Mr. Okoth Osewe, I commend you for persistently calling upon Kenyan workers to form a political party in order to have better representation. From online investigations, it is only the Kenya Red Alliance (KRA) which champions this position. Disappointingly enough, not even the pro-poor, left-leaning political parties like the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chama Cha Mwananchi (CCM), Sisi Kwa Sisi and many others, have condemned the Government’s nonchalance in handling the doctors’ strike, which is mainly due the unfulfilled “return to work” deal agreed on a few months ago. These parties have also not shown solidarity in the recurring strike actions in Kenya.
Look at the former firebrands of SDP now turned Ministers: Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o (NHIF scandal); Lawyer James Orengo (CDF mismanagement in his Ugenya constituency, yet bought a suit worth USD 6000); and Mrs. Charity Ngilu (allegations of ‘over’ allocating boreholes in her Ukambani area); and so forth. They all quit SDP, joined the ruling class parties and have never again fought for the poor. Anyang’ Nyong’o’s ‘sacking’ of the doctors was absurd especially when he mentioned that his Medical Services Ministry will recruit 1,000 new ones to replace them. It was equally shocking to hear Nyong’o claiming they would recruit from the private sector because Government pays better. It is a fact that almost 50 years after Independence, the country is far below the recommended doctor-patient ratio of 1:1000. We have around 3000 doctors in the public hospitals, for a population of 40 million Kenyans. What about the Millennium Development Goals to be met by 2015, which recommend the doctor-patient ratio of 1:600?
Kenyan workers should form a political party which will be above the turncoat and bling bling Atwoli’s COTU, who only cheers from the sidelines and never adds value to labor disputes. He is a multi-millionaire who hobnobs with the rich and famous of Kenya and has forgotten his poor ghetto upbringing. It was stated a while ago by an MP that Atwoli earns up to KES 5 million a month (probably as bribes), from employers who do not want their workers to join unions.
Kenyan employers prefer to recruit casual/contractual laborers who are never unionized and are cheap to maintain during these lean economic times. According to information in posted in the International Business Wiki, the current state of Kenya’s labor unions is pathetic due to a non-caring Government: “There has been a political disconnect between labor unions and political parties. This affects the voice of the people and in turn the relationship between workers and management. It is critical for the relationship to be a solid bond as it allows for efficiency, increased productivity and that leads to the creation of more employment.”
Labor unions weakened by politicians
Gone are the days when labor unions fought for and supported employees. Key unions began weakening during former Dictator Moi’s regime, when factions were formed to fight against them. With the rising unemployment rate (above 40%), many workers do not want to be sacked and will comply with whatever management wants, even if it is not in their best interest. The International Business Wiki notes that: “The membership of labor and trade unions has declined in recent years due to Kenya’s economic state. For example, KNUT, Kenya National Union of Teachers, which represents the teaching profession, has become a fraction of its former self. The government has fronted what are called splinter unions to break up others unions by making them ineffective. A labor economist with the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, Mr. Omolo, said, “The splinters have reduced the voices of the workers hence they cannot emphatically send a strong message to management.” This is causing not just the numbers of unionized workers to decline, but also the workers that are employed to be less productive and inefficient, which in turn will have a domino effect on the entire Kenyan economy.”
In a review on “Trade Unions in Kenya” by Tiberius Barasa (April, 2009, p.47) annexed in a report by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) titled: “Political Economy Analysis of Kenya”, he states that – “Kenyan trade unions have not yet developed any working relationship with political parties or politicians for that matter. This may be attributed to the fact that the political parties may not have, as yet, defined in concrete terms their agenda/ideals, which the unions can subscribe to. It may also be that if such an agenda/ideal is existing, then it is not deep on labour/workers’ issues. Alternatively, it may be the case that the trade unions/their leaders have not yet realized the complementarity that exists between them and these other groups in furthering their ideals. The trade unions are fairly active in public debates. The focus of their debates has, however, been on ‘bread and butter’ issues at the exclusion of more contemporary issues. Even the financial and economic crises have not changed these issues. Nevertheless, there is a gradual change.”
Left-wing politicians silent on strikes
Are Kenyans generally averse to Socialism, given our former position during the Cold War? There seems to be something negative in the word ‘Social(ism)’ in Kenya, but that needs more investigation. Cuba, which follows socialist principles in running its economy, has a top-notch healthcare system, quite above many rich countries. Since the top brass of SPD are “Friends of Cuba”, what can they borrow from them to improve our dilapidated healthcare system? The party doesn’t seem to have much clout among the electorate at the moment and its leaders are not moving around the country with fiery campaigns to sell their ideals.
Former Water Minister Mutua Katuku was cited in the Star newspaper on April 4, 2011 claiming that SDP is the only ideological party in Kenya. “At one time in late 90s, the social democrats were held in high esteem courtesy of the many intellectuals in its ranks. Headed by a politburo which comprised the late Dr Apollo Njonjo and Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, the party was a cut above the rest, though did not enjoy mass appeal. It lost it in the count down to the 2002 General Elections as the battle between Njonjo, Nyong’o, Charity Ngilu and James Orengo tore the party to shreds. Orengo run for President but lost “We believe that its time political parties stood for and advocated specific ideals. The present state of Kenyan politics is leaving too many people behind and it is this anomaly that the party is looking to remedy,” Katuku said.”
As Kenyans go through this period of “A Striking Nation”, where is the voice of former Wundayi MP Mwandawiro Mghanga, the Chairman of SDP? The last time SDP’s Website posted the grievances of Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) was on March 27, 2012, for a press conference notice. Where is the politically passionate Onyango Oloo, SDP Secretary for Ideology? Where is former Subukia MP Koigi wa Wamwere, another left-leaning firebrand?
Kenyan workers will fail in their quest for better terms of employment as long as there is no systemic change or revolution. This is a tall order, but it must begin from somewhere. The striking medical personnel must be relentless in their demands which are not only about improved remuneration packages, but also for healthy environments at work. They lack basic medical kits which comprise gloves, bandages and other protective clothing.
Recently, parliamentary speaker Kenneth Marende hinted on another pay rise for our perennial Exchequer thieves, also known as MPs. Ironically, high ranking Government officials never strike or lament when they want a pay rise; they simply get it in a heartbeat. With all the continuous economic woes fuelled by corruption, is Vision 2030 achievable? Meanwhile, Kenyan taxpayers were charged $3000 (around KES 250,000) per seat, for the new look Parliament that will have 350 representatives in 2013. They also paid a whopping KES 400 million to build the recently completed official residence of the vice president. The first one was turned into a private residence by former president Moi. These are some of the many unnecessary Government expenses incurred to perpetuate the deeply entrenched socio-economic apartheid. Kenya has definitely gone to the dogs.
Jared Odero
About the Author
A good politician is a poor one but once they learn the tricks of draining their tax payers money and making corruption deals they all become hyenas. Kenya needs a leader who will never condone corruption. Such a leader can only succeed if he/she can force distribution of the country’s resources by first stripping the rich all excess wealth and diverting it to development projects. Not allowing anybody to own more than 100 acres of land and yet squarters are crying everywhere in the same country. Nobody should earn more than one hundred thousand shillings while majority of citizens are living below poverty line. No money should be stashed in foreign banks by the same people who pretend to preach solidarity but instead such accounts should be freezed and the proceeds directed towards free education,health services, improvement of all public utility projects and support of the old.
Mghanga Heckled for Backing Mwatela Bid
By Raphael Mwadime, 25 September 2012
Former Wundanyi MP Mwandawiro Mghanga was booed over the weekend for endorsing former Central Bank of Kenya deputy Jacinta Mwatela’s governor bid.
Addressing hundreds of residents in Mwatate town who converged after holding demonstrations to protest land injustices in the region, Mwandawiro had a rough time calming down the residents when he tried to rally them to vote for Mwatela in the Taita Taveta gubernatorial contest.
“I want to ask for your support in my bid for the senator seat, but it is important if you choose a good governor to manage our resources well and I urge you to vote for Mrs Jacinta Mwatela,” he said as the gathering responded with jeers. Mwandawiro blamed poor governance for widespread poverty and underdevelopment in the region.
Mwatela was not present at the meeting, but his brother and former Wundanyi MP Mashengu wa Mwachofi, who is vying for the senator seat was present. Many leaders from the region among MPs were conspicuously absent during the meeting despite being informed of the event.
Mwandawiro’s remarks did not go down well with the residents, who accused Mwatela of snubbing the meeting despite being informed of the event – People March to Freedom – which was organised by Mwasima Mbuwa, a land rights lobby group. The residents claimed Mwatela, who is the wife of Mwatate MP Calist Mwatela, and other leaders have failed to support the fight against land injustices in the region.
“You should not tell us to support people who are never with us whenever we are suffering. Let them come and fight for their political space in person as you have done,” the residents told off Mwandawiro. They vowed to only support leaders who are in the fight against land injustice in the region.
“This time round we shall support those who have been with us in our match to freedom. It’s sad some people stay in towns as we suffer and only resurface when it’s election time. This time, we will tell them to continue staying in the towns as we shall not vote for them,” vowed the residents. The SDP chair had to cut his speech short and apologise to the residents. “Please, forgive me. I have withdrawn the remarks. It is true that you have all the powers bestowed to you in the constitution,” he said.
Striking doctors tweet their woes
Striking doctors have taken their agitation to social media in a bid to present their woes on the ongoing salary stalemate .
A group of about 10 doctors, each on his/her laptop, tweeted about the rot in public health institutions and poor working conditions that they said should be improved.
On Twitter, using the hashtag #peremendemovement, the health workers painted a picture of the current state of public health facilities and working conditions countrywide.
“Having to turn away a begging mother and her wailing baby at the pharmacy because you lack the antibiotic her baby needs,” read one of the tweets.
“More than 3/4 of all deliveries in Nairobi are conducted at Pumwani Maternity Hospital and it has no neo-natal Intensive Care Unit,” read another tweet.
“Registrars are not interns; they are consultants in training. They run Kenya’s largest referral hospitals. Pay them,” they tweeted.
“Spare a thought for a mother being carried by a wheelbarrow to a hospital 20km away,” read another tweet.
The doctors downed their tools on September 13 to push for the implementation of a pay deal struck in December last year between the union and the government.
Return-to-work talks
They also want the government to hire more health staff and commit more funds towards improving the country’s health sector.
Return-to-work talks between the Medical Services ministry and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union have ended in a stalemate and the doctors have vowed to continue with the strike. (READ: Talks fail to end doctors’ strike)
They also vowed to continue with their social media campaign today at an undisclosed location until the above issues were addressed.
Meanwhile, uncertainty continues to engulf the public health sector following a disagreement between the union and the government over the return-to-work formula.
Last evening, the union and ministry officials met for the third time at Afya House to finalise details and sign the deal they reached on Sunday, but sources said the government was evasive on actual timelines.
By evening, they were yet to strike a deal. After a two-day meeting chaired at the weekend by assistant minister Kazungu Kambi, the doctors reached a temporary deal with the government in what signalled an end to the three-week labour crisis in public hospitals.
The World’s ‘Poorest President’
While the title president is often synonymous with plush living and hefty paycheques, Uruguay’s head of state is contrasting the norm.
José Mujica who is commonly referred to as the “The World’s Poorest President” donates 90 per cent of his salary, taking home approximately Ksh105, 000 of his allotted Ksh1,050,000.
Speaking to a Spanish newspaper, the 77-year-old head of state explained that the amount he takes home is sufficient
“I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less,” he told the paper.
Mujica also refused to live in the presidential residence, opting to reside in a small farmhouse owned by his wife. Like her husband, Mrs. Mujica donates a large sum of her senatorial salary.
The president, who was previously a guerilla fighter, has no bank account. When declaring his wealth, Mujica stated that his most valuable possession is his aged Volkswagen Beetle.
Known as a man who shuns formalities and high-end living, Mujica has endeared himself to many as a generous leader and a true man of the people. After 10 years behind bars for his guerilla activism, Mujica has served as a senator and minister for agriculture.
Though José Mujica is not the first president to donate his salary, his move is a sharp contrast to the leaders in Kenya and other who take home large salaries while the bulk of their constituents live below the poverty line.
Francis Otuche, you have a point there. Former MPs Mwandawiro Mghanga and Koigi wa Wamwere lived in Sweden and Norway respectively and were seen as socialist ambassadors returning to revamp Kenya’s political landscape. Personally, I believed then that they would use their Scandinavian experience to push for social values in Kenyan politics during their terms from 2002-2007. However, they were resoundingly rejected by their constituents in the 2007 elections for not improving anything. As MPs, the two made personal wealth and moved from being socialists to capitalists. Mwandawiro, who was once a respected and fearless socialist, is nowadays booed in his Wudanyi area whenever he addresses public rallies.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/10/201210472623746765.html
Africa has much to teach us about democracy
By Dan Buckley
Friday, October 05, 2012
The growing participation of women in politics in Africa has sparked a quiet revolution that could teach Western countries a lot about democracy, argues Dan Buckley
Catherine Muigai Mwangi: ‘Political equality must be backed up by economic and social parity.’
A RATHER pompous British journalist once asked India’s Mahatma Gandhi: “What do you think of Western civilisation?”
The quick-witted force of nature responded: “I think it would be a very good idea.”
The encounter may be apocryphal yet it resonates with the condescen-ding tone often used by Western nations when discussing democracy in Africa.
With the legacy of colonialism, it is little wonder that many African countries have struggled to find political stability. But the growing participation of women in politics — much of it precipitated by gender quotas — has not only transformed many of the continent’s regions but could provide a template for the West, Ireland included.
Worldwide efforts to promote women in decision-making roles gained prominence in the 1980s and was propelled after the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 where delegates called for a global effort to secure a representation by women of 30% in national parliaments.
Since then, many countries have increased female political representation and some of the biggest increases have been seen in Africa. Some sub-Saharan countries have significantly higher levels of women’s representation in parliament and national assemblies than rich, so-called democratic countries.
About 16% of the national seats are held by women in the US and only 10% in Japan whereas in South Africa and Mozambique, women hold over one third of the seats in parliament.
However, there are exceptions. Although considered the economic giant of East Africa, in terms of women’s political representation, Kenya’s participation, at 9.8%, is dwarfed by neighbouring countries.
Last August’s Regional Dialogue on Women’s Political Leadership held in the capital, Nairobi, sought to draw lessons — and inspiration — from other African states where participation is much higher.
Rwanda is the world leader, with women parliamentarians making up 56% of the total. There is no doubt that this seismic shift in power has come about as a result of gender quotas. Under their new constitution, 24 out of the 80 seats are reserved for women in Rwanda’s lower house of parliament. The constitution also reserves six out of the 20 seats in the upper house for women.
The decision to do this was due to the persistent lobbying of Rwandan women who helped draft the new constitution and also secured a ministry for women’s affairs.
Elsewhere, South Africa, at 42% is close to gender equality while both Tanzania and Uganda, at 36% and 35% respectively, boast the kind of representation usually associated with Nordic countries.
To put that in local context, Ireland has a miserable record, lying in 89th position in a world classification table of women’s political representation in parliament. With the Dáil having a female representation rate of just over 15%, Ireland falls behind both the world average of 19.5% and the EU average of 24%.
Women’s representation in the Seanad is substantially better where 18 of the 60 seats, or 30%, are held by women. However, if the Upper House is scrapped — something currently under Government consideration — the Irish situation will worsen.
Even if the Seanad is retained, the National Women’s Council of Ireland has estimated that without a quota provision, it will take 370 years before gender parity in political representation is achieved in Ireland.
Female empowerment, though, can often reside elsewhere, as the Kenyan ambassador to Ireland, Catherine Muigai Mwangi, argues. This week Ms Mwangi, the first Kenyan envoy to Ireland, visited Cork to address students at UCC. Her talk focused on the kind of empowerment that enables women to access and control the means of economic production in a manner that gives them social and political powers to influence their own lives as well as the lives of those around them.
She questions whether the clamour for gender equality may have cost African women real empowerment and the experience of meaningful change. She recognises that broad concepts like human rights and gender equality are absorbed in different ways in various parts of the world.
“Although these issues are global, they translate quite differently in different societies,” says Ms Mwangi.
“We recognise things like human rights and gender equality globally but there are differences in how these concepts are translated and supported in various cultures.”
Although Kenya has made huge strides in terms of political representation of women, “we are not there, yet”, acknowledges the ambassador, though she is optimistic for the future.
Those strides include a ministry of gender and a new constitution adopted by the country in 2010. Kenya’s general election next March is likely to reveal whether such huge political shifts have heralded real change.
Already forcing that change is the decentralisation of political power with a huge strengthening of local government.
That system of building from the ground up is something she sees as central to real democracy: “People want to feel empowered and to feel that their opinions and their needs matter, so devolving power to the regions under the new constitution was essential as so much of Kenya’s population live in rural communities.”
With visionary women galvanising that kind of change, anything is possible and everyone benefits — men and women.