Tag Archives: Kenya

raila-kibaki feud continues over corruption

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The events of Sunday morning exposed the illusion that Kibaki and Raila had decided to bury the hatchet and do what is right for the Republic. Earlier the Prime Minister had suspended Ministers William Ruto and Samuel Ongeri over graft in their respective ministries. But the President quickly followed with a press release saying that the Prime Minister had no authority to dismiss the two ministers. Both cited sections of the Constitution and National Reconciliation Accord that midwifed the formation of the Grand Coalition Government after post-election violence in early 2008.

It is clear that corruption and the fight against it is being politicized by the two principals. It is also clear that the constitutional amendments that created the position of the Prime Minister did a bad job of defining the powers of the Premier and separating these powers from the President’s. And that is just sad. Parliament must do something in order to avert a full blown constitutional crisis in the near future.

Prime Minister Odinga’s move to suspend Ongeri and Ruto, in my opinion, was ill-advised and reckless. Justice is political, and sometimes the means matter just as much as the end. Is it wise to risk wider instability in the country for short-term political gains? I don’t think so Mr. Odinga. There are better ways of dealing with both Ruto and Ongeri. President Kibaki reaction to the suspensions was equally sub-par. I still do not understand how two men in such high positions find it reasonable to communicate with each other over the media instead of meeting and hammering deals with each other in person. The two should know that their power-politics games in the media do nothing but drive wedges between Kenyans. To quote President Moi, these nonsensical games will not increase the number of sufurias in Wanjiku’s kitchen.

awkward…

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Kenyan Premier, Raila Odinga, continued his call for the resignation of Education Minister Sam Ongeri – this time in the presence of the latter at a function in Nairobi’s Upper Hill district.

According to media reports, Prof. Ongeri’s ministry has been involved in a corruption scandal that robbed the country’s free primary education program of millions of Shillings. President Kibaki remains characteristically quiet on this matter, perhaps waiting for Prof. Ongeri to see the writing on the wall for himself.

only in Kenya: milk oversupply, even as some Kenyans starve

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So the government and dairy farmers are not too happy with the current milk oversupply. Prices have gone down dramatically due to the milk glut, causing farmers to want tighter regulation of the dairy industry to protect local dairy farmers.

First of all, advocating for a contraction of the industry in order to boost prices is a silly move. Why don’t we export that milk to Uganda and Southern Sudan instead, or even down south to Tanzania? And there is also the minor detail about starving Kenyans in the Northern arid areas (why doesn’t the Kenyan government treat food insecurity in these parts of the country with the seriousness it deserves???). Why not increase output in order to provide enough even for these people at a lower price? Falling prices can be mitigated through higher output. Scale might be the answer.

please do away with the “omnipresent smells of donkey dung”

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Big business and economic development in “pristine lands” is awful. Especially if you grew up with the comforts of indoor plumbing and general over-abundance of the purest hedonistic-capitalist kind. It is only when you have the choice to pop in and out of “tropical obscurity” that you would find the intellectual courage to defend a way of life that is just above that of man circa 1750 A.D. Suddenly you find yourself forgetting the basic fact that it is underdevelopment that makes infant mortality, HIV infection rates, gender inequality and a whole lot of other maladies most acute in your presumed tropical paradise.

I am beginning to read things to the effect that the development of a port in Lamu (Kenya) is bad – both for the environment and the local people and their culture. I don’t buy most of the stuff though. The likes of Gettleman want us to believe that people in places like Lamu are inherently anti-development. According to him the people of Lamu “say they are not especially well suited for the mechanized world.” Good for them. They would much rather live with the “omnipresent smells of donkey dung” than have a modern port constructed in their district. This is total horse manure.

Firstly, the environmental costs of having a modern port in Lamu will surely be outweighed by the socio-economic benefits. Oil exports from Uganda and Southern Sudan, among other trading opportunities in the wider region will surely create jobs in the area. Secondly, why should we assume that exposure of Lamu culture to the wider (albeit still not completely apparent) Kenyan Culture is necessarily bad? Aren’t cultures supposed to change with time? Plus if Lamu culture cannot keep up after such an encounter it should be allowed to go the way of the dodo. That is why we build museums.

If it can be done – as it should – the construction of Kenya’s second port in Lamu should be a foregone conclusion. The Kenyan government should make this crystal clear to all the environmentalists and anthropologists concerned.

KENYAN MPS TO GET PAY HIKE

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Can someone please tell me how these guys sleep at night given that they run a country with the following stats?????

Infant mortality: 54.7 deaths/1,000 live births

Life expectancy: 58 years

Female literacy rate: 80%

Urban population (crude measure of peasantry rate and level of industrialization): 22% of total population (2008)

PER CAPITA GDP: $ 1,600

jua kali will not take us where we want to go

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Informal businesses provide employment for millions of Kenyans. Kiosks (both big and of the mama mboga variety), the mitumba business, matatus and even peasant agriculture are what keeps the average Kenyan going. Because of governance issues – like corruption and poor laws – the formal sector of the Kenyan economy has consistently failed to provide enough jobs for the ever growing population. That said, I believe that the jua kali (informal) sector will not take Kenya where it wants to go. Economic History teaches us that scale has merits. It provides the resources for R&D, lowers operational costs and generates revenue for the government because it is hard to hide profits from the taxman like is commonplace in Kenya’s jua kali sector. Plus if we have scale we can export surplus production to places all over the Continent thus creating even more Kenyan jobs – why should we cede these markets to the Chinese, Indians and other “Dubai” traders?

That is why I think that Jaindi Kisero has a point with regard to Kenya’s matatu-dominated transport sector. It is time Nairobi, if not all major cities and towns, had decent public transportation unlike the chaotic and thuggish matatu industry. The matatu industry has given rise to a matatu culture that has taken vulgarity and criminality to a new level – the epitome of which is the dreaded Mungiki sect. Because of this, most reasonable people would concur that “formalizing” public transportation and the matatu industry would go a long way in reducing crime and bringing some sanity to Kenyan roads. Now if only there was a place where we could purchase political will and secretly feed it to Kenyan politicians.

And in other news, Somalis in the southern part of the country will be forced to go hungry after al-Shabab kicked out the WFP. About 900,000 people will be affected by the WFP decision. 2.8 million Somalis are dependent on food relief. The WFP decided to close shop in the face of several demands from al-Shabab (the demands were not all bad, I should add. One of them was that the WFP should not import food during the harvest season in order to promote local agriculture. These al-Shabab types know something about the demerits of food aid in Africa, it seems). Somalia has not had a functional government since the fall of Siad Barre in the early 1990s. Sometimes I wonder whether instead of the US paying the Ethiopians to invade Somalia it might have been better to have the Islamic Courts Union run the country. Well, at least for some time before incentivizing their being less predatory and misogynistic. Most politicians the world over have a price. Especially once they have tasted real power.

Lastly, Somalia is not all gloomy. If you are daring enough you can make money in the land of the al-Shabab, without being involved in piracy.

kibaki should not waste this opportunity to punish corruption

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The Kenyan Education Minister Prof. Sam Ongeri is not among the big fish in Kenyan politics. Neither are his assistant and the Ministry’s permanent secretary. Firing them and making them face the law will not have any awful political consequences for the president and his non-existent party. But it will serve Kenya. I think that this is a wonderful opportunity for the president to demonstrate that there are sacred programs that should never be compromised with – like the free primary education program, or healthcare.

Several months ago I thought that the president and his premier would punish those who stole government maize for re-export even as Kenyans starved to death. No one has been punished yet. Word on the street is that bigwigs in the Agriculture Ministry and perhaps even the premier’s son were deeply involved, plus a number of MPs. Now almost SHS 200 million has disappeared from the Ministry of Education. This is money that was intended to finance free primary education. Kibaki cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this.

In other news, the UN wants Guinean dictator Capt. Moussa Camara (and his henchmen) to be tried for crimes against humanity following the massacre of over 150 protestors in late September. Mr. Camara is currently recovering in a Moroccan hospital following a botched assassination attempt. The attempt on his life is believed to be a result of infighting within the junta over who should take responsibility for the September massacre.

Elsewhere, the president of Nigeria continues to rule in absentia. President Umaru Yar’Adua has been ailing in a Saudi hospital for a while now, prompting calls for his resignation. Nigerian politics aside, I echo these same calls. Nigeria is the undisputed leading country in West Africa. The chaos in Guinea and to a lesser extent in Guinea-Bissau and the Ivory Coast require mediation and regional engagement. Nigeria can provide leadership on this front, plus it can send troops (to Guinea especially) to keep the peace. The region needs Nigerian leadership (yes, I know I just said that). And that means having a strong and engaged Nigerian president.

Kenyan insanity

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How is this even imaginable in a country where millions are faced with starvation and an annual income per capita of under $ 2000???

The Kenyan political class should be ashamed of itself.

my two cents on the new constitution

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What I liked:

  • The bicameral parliament. It is expensive but will serve to give the regions a voice.
  • The regional governments. Great idea, but how are they going to be funded? I would have loved it if there was a provision that each region should generate enough revenue to fund a fixed percentage of its budget. This way the regional governments can have incentives to promote economic activity in their regions. Better yet the central government should have been mandated to only issue matching grants to these regions – to spur competition among them for funds for such sectors as education, healthcare, infrastructure development, etc
  • Retention of the Kadhis courts. I am glad that sanity prevailed on this one. Kenyan Christians were being absolutely crazy in their opposition to this.

What I did not like:

  • The judiciary. Judges of the Supreme Court should have had life tenure. They should have created regional court systems. And they should have done away with the “traditional” court systems – whatever they are?
  • Traditional marriages should have been trashed. Marriage should be between two people. Polygamy is an affront on women’s rights. Period.
  • And about gay marriage, I don’t think it was necessary to spell out that marriage is between a man and a woman. These guys should have been open minded enough to allow for the possibility of Kenyans being more liberal than they currently are.
  • Vote share for Nairobi in the Senate. Nairobi should have had one of the biggest shares of Senate votes – by virtue of it being the economic hub. Instead the Rift Valley, with its many underdeveloped counties, has the largest share. Call it urban bias, but I don’t like the idea of rural non-tax-payers always having the biggest say on who gets to steal the money paid in taxes by Nairobians and other city dwellers.
  • The lack for autonomy of towns and cities. The counties idea is great, but we should have designated cities and towns that were autonomous  – with their own police forces and stuff. Security and Justice are political and should have been devolved too.

And in other news, Kenya is still among the most corrupt countries in the world. The new TI corruption perception index ranks Kenya at 146 out of 180 states. This is one more reason to fire Amos Wako, Kenya’s Attorney general since forever. And while we are at it we should also get rid of the Chief Justice. Mr. Gicheru has not lived up to expectations. He was appointed to clean up the judiciary but ended up in the pockets of the powers that be.

internally displaced people in Africa

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“There are other questions too. Should IDPs stay in rural areas or be resettled in towns? Providing the right amount of assistance is tricky as well. Too much, and an African government risks turning camps into subsidised slums. Too little, and people die.”

The above quote is from this weeks Economist Newspaper. As I have argued before, I think that the move to come up with a framework to protect IDPs on the Continent is a charade. I don’t get how the likes of Mugabe (one of the chief displacers of people on the Continent) are supposed to be entrusted with protecting the same people. Having UNHCR do the job sounds good but is riddled with huge moral hazard problems – as illustrated by the above quote.

Meanwhile, this is the kind of life that many an African autocrat (and soon the effects of climate change) forces his fellow citizens to live.

where are the african governments in this debate?

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I am a regular reader of Bill Easterly’s Aid Watch blog. I like his skepticism with regard to the efficacy of aid in the developing world. But every time I read something by him I am always left wondering; what do African finance ministers’ think? I would appreciate having some opinions from the people he keeps writing about – because otherwise he is no better than the WB or IMF clowns who conduct their business from a distance without local input. Easterly’s solutions-based approach could do with a little bit of input from third world government officials.

Defending Nairobi

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The New York Times has a story on the security situation in Nairobi. In the interest of full disclosure, Nairobi is my home town. I was there this summer and would like to point out – just for the record – that although Nairobi may not be the safest place in the world, it is not the most dangerous city in the world either. The city has 4 million people, give or take. Income inequality is off the charts. The city’s economy cannot provide enough jobs for its youth, most of whom do not spend enough time in school and therefore resort to petty theft to earn a living. This summer there was a wave of kidnappings. Some were by real criminals. At least one that got exposed was by a young woman trying to get money from her father by pretending that she was kidnapped.The Nairobi city council is run by a bunch of clowns.

I agree with Gettleman that the incidence of crime in Nairobi is way too high. That said, Nairobi is not Jo’burg or Kabul. It is still very much a live-able city – as evidenced by the many NGOs and UN agencies that have set up shop in there.

kenyan ethnic groups arming ahead of 2012

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I just read this on the BBC and can’t stop wishing that it is all hype. The report quotes a number of Kenyans – mostly from the Rift Valley – who seem to be acknowledging that segments of the Kenyan population are arming ahead of the 2012 elections. And this time round instead of machetes and bows and arrows they are getting guns, machine guns. A Kenyan working for an NGO in Eldoret confirmed the BBC report.

I am assuming, or rather hoping that the Kenyan intelligence community is not sleeping on the job like they did in the run-up to the 2007 elections. If people are buying machine guns it can only mean one thing. If Kenya is ever to have a civil war it will be fought in the Rift Valley. Other political conflicts in Kenya have always been over the sharing of divisible goods – mainly payoffs in terms of good jobs and chances for sleaze among the many ethnic entrepreneurs that populate the Kenyan political landscape. But the conflict in the Rift Valley will be about a somewhat indivisible good – LAND. Those that own the land will not let go or share it easily, more so if they have machine guns. And those that think that the land was taken from them wrongly will perhaps  also be willing to fight for the land, more so if they also have machine guns.

The contest in 2012 just seems to get messier and messier. Kibaki should consider calling a snap election and then stepping down. That may catch the plotters unawares and bring a decisive victory to one party or the other. May be then the government will be able to deal with all these issues – land, judicial reforms, security etc – without the many distractions that the current government faces.

And in other news, Jaindi Kisero (one of my favorite columnists) has a piece on the slightly positive signs the Kenyan economy has shown so far. If only the nation’s political class would get its act togehter…

I also found this discussion on the IMF and WB interesting.

One, more thing.  Last week I attended a talk by Paul Romer on Charter cities. The idea is as exciting as it is provocative. I still don’t know what to make of it though. Read more about it here.

ringera calls it quits

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I just watched a clip on the Nation’s website showing the press conference at which outgoing director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, retired judge Ringera announced his departure from Integrity Centre. I don’t understand exactly why it took him so long to see the sense in doing this.The clip also hinted at rumors that Ringera may get a job in the judiciary. I hope not. He was ineffectual at KACC. He earned 2 million shillings a month and delivered nothing for Wanjiku. Public service, and the emoluments that come with it, is not the right of a select group of Kenyans. We should not keep recycling the same names. And this is not restricted to just the high profile national offices. We transfer ineffectual DCs, PPOs, directors and chiefs all the time. No wonder the more we try to implement change the more things stay the same.

As Ringera left he made some very useful suggestions on how parliament can strengthen the KACC. May be we should award his courage in resigning by implementing some of these ideas.

And on a sort of related topic, I wish Annan and Ocampo would stop issuing threats. Just give us the names. Let us know who is suspected of having done what in last year’s post poll violence. These leaders need to be named and shamed instead of being given more time to continue mis-shaping Kenya’s destiny.

links that I liked

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Taking a break from Collier and Hoeffler and Crawford Young (and into my third cup of tea for the night) I came across the following links…

William Easterly has his usual skepticism when it comes to practitioner-certainty in the field of Economics. How I wish I had time to read the two books he is banging on about in the New York Review of Books.

This result of a World Bank funded project is sort of long-ish, but I liked because one of the authors is a fellow student at the department – and because it touches on something that I care about. I can’t wait for the time I shall be doing similar fieldwork…

And Texas in Africa has a piece on Somalia that is asking the right questions. Is it time for the US and the rest of the world to call Al Shabab to the negotiating table? May be not.