development and how to achieve it

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A while back I argued for a move away form small scale, “pro-poor” development strategies to more robust development strategies aimed at economic innovation and large-scale job creation. This is not to say that micro-development should be neglected. What I am saying is that jua kali kiosks will not increase Africa’s per capita income to 10,000 USD. The most they do is enable people to cope without really changing their standard of living.

Alkags, a blog I just discovered, deals with this debate.

Aid watch also has videos from a conference at the Yale law school on development. Chris Blattman and William Easterly are some of the featured development experts. Blattman makes some interesting comments about micro-finance, industrialization (medium to large farms) and development.

Quoting Blattman: “I think we have gone too far in the pro-poor direction…… we don’t necessarily have trade-offs. Factories are pro-poor.”

ruto moved in cabinet reshuffle

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Former Agriculture Minister William Ruto has been demoted to the Ministry of Higher Education. This is certainly linked to Ruto’s position on the draft constitution. Mr. Ruto has been the most vocal minister in the Kibaki cabinet opposed to the draft constitution which is due for referendum in a few months.

In other news, I love this idea of cattle registration. The government is touting it as a security and rule of law policy but one of the (un)intended consequences will be ease of taxation of cattle owners. Someone at Kenya Revenue Authority must have come up with this idea.  Anything that establishes an accountability chain between farmers and the government (be it through transfers or taxes) is always good, as far as I am concerned.

Registration (and taxation) will also have the added benefit of incentivizing protection of property rights by the government. I hope that the revenue from this scheme, however little, will be used to further develop productivity in Kenya’s northern districts.

constitution making in Kenya and the noise around it

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Muthoni Wanyeki has this cool piece on the ongoing debate over the draft constitution.

I share in her surprise at how low the church has decided to sink in its opposition to Kadhi courts and the so called abortion clause in the draft constitution. Firstly, abortions are but a symptom of greater social problems (marital rape, poor sex education policies, the church’s intransigence over contraceptives, etc etc). People do not carry out abortions because they are baby-killers. Can someone please point this out to these men of God?

In any case personal morality is not a province of the state. People’s “moral failings” are a reflection of the church’s inability to instill in them the values that they consider to be ideal. Sending millions to their graves and creating even more orphans on the premise that God does not endorse the use of contraceptives is simply absurd. If I ran the Daily Nation I would print rates of contraceptive use and fertility rates in Rome, Canterbury and the great evangelical centres of America in the front page to make this point.

I say this knowing that Kenyan conservatism is not necessarily because of Christianity. But we don’t hear traditional elders screaming about these two issues. If the church wants to remain relevant it mus realize that before we all go to heaven we have to live through real life on earth.

And on the issue of Kadhi’s Courts. Who cares? Doesn’t the current constitution have this already? And isn’t it ironic that the same people who want to legislate personal morality on religious grounds are the ones opposed to Muslims having the option to use an Islamic judicial system? And do they even know that these courts would still be subordinate to the country’s secular court system?

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.

new eu policy on food aid commendable

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For many years experts have pointed out the negative impact of international food aid. The practice of tying food aid to farm subsidies to western farmers resulted in unfair competition that drove many an African farmer out of business.

The EU intends to change this. New policy will now require the purchase of food aid in or near the needy countries.

Speaking of agriculture, we are yet to see any tangible results from Kofi Annan’s Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Mr. Annan seems to have been sidetracked by his peacekeeping duties as a Continental elder statesman. Perhaps the Alliance could get a less sought after individual – like Prof. Wangari Maathai, for instance – in order to increase its stature in public and highlight its importance in the quest for development on the Continent.

president kibaki to resign and call for fresh elections

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Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki has announced that he will resign and call snap elections. Mr. Kibaki cited wrangling within the cabinet and the failure to tackle corruption and poor governance as his main reasons for seeking a fresh mandate from Kenyans. It is unclear which party ticket the president will run on since his party, the PNU, has since disintegrated into its constituent coalition partners. The Prime Minister’s party, the ODM, are currently holding a meeting before issuing a statement in response to the president’s move.

Read more here

strengthening the social contract?

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Occasionally I come across news that make me think that Kenya is still on the right track. The circus that is the current debate on the review of the constitution is definitely a reminder that the east African nation has a long way to go. But things are looking better elsewhere. For one, more Kenyan businesses (which include some of the noisemakers in parliament and their relatives) are lending to the central government. This is encouraging news in two ways:

First, it means that more people are investing in Kenya Co. and therefore will have incentives to make sure that the country does not go the way of the Ivory Coast.

Second, it means that more of the idle capital will get utilized in the provision of public goods, albeit inefficiently. They may have been late and not smartly implemented but I was quite impressed by the Finance ministry’s counter-cyclical policies to alleviate the effects of the slump. Job well done.

Now if only we could find a way of pooling all the cash that routinely gets used to over-subscribe to IPOs and package it in order to meet the treasury’s minimum requirement for investment in public debt. It would be kind of neat to see millions of wananchi investing in their own country. In this way they can indirectly pay taxes while at the same time strengthening the social contract because they will have incentives to monitor how government spends the money they loan it. Just a thought.

you can respect women’s rights without being pro-abortion

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The Church in Kenya has every right to lobby for a pro-life amendment to the draft constitution. But that does not give them the right to completely rubbish the opinions of women leaders. Women like Gender Minister Esther Murugi are not crazy child-killers. They are reasonable people who do not want the male-dominated constitutional review process to usurp too much of women’s reproductive rights. Demanding for women’s reproductive rights is not being pro-abortion. And if the church leaders are so concerned about abortion perhaps it is time they eased their opposition to contraceptives that limit the occurrence of unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

The fact that the Kenyan clergy feel the need to legislate morality is a clear pointer to their failure to do their job right. If you do not want people to have premarital sex or use contraceptives, preach to them from the pulpit. Do not seek to make this into law. In any case, Kenyan society is already conservative enough when it comes to things like abortion and sexuality. What we need is not a constitution that pushes us further into paranoia about these issues but one that protects our mothers and sisters from the tyranny of the men from 10,000 BC who run our country.

This quote from Hon. Murugi captures the absurdity of the amendments being proposed by the anti-women’s rights team: “Let us have a reproductive health bill where all other issues are addressed. For instance, women are using morning after pills after sex. Are you going to put us all in jail?”

I am sure none of those opposed to the amendments is into the idea of killing the unborn. All that Kenyan progressives want is a law that does not take away women’s rights to choose what is good for them. Reason demands that we should not legislate morality. This will only lead to more kienyeji abortions that will continue to kill many Kenyan women each year.

It is fascinating how the conservative types (in both ODM and PNU) that ordered policemen to shoot rioters or organized militias to kill fellow Kenyans in early 2008 are the same ones at the forefront of the faux pro-life campaign. May their efforts to go against reason fail.

those opposed to the creation of an unrepresentative senate have a point

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The Kenyan Draft Constitution seems to have hit a snag. A section of parliamentarians are opposed to the section of the proposed constitution that gives all counties equal powers via their elected senators. I agree with them. The to-be-formed senate, as currently constituted, grants too much power to sparsely populated counties. Theoretically, this should not make any difference because people could just move to better served, over-represented counties thereby balancing everything. But we all know that this does not happen in Kenya. The country remains divided into various “ethnic homelands” that are more often than not inhabited exclusively by a single ethnic group.

I hold the opinion that part of the reason why we currently have a corrupt and unresponsive political class is that those who actually pay taxes – and therefore feel the pinch of mismanagement of public funds – are grossly under-represented. For instance, Nairobi only has eight members of parliament even though it generates a huge chunk of Kenya’s tax revenue. Let us not worsen this by creating an even more powerful senate whose members will bribe their way into office with a few bags of sugar and flour per voter and then proceed to steal millions of urban Kenyans’ hard earned cash. I am not advocating for an urban-biased senate. What I am saying is that the constitution should, at a minimum, respect the principle of equal representation. Nairobians and other Kenyan urbanites should make it clear that they are not into the idea of taxation without equal representation.

The alternative would be to have independent incorporate urban districts that elect their own governments and have greater control over the collection and expenditure of their tax revenue. I don’t particularly like this idea though because places like Suba and Maragua still need Nairobi, Eldoret, Kisumu, Nyeri,Mombasa and others, to pull them up.

That is my peni nane opinion on this.

jeffrey gettleman is back

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Texas in Africa has a piece on Gettleman’s style of journalism. Mr. Gettleman is of course not new to this type of criticism. I have voiced my opinion on his reporting style a few times before.

This is not an argument for the mis-representation of the goings on on the Continent. (By all means tell us who is starving and is under incredible disease burden or being killed in a civil conflict). It is an argument for respectful reporting of the suffering of other people. This sort of sensationalism that you often see on the front pages of major newspapers does more harm than good.

And about Kristof. He should know better. I guess it must feel great to walk into a conflict zone ridden with poverty and get the reception of a rock star such as what Kristof got in Goma.

The line between helping the needy and this sort of vulgar self-gratification can be thinly thin sometimes.

2009 kcse results out

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UPDATE: The KNEC system seems to be down, judging by the amount of comments and requests I have received in the last few hours. I guess the cell phone thing is not working after all. Even the Nation went down at some point last night.

The 2009 KCSE results are out.

The best student in the country in last year’s national examination was David Ndung’u of Mang’u High School (yours truly’s alma mater. Congrats David!!! Jishinde Ushinde!!!). The top 100 list of students is largely dominated by students from public national and provincial schools. More on this here…

I am yet to read the entire report but the one thing that jumped at me is that no girl made it to the top ten nationally. Only 27 girls were in the top 100. The best female student was Grace Wambui of Moi Girls School Eldoret. She came 11th. Additionally, although overall performance went up this year the pass rate (C+ and above) was a dismal 24.56%. Mr. Ongeri clearly has more to answer for than just the cash scandal that hangs over his head.

will the nigerien colonels keep their word?

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The coup leaders in Niger promised a return to democracy as soon as possible. Perhaps as a signal that they are willing to keep their word on this they have appointment a civilian as prime minister.They have also promised that none of the military leaders in government will take part in elections whenever they are held. For now I shall give the colonels the benefit of the doubt on this one, after all they proved pretty reliable when they re-instituted democratic rule after a coup in 1999. Fingers crossed.

More on this here

And in other news, do Kenyan politicians take themselves seriously? Like really? Don’t we have enough national holidays?

Also, kudos to the South African authorities for a job well done. Although if I had it my way I would have some mechanism within the AU to hold individual leaders personally accountable for violations of arms embargoes (well, if only the AU was not a club of autocrats, genocidaires and kleptocrats, with a few democrats here and there).