What Would Magufuli Do With Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto?
The hashtag #WhatWouldMagufuliDo has been trending on Twitter following the austerity measures being implemented by the newly-elected President John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania. As a result, there have been numerous comical Magufuli-themed memes on Twitter suggesting various ways of slashing personal expenses across Africa. Many Kenyans have proposed that Magufuli should go and rule Kenya for at least two months, and apply his “Bulldozer” tactics to sweep away the rotten leadership of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, which is infested with incurable corruption, wastage of public funds, lack of patriotism, empty policies, tribalism, dictatorship, etc.
Magufuli is using the first few weeks in office to stamp his leadership style, unlike Uhuru and Ruto whose first “100 days” were spent to select a bunch of corrupt Cabinet Secretaries that they sacked earlier this year; waste public money on shuttle diplomacy to bail out Uhuru from the International Criminal Court (ICC) post-election violence (PEV) accusations; attend silly “homecoming parties” for Jubilee politicians and Cabinet Secretaries at the cost of taxpayers; order lamb chops and other types of food worth Ksh7 million, for Uhuru’s five-day visit in China; lie about providing laptops to school pupils, etc. Magufuli would have told them to stop the nonsense, be accountable, and deliver quality services to Kenyans.
The joke on cost-cutting in Uhuru’s government is one that Magufuli would literally laugh about. Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich imposed a ban in December 2013 on using private hotels and resorts for government meetings. “Rotich announced a Sh121 billion austerity drive that halted business class air travel, use of government vehicles outside working hours, and attendance of international conferences” (The Star newspaper March 4, 2014). However, the same newspaper reported that the day before, Uhuru had chaired a meeting for his Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at the luxurious Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club, 200 kilometers from Nairobi. He had arrived by helicopter and the rest had used fuel guzzlers accompanied by caretakers and bodyguards, wasting public money.
By June 2014, the presidency (Uhuru and Ruto’s offices) had spent almost Ksh1 billion on purchasing new vehicles, despite calling for austerity measures. “The Presidency, which includes State House, the executive office of Mr Kenyatta and Deputy president William Ruto, spent Sh838.2 million buying cars, says the latest report from Controller of Budget.” No wonder there are memes showing Magufuli with his motto, “Hapa Kazi Tu!” (Here it is Just Work, Nothing Else) while Uhuru’s is, “Hepa Kazi” (Avoid Work).
Ideological, philosophical and ethical bankruptcy
According to a blog post by Wyclife [sic] Kipruto at econke.wordpress.com, “Since independence, Politics and political parties in Kenya have never been organized around ideologies and philosophies. They are and have always been organized around tribes and tribal kingpins. This is so because the political elite use their respective communities for their own selfish political agenda. A tribal kingpin puts his community in a basket and proceeds to the national stage to trade with other kingpins.”
Uhuru and Ruto have now formed Jubilee Party by merging their political parties (The National Alliance and United Republican Party) with other affiliated ones. According to Ruto, the Jubilee Party will unite Kenyans since it aims to provide a ‘national outlook’ devoid of tribal affiliations. Nevertheless, critics see the strategy as a return to the one-party state of KANU days. Who takes Ruto seriously? He was just a poor chicken farmer until he got a break when he joined former Dictator Daniel Moi’s fervent campaigns to eliminate Kikuyus in Rift Valley through the infamous Youth for KANU 1992 (YK92). Since then, he has been adversely mentioned in corruption scandals and land grabbing cases which led to at least one conviction with a fine of Ksh5 million to compensate farmer Adrian Muteshi. His status as a billionaire is therefore questionable and he has no moral right to talk about unity. The same Ruto, who has an ongoing ICC case weighing heavily on his neck due to alleged involvement in the PEV, was recently quoted in a local daily saying: “Compulsory ethics, integrity training to be introduced in public service.” Really? Leadership without an ideological base is what both Uhuru and Ruto suffer from.
Policy frameworks and role models
Uhuru and Ruto cannot transform Kenya since they have no historical points of reference, ideal role models or proven track records to wipe away poverty and corruption. Magufuli in Tanzania is working on the late President Nyerere’s Socialist ideology that was not successful given its rigidity and lack of capacity, and then-global ideological tensions which pitted Socialism against Capitalism. The Cold War and other dominant Western phenomena also did not allow Pan-Africanism to develop. Today, the continent is more open and there is progress in many countries with serious leaders, unlike the two clowns Uhuru and Ruto, who have managed to raise Kenya’s total debts from Ksh1. 89 trillion when Kibaki left the presidency in early 2013, to Ksh2.9 trillion ($28.4 billion) or 54 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in October 2015. The men have a huge appetite for borrowing, corruption and wastage.
An analytical article titled ‘#WhatWouldMagufuliDo Sparks New Bout of Tanzaphilia’ by Hanno Brankamp, cites the late Professor Ali Mazrui who coined the political phenomenon “Tanzaphilia”, in a 1967 journal article, which he defined as: “the romantic spell which Tanzania casts on so many of those who have been closely associated with her.” In January 1967, Tanzania’s most prominent political statement, the Arusha Declaration, was passed as the then ruling party’s (TANU) policy on Socialism, Self-Reliance and Ujamaa (collective settlements, villages). The original document was written by Nyerere.
Brankamp argues that: “Tanzaphilia, however, was as much a result of this ideology as by the character of Nyerere himself, who believed strongly in practising humility. Even as president, he queued when waiting for services in banks, post offices and during elections.” Uhuru and Ruto do not show humility in the way they appoint people from their ethnic groups to top jobs, or when they go against sections of the Constitution to overrule the Opposition even on noble ideas. Uhuru’s role models are his father, Jomo Kenyatta, and Daniel Moi, the two presidents who were dictators and land-grabbers. Moi preached his bankrupt philosophy of “Nyayoism” (peace, love and unity) for 24 years, yet led the country into an abyss of murders, tribalism, corruption and dictatorship.
Brankamp argues that Kenyans have been gripped by “Maguphoria” and wish for better leadership amidst the prevalent poverty and corruption they suffer from, under Uhuru. Regardless of the structural challenges faced by Magufuli, his “dynamic social offensive against graft, wasteful public spending, and poor education as a prelude to his presidency might herald an innovative new direction in Tanzanian politics and lay the groundwork for what could become a ‘Magufuli doctrine’: Work hard, don’t live beyond your means, and listen to the people.”
Jared Odero
Kenya Stockholm Blog 
Mystery of Ruto’s wealth : How Ruto joined the millionaire’s club
Posted on 22 April, 2007
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He was a struggling 30 year old. Then somebody took him to State House one afternoon in 1997. When he went home in the evening, he had eight prime plots worth over Shs 50 million. He has never looked back and is today worth hundreds of millions.
For presidential candidate William Samoei Ruto, the big break in the world of big money and mega deals must have come on Wednesday, December 3, 1997.
This particular Wednesday must hold special significance to Ruto for it is the day he accomplished the hitherto impossible feat of getting himself allocated close to a dozen prime plots in Nairobi; all part of a single day’s work.
These plots were to become the financial launching pad for the ambitious but humbly-bred young man from Eldoret. Today, Ruto’s is a classic story of rags to riches. He may not be wealthy in the leagues of competitors such as Raila Odinga, Mwai Kibaki or Musalia Mudavadi but he is certainly not a poor man even when compared with the other lot of presidential candidates such as Kalonzo Musyoka, Najib Balala and Dr. Julia Ojiambo.
Ruto is a man whose wealth could be in the region of a hundred million plus, quite a Herculean feat for someone who started life with nothing but a burning ambition to succeed ‘no matter what at whatever the cost’.
There are two particular people who played the crucial determining role in showing the then inexperienced Ruto which side was up and which was down in the world of mega-deals – former President Daniel arap Moi and former cabinet minister Cyrus Jirongo. He has never looked back.
Jirongo’s role in the education of Ruto started when the two teamed up in 1992 to create the infamous Kanu youth lobby group YK ’92. Jirongo, as chairman of the then high-powered and on one of the few outfits that were willing to publicly stick their necks out for Moi’s re-election, had unlimited access to President Moi and enjoyed a place of honour at the high table.
Ruto, on the other hand, was a junior official in the outfit with little money and no high-level contacts of the kind Jirongo could marshal with a few phone calls.
But Ruto had something that Jirongo did not have. He had the patience, stealth, surreptitiousness and tenacity of a stalking leopard. Using Jirongo’s good rapport with President Moi, Ruto was bale to use the lobby group’s meetings with the president to worm his way to the head of state and to key state house operatives of the time, such as former presidential aide Joshua Kulei.
While Jirongo was fast, abrasive, impatient and raring to go, behind Ruto’s deceptively innocent looking exterior was a sly and shrewd operator whose calculating ways expressed itself in his curious, one could even say devious, sense of humour.
Ruto, for instance, chose rather interesting names for the companies he used to facilitate various land deals. Ruto’s main vehicle for land deals was Oseng Properties Limited. The name Oseng or osengeng is the Kalenjin for ‘these fools’. He had another firm that went by the name Orterter Enterprises Limited. Translated, orterter means ‘we must win’. Another of his operational firms went by the name Matiny Limited. In Kalenjin Matiny stands for ‘whatever the cost’.
These were some of the more creatively named companies that Ruto used to effectively climb the financial ladder.
Soon after the 1992 general elections, the fast paced Jirongo had, who like the fabled Daedalus and Icarus of Greek mythology had flown too close to the sun, had his wings melting. Ruto, together with a few other more calculating members of YK ’92, quickly distanced themselves from the falling Jirongo and besides helping twist the political knife stuck in Jirongo’s backside; Ruto and co. swiftly used the Jirongo crisis in Kanu to get even closer to the powers that be. By so doing they inched as near to the ultimate dispenser of public goodies – President Moi – as they could.
Significantly, today, Ruto hardly sees eye to eye with either of his mentors, Moi and Jirongo. In his determination to achieve an individual political identity and autonomy he has slowly sought new friends and considers politicians like the ODM supreme Raila Odinga, as more important to his political evolution.
Record plot allocations
It all started with the formation of a company that went by the name Oseng properties Limited early in 1997 where Ruto was listed as director and chairman of the company, with his business right hand man Paul K Chirchir acting as the company secretary.
Hardly had the registrar’s ink died on the company’s registration certificate than Oseng Properties Limited was in real business. The most active day for Oseng Properties was December 3rd 1997.
The day started with an application to president Moi by Oseng Properties fro allocation of a dozen or so prime commercial properties in the city’s plush suburbs and Ruto’s company’s given registration documents bearing the legend:
“Know all men by these presents that in consideration of the sum of shillings (relevant amount indicate) by way of stamp premium paid on or before the execution thereof, The president of the Republic of Kenya hereby grants unto Oseng Properties Limited all that piece of land situate in the City of Nairobi…..”
On that December day, Oseng Properties Limited and Orterter Enterprises were allocated at least eight plots whose total value was estimated to be in excess of Shs 50 million. Early the year that followed the companies were back in business. Two more plots were allocated on February 16 and another on two days later. On average Ruto’s companies paid the government between Shs 50,000 and Sh 280,000 for the plots as statutory dues.
The cash cow
It was these plots that he used a few days later to get millions of shillings from City Finance Bank Company and Ajay Shah’s collapsed trust Bank. Using some of these plots a s collateral, Ruto got some Kshs 50 million from City Finance bank on July 2nd 1998.
Then on November 24th 1998, he had another plot charged to the same fiannce company for Shs 7.5 million. The same property was later discharged and subsequently charged to Kenya Commercial bank for a loan of Shs 9.75 million.
It is certainly with the monies he got from these land dealings that Ruto was able to set himself in the world of business, and hence the world of the privileged.
Among his first business project was in the real estate initially with his erstwhile friend Cyrus Jirongo. Together they constructed a block of apartments in Ngong area sometimes in 1993 although Jirongo was the main financier for the project.
The value of the apartments, estimated to be worth at least Shs 50 million at the time, should have appreciated substantially by now and must be worth hundreds of millions. However, these apartments were later to lead to a bitter row between Ruto and Jirongo. It is not clear how the matter was ultimately settled but each party had accused the other of behaving dishonestly in the deal.
Years later Ruto would construct his own block of rental apartments along Jogoo road. The Jogoo Road apartments were estimated to be worth around Shs 50 million.
He was to diversify his line of business later and teaming up with some friends to set up an insurance company –AMACO- which did lucrative business during the last days of the Moi government. At the time Ruto had joined Moi’s inner core and had been elevated to a cabinet minister as he assisted Moi to promote project Uhuru where the former unsuccessfully tried t have Uhuru Kenyatta succeed him.
Not many others of Ruto’s businesses are in the public domain, but the aspiring ODM presidential candidate has obviously den well for himself. He has moved from a relatively poor man ten years ago to the multi-millionaire he is today with a palatial home in Karen, another equally opulent home in his rural Eldoret suburbs plus rent apartments, farms and other asserts.
WILLIAM SAMOE RUTO
KSH 300,000,000,000,000,000,000
Age: 49
Source of Wealth: Massive, boisterous looting of public money with impunity and arrogance to boot.
Residence: Multiple
Citizenship: Kenyan
Marital status: one known wife
Children: Four KNOWN children
Anne Waiguru’s Son Ian Badly Embarrassed After He Finds His Expensive Car Smeared With Faeces
Former Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru seems to have made so many enemies when she reigned supreme in the powerful Devolution docket.
According to the Daily Post, Her son Ian was shocked to find someone had defecated on his expensive ride at Junction Mall. It is said that Ian was enjoying a movie at Century Cinemax when the ugly incident occurred.
What is not clear is if the person who committed the alleged offend knew Ian and was punishing him for his mother’s sins or it was a ‘normal’ crime as police would put it.
Waiguru has vehemently denied being involved in the grand looting of Sh791 Million at the National Youth Service.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission detectives searched her house for evidence linking her to the loss of the money that led to her stepping down.
Accused Kenyan minister William Ruto is suspended
19 October 2010
Kenya’s president has suspended Higher Education Minister William Ruto, after a court ruled he must stand trial over corruption allegations.
Last week, three constitutional court judges dismissed his plea that he would not get a fair trial.
He is charged with defrauding a state corporation of $1.2m (£750,000) nine years ago over the sale of forest land.
Mr Ruto is a controversial figure in the coalition government that took power in 2008 to end post-poll unrest.
The BBC’s Dayo Yusuf in Nairobi says the coalition leaders – President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga – came under pressure to suspend Mr Ruto in line with the new constitution.
It was adopted in August and states that anyone facing criminal charges should step aside from public office.
Donors have long criticised Kenya’s record on corruption.
Mr Kibaki may also be signalling that the government is now more serious in efforts to tackle corruption, and no-one will be spared, our reporter says.
Presidential ambitions
Earlier this year, Mr Ruto faced suspension over a separate maize scandal.
The powerful Rift Valley politician, who has ambitions to run for president in the 2012 elections, told the BBC he had no comment as yet over his suspension.
But at the weekend he denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the judges’ ruling was politically motivated.
“I am used to these things and those who took me to court said they were doing it because of politics,” AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
The new constitution was designed to transform the country’s politics and avoid the violence that followed the general election in December 2007 in which 1,300 people died and tens of thousands were displaced.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-11579285
African Focus March 6, 2013
Raila Odinga embroiled in $26.1 Million maize scandal in Kenya
Raila Odinga -Maize Scandal
A flurry of activities surrounding the maize scandal – believed to have cost the taxpayer an estimated US$26.1 million (Sh2 billion) – since the Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga received the final forensic audit report on the saga, have pushed him to call for public patience to allow for its evaluation before he states his official position. Before the PM met journalists on the progress of the scandal which came to the public limelight only last year, on Monday internationally acknowledged auditors, PriceWaterhouse Coopers handed him a 366-page document which he received and assured he will make his position known. The following day, on Tuesday, the contents of the audit report were made public and Kenyan Agriculture Minister, William Ruto was named as the main culprit.
Some of the recommendations of the damning report – that also incriminated two senior officers at the PM’s office as key in the scandal – state that Ruto should resign to pave way for further investigations. Yesterday, Ruto came out fighting and declared that he would not resign. The minister instead shifted blame to the Ministry of Special Programmes which is under the Office of President. The audit report has blacklisted the PM’s Permanent Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Isahakia and Principal Secretary/Chief of Staff, Mr. Karoli Omondi as using their influence in the scandal. Riala who is yet to peruse the 366-page document has been on the forefront in the last one week in calling for the resignation of the country’s Education Minister, Prof. Sam Ongeri and his PS, Prof. Karega Mutahi over embezzlement of close to US$52.1 million (Sh4 billion) entitled by development partners to a Free Primary Education programme started in 2003. However, despite pressure for their resignation, the two have clang on.
The PM met the country’s senior news editors in a move to state his official position on the scandal that was first reported in 2008 but reports indicate that he chose instead to announce that a technical committee will be formed to study the report before any action is taken. The PM’s spokesperson, Dennis Onyango reported that; “it is only yesterday did he begin going through the 366-page document. He assures the public that he will very soon make his position known once he familiarises himself with the contents and recommendations of the report.” Pushed by journalists to say who would sit in the committee and when the government would act on the report the evidently snappy PM said:“Do not push me to say when. I said we are going to respond and we will do that in good time!” Give us time to look at this voluminous report and let it be done professionally,” he said,” and added “Let us not be pushed to rush this because the media want some blood spilt.” Raila was responding to questions from journalists after PwC presented a summary of the report to him, Finance Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta and news people at the meeting held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), Nairobi.
The scam was reported in 2008 when the government initiated the subsidised maize scheme to mitigate hunger that had ravaged over 10 million Kenyans. However the program was dogged with corruption allegations and inefficiencies. PWC’s report shows evidence of briefcase traders who acted as go between with millers and raked millions of shillings. The Premier turned the heat on private companies that are mentioned to have bribed their way into the allocations and others who participated in ‘trading’ maize allocations that they too would be pursued. “If they are capable they must also face the music, definitely,” he asserted. On Wednesday a section of MPs allied to the Party of National Unity challenged the Premier to lead by example and step aside since “he had failed to effectively co-ordinate his officers and the ministries.” But the PM defended himself; “This is not a question of ODM or PNU. This is a coalition government and we are working together and we are very serious to address this matter.” A section of Politicians and the civil society have accused the Premier of applying double standards by softening his stance when scandals hit his own office and Ministries headed by Ministers from his Orange Democratic Movement.
First Published on Newstime Africa – 12 February 2010
© 2013, George Kebaso. All rights reserved. – The views expressed here are purely those of the author and not necessarily those of the publishers. – Newstime Africa content cannot be reproduced in any form – electronic or print – without prior consent of the Publishers. Copyright infringement will be pursued and perpetrators prosecuted.
Kenya: ‘Scandal’ is Ruto’s Other Name – ODM
By Nancy Agutu
Deputy President William Ruto, whose name “keeps coming up” in cases of fraud has no apologies to make on many issues, the ODM has said.
In a statement to newsrooms on Thursday, the party cited corruption, theft of public land, diversion of public funds and violation of procurement and tender rules as some of the scandals that Ruto has been implicated in.
“We are not surprised. He has no apology to make on being involved in grabbing the land of an elderly neighbour, Adrian Muteshi, who was also an IDP,” the party said.
The ODM said Ruto, who has been named in a Sh28 billion scandal for the construction of a referral hospital in Eldoret, is getting “desperate” and looking for someone to blame.
“Ruto has the audacity to blame Raila Odinga for being mentioned in yet another scandal. Scandal is Ruto’s other name. We are shocked that Ruto thinks he has some credibility to protect,” the party said.
“Ruto is an angry man. He is getting desperate. That is why he is talking of taking a political war to Raila and saying nothing about corruption.”
The party claimed Ruto has “deep ties” with Herbert Ojwang’ who implicated him in the scandal.
“Ruto knows he is deep in the scandal of the hospital. There must be a reason he is dodging Ojwang and going for Raila. Ruto knows what Ojwang knows,” the statement read.
“Ruto must know that you cannot govern a nation through lies and distortions for five years. He lied that Raila took him to The Hague. He has since changed and blamed Nancy Gitau, Francis Kimemia and Mutea Iringo, Gideon Moi and Isaac Ruto.”
The Orange Democratic Movement reiterated that Ruto must bear the cross of his “anger, recklessness and appetite for public goodies”.
“You cannot blame your opponent for ever. Ruto must know that his anger and thirst for revenge is bad for the country. He needs to take urgent lessons in anger management even if he chooses to retain his thirst for public resources,” the statement read.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Looking back at the year when Jubilee’s mettle was put to test
By WALTER MENYA and WANJOHI GITHAE
The Jubilee administration will be looking back at 2015 as the year its mettle was put to the test. The government jumped from one crisis to another as its leadership capabilities came into question in dealing with runaway corruption, an economy gasping for breath, the existential threat of terrorism and other forms of insecurity.
As a result of the crises and the lacklustre manner the government dealt with them, the opposition that in the initial stages of the current administration was viewed as weak and ineffective has become more vocal, leaving Jubilee on the defensive.
“Jubilee rests its entire strategy on public relations. When its competence was tested, the entire government was badly exposed. No wonder it has spent an entire year defending one failure after another,” said Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar, who is also the Wiper Party Secretary-General.
In the end, the Jubilee administration is closing 2015 on a low — having spent the better part of the year on the defensive from all-out attacks from the opposition, civil society and the public. Some of the harshest criticism has come from social media where hashtags targeting the government are regularly crafted.
For Mr Omar, 2015 is not only a bad year for Jubilee but also signalled its weaknesses, with many Kenyans questioning its competence to deliver on the grand promises.
‘WE HAVE A SCANDAL’
Former anti-corruption permanent secretary in the Narc regime John Githongo in November told the New York Times: “We don’t have a government. We have a scandal”.
Ipsos third quarter survey released on December 1 found that 67 per cent of Kenyans felt that the country is generally going south, up from 37 per cent in August. Only 22 per cent felt the country was on the right track. During the same period, confidence in President Kenyatta dipped to 35 per cent from 52 per cent in August.
That Jubilee has governed largely on the defensive in 2015, however, is strongly disputed by President Uhuru Kenyatta. Through his spokesman Manoah Esipisu, State House said the view was insincere.
“We expect criticism but going back to whether the President may have done something or not is an exercise in futility. On security, the question one should ask is, where were we at the start of the year and where are we now? No-one denies that there have been challenges but no-one in his right mind would think we have been on the defensive,” said Mr Esipisu.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery on Tuesday claimed that crime had declined by 20 per cent, disputing the survey findings by Ipsos that “the proportion of Kenyans that have been criminal victims has risen slightly to eight per cent”, up from five per cent. Ipsos polled 2,058 respondents in both rural and urban areas in 41 of the 47 counties through face-to-face interviews. The poll was conducted between November 7 and 19 and had a margin of error of +/-2.2 per cent.
“We know we have a fully functioning command and control centre. This has enabled police to use technology effectively. So far, we have witnessed a reduction in crime by more than 20 per cent,” said Mr Nkaissery.
LACK OF GRASP
This is also the year Kenya experienced the worst terror attack since the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi. In the early hours of April 2, 2015, Al-Shabaab gunmen stormed Garissa University College killing 148 people, the majority of them students. Seventy-nine others were injured.
The attack exposed the government’s security and communication problems and it was clear that lessons from the Westgate attack of September 2013 were never internalised. Failure by President Kenyatta to visit the university or the injured in hospital compounded Jubilee’s lack of grasp of the issues at hand.
Besides the Garissa University College attack, many more Kenyans lost their lives in similar terror raids in Mandera in July in which 14 quarry workers were killed.
But Mr Esipisu maintained the self-assessment report was the true reflection of the situation. “Statistics don’t lie. Clearly, we are on top of things. We are not perfect but we are on the right track.”
Despite the assertions by State House, 2015 has not been a particularly good year for the Jubilee Government. Save for a brief respite in July when visiting US President Barack Obama admonished the opposition for asking him to address the runaway corruption in government, the ruling coalition has largely been on the defensive.
In fact, the respite offered by President Obama was almost immediately squandered. In August, Auditor- General Edward Ouko revealed that government ministries could not support expenditures totalling Sh67 billion from the 2013/14 financial year.
The report saw Jubilee launch an attack on the office and person of the Auditor-General, whom they accused of working with Cord to discredit the government.
House Majority Leader Aden Duale led Jubilee MPs in the attack, accusing certain individuals of being behind revelations to portray public officers in bad light.
“We have noticed a trend of powerful brokers/vendors trying to use public officials to drive a corruption narrative against the government. The profiling is evident in what was witnessed in Parliament recently. At every point, the opposition, with their collaborators, fed the media with all manner of forged documents and cooked figures about the fight against corruption,” Mr Duale said.
NYS SAGA
No sooner had Mr Duale said that than a reported loss of Sh791 million at the NYS under the Devolution ministry imploded.
Initially, State House and Jubilee MPs vehemently denied that money had been lost, but they had to eat humble pie when investigations unearthed a corruption cartel that swindled Sh791 million. The corruption allegations at the National Youth Service (NYS) largely brought down then powerful Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, who resigned in November on “doctor’s advice.”
Several people have since been charged with the loss of Sh791 million from NYS. They are Josephine Kabura Irungu, Ben Gethi, Charity Gethi, Jedidah Wangui, John Kago Ndung’u, Sam Mwadime, Patrick Onyango and Martin Muthomi Gitonga.
Former Devolution Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti and NYS Director General Nelson Githinji have also been charged with interfering with investigation.
But Mr Esipisu accused the media of fanning the NYS corruption allegations. According to him, the media incessantly ran with the NYS story for five months, even after investigations had been completed and suspects charged in court.
“It is not right to say that the government has been on the backfoot in the fight against corruption. There has been a sustained assault on corruption led by the President despite some noises that we have heard. So many people have been charged in court. Those who have been charged are not in court because we are defensive but because the President personally has taken charge,” he said.
In the past two months, the government has been put to task over how Sh196 billion it raised from the Eurobond that was floated in the Irish bourse in 2014 was spent.
NO LIST
Despite promising that he would publish the list of projects undertaken with the Eurobond money, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich on Monday beat a hasty retreat, saying he does not have the list.
In essence, it has lent credence to opposition criticism that some of the billions went into people’s pockets and the government cannot fully account for the money, except Sh53 billion used to settle a syndicated loan.
Senate deputy minority leader Abdirahman Hassan said he was worried Jubilee would not achieve much by 2017.
“By the third year, the government ought to have found its footing and started delivering on its promises. All we are seeing are people who do not have an iota of an idea on why they are in government,” he said.
But Mr Esipisu said the criticism was unwarranted: “The government has delivered on many of its priorities. Of course, challenges remain but, overall the government is on top of things”.
http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/-/1064/3011076/-/wga24rz/-/index.html
Uhuru, Ruto should let their wives rule Kenya – Rev Njoya
By James Mwangi Thursday, Dec 24th 2015 at 08:36
Maverick cleric the, Rev Dr Timothy Njoya, shoots from the hip and takes no prisoners. He spoke to JAMES MWANGI about barely literate pastors and why Margaret Kenyatta and Rachael Ruto are better leaders than their husbands.
What is the status of the Kenyan nation?
We have no nation. After independence, we remained a market. Ours is a willing seller, willing buyer market, so that if you don’t have money, you die, sleep in the open or go hungry.
We are a man-eat-man society. Sometimes I wonder whether Kenya will become a nation, but I believe we have potential of becoming one. We have the resources and a sense of patriotism. I am pleased devolution might lead us towards becoming a nation.
The Church is a pillar of our democracy. It has fought against injustice in the past. Why is it silent in our hour of need?
The Church has been conservative. Even in the Old Testament, only certain prophets spoke out. During my time, only a few clergymen talked and they were articulate and more ‘educated’ than people in politics and leadership.
On October 5, 1986, at St Andrews Church, Nairobi, I proclaimed that we must dismantle the one-party system and institute democracy. I was betrayed by clergymen and battered, but this came to pass years later. I don’t know of any clergy who can tell Uhuru and Ruto what I told President Daniel arap Moi then.
Those days, we spoke and the government responded. But today, the Church is lagging behind the politicians who are now the news makers. The Church is not ahead of issues anymore. It lacks the aptitude to comprehend the magnitude of issues Kenya is facing. Our seminaries are producing only religious people and sycophants, not thinkers.
There is a lot of mediocrity in the Church that I had not seen before. Churches are only giving temporary cathartic relief and not solutions. The National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) is an island of incapability and transparency in an ocean of corruption, darkness and opaqueness.
In 2013, a record number of clergymen ran for political office. Was that a good thing?
It’s not a moral thing at all. God called them to serve from the pulpit and not as politicians. God prefers obedience to sacrifice.
From the word go, they were in the ministry for a job, and now they were looking for another job.
I can’t elect a clergyman for political office. Being a cleric represents power, but they wanted money. There is no other noble career than being a clergyman. Why lower your standards by vying for political office?
However, most of them were trounced. Could it be that the shepherds had dimmed in stature in the eyes of the flock?
It was God shedding off such men of cloth from the Church. They were a disease to the Church. When a clergy vies and fails, it is good riddance. I wish more of them try their hands in political office and fail. I have been a clergyman since 1967 and there’s no time that I have not enjoyed being in the pulpit.
You cannot abandon the flock, venture out and expect to succeed. God has ways of dealing with greedy people. They are job seekers or refugees in churches. Most clerics are not called by God but driven by poverty to work for the church.
You are an intellectual and one of the most educated padres in Kenya. Why aren’t you teaching at a university?
It is true I have two PhDs, one in Divinity from the University of Toronto and another in Philosophy from Princeton University. However, the best university to teach in is the congregation. It is universal.
I started the Pastoral Institute (today’s Presbyterian University of East Africa) and taught there for four years from 1976, but I was pushed out. What I did there has not been accomplished since.
The Church thought my theology was revolutionary and radical. The Church leadership thought I was going the Latin American way.
What is your view of barely literate pastors anointing themselves ‘bishop’ and taking to the pulpit?
These drop-outs will not sell in a kiosk and succeed. They have failed to establish successful career or secure rewarding jobs, so they run to religion for jobs. They are just there to sell the word. They and their churches are coming up as a means of existence.
Civil society is dead. What killed it? Why isn’t it flourishing at the county level?
Civil society is not dead. You cannot be there to yell every day. Their roles have been taken over by the media, human rights groups, opposition and commissions formed by the government.
What we need are people who capture the issues in society. Activism without theory cannot succeed. For instance, everybody is fighting corruption, so voices get drowned in that noise. Failure to give people alternatives to these burning issues is what the civil society has lacked.
Kenyans must conform to the values of the Constitution and the word of God if at all we want a successful country. We have good institutions, but we don’t have good people. We have done the best in the world, best philosophy of justice, Constitution, transparency, brains and such. But without reformed people, there cannot be revolution.
What is your message to President Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto?
They should stop hopping from aeroplanes to limousines and instead study. They should have libraries in their homes. The world today is ruled by thinkers, not the military.
Our leadership needs to think ahead of terrorists and crooks. I have nothing to celebrate people who have constitutional mandate but are not fulfilling it.
I advise them to emulate their wives; Margaret Kenyatta and Rachel Ruto, or follow in the footsteps of the late John Michuki. Uhuru and Ruto have lots of gaps. Even their wives are more popular. I can rate them at 47 per cent and their spouses 80 per cent.
What sacrifices did your family make in your long fight for freedom and justice?
They risked losing a husband and father. They made the same sacrifices like me. They lived in agony and fear when I was beaten up and spent months in intensive care unit with fractures and injuries. In 1977, 1997 and 1999, I was ‘killed’ and ‘resurrected’.
I was beaten and left for dead and many were surprised at how I survived the beatings. At one time, I was attacked by a gang of 40 hired by powerful politicians.
Which Kenyans have impressed you the most?
Margaret Kenyatta and Racheal Ruto have proved that wives to presidents are not meant to only accompany their husbands to meetings and dances. Margaret’s Beyond Zero Campaign and Rachel’s Women Empowerment projects have proved their leadership, simplicity and honesty.
Rachel has kept her sobriety when her husband is facing charges at The Hague. The two ladies should come and visit me. I wish Uhuru and Ruto would allow the two to rule us briefly in respective capacities, at least we’ll get an alternative dish of politics.
Self preservation is an innate human trait. That said, 50 years after independence, shouldn’t we as Kenyans have outgrown the myopic view that is tribalism? Instead of looking at a leader’s last name, why don’t we look at what they have accomplished? 50 years after independence, we are still a third world country. That’s 50 years of mismanagement. And leaders from all corners of the country have contributed to this sorry state of affairs.
The government borrows money, misappropriates it, and guess who gets stuck with the bill? The ordinary Kenyan. If Kenya was a company, would you buy its shares with its current leaders? Millions spent on wheelbarrows, magical curtains, Facebook pages , hospital gates, unnecessary travel , nys, Eurobond etc. and yet because of tribalism, Kenyans defend the looting of their own country because the perpetrators speak the same language as you do, yet when it’s time to take your kids to school, yours goes to the decrepit public school while the politicians send theirs to international schools. You go to government hospitals and don’t stop to ask yourself why you don’t have dialysis machines and oncology equipment, you watch your relatives die of preventable illnesses but fail to connect the dots between your poor quality of life and your voting patterns.
Why should anyone have to fly to India for specialized treatment when you pay taxes? Where are the funds to provide emergency relief to flood victims? Even “wealthy” Kenyans drive on sub standard roads. Why is Thika highway such a big deal? There should be several countywide, where are the taxes going? Why is it that 50 years after independence, we are still living in a 3rd world country?
My grandmother used to tell me stories of how the colonialists took their land and made them slaves to work in the new farms. Then came the emergency period that caused a lot of distress to her and her young son, my father. In the independent Kenya, my father worked and invested in land in Narok. We lived there since the early 80s to early 90s. Then came the clashes of 1992. I stood as I watched our house being set on fire by military uniformed security forces in the Moi government. By this time, my father has started experiencing and telling us about the ills of Moi government. I didn’t need him to tell me. On more social aspect, you realize that the Maasai sold us the land but I think they thought they could get their land back by kicking us out. I have had them assault and rape my mom while I watch. They would come borrowing food from our farm when in need but when they needed us out they did those atrocities.
Now, it is true that the Kikuyu people have more to lose than any other community in the even there are chaos in this country. The investments and social advancement achieved by kikuyu people would all be naught. As such, even though they do not have much interest in the political business of the country, the risk of having a president who will erode all the gains and run the place irresponsibly is too high and rings back to the notion of survival of the kikuyu. Ruto may have come of age by 2022 but he needs to work harder for the kikuyu to trust him.
17/12/2015
WHAT OTHERS SAY: Tanzania’s Magufuli, lessons for Kenya
I have fielded some very puzzled questions about President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto’s move to form a new party on which they will contest the next elections.
Charles Onyango-Obbo
I have fielded some very puzzled questions about President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto’s move to form a new party on which they will contest the next elections.
Their confusion comes, among other things, from the fact that the new party would be called the Jubilee Party, and yet the two leaders already have the Jubilee Alliance coalition with which they are ruling.
“What is the difference?” they ask. Even in Kenya, there are many people who look at this party flipping and flopping with a great degree of frustration, and accuse politicians of being only obsessed with “election vehicles”, not party building.
However, there is always a more fundamental reason for why things happen, and if we look hard enough we will find them.If you exclude coups, uprisings, and revolutionary war, in democratic or half-democratic polities, there are really only three ways politicians gain power.
One is through what we might loosely call the “dividend of history”. In Africa, we saw this with the many leaders, like Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta. They were “founding fathers” that “brought independence”.
They and their parties earned their continued place in power from that historical role which, after independence, became the “nation building” project.
In Tanzania, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) – together with the Botswana Democratic Party and Algeria’s Front for National Liberation (FLN) – is one of the most successful 1960s independence parties in Africa that has cashed in for very long.
CCM has had an unbroken run at the top for over 50 years, although it most its latter-day comment comes less from championing independence, and more from the Nyerere-led Ujaama nation-building project.
The second way is by leveraging the advantages of incumbency. Like a marriage, however troubled, you are likely to stay together longer the longer you stay together. Voters – especially lazy and risk averse ones – feel safe with the devil they know, than gamble on a pretender angel.
In Africa, though, incumbency is often abused – the big man of the day is able to tap into state resources, exploit his or her edge in state media, and state largesse – a road here, a new school there, and some tractors and fertiliser over there – to buy their way into power. The third way is the ability of a party or leader for renewal and/or reinvention. Thus a military ruler can return to stand for elections as a reformed democrat and win, or a party tainted by corruption, like CCM in Tanzania, can present itself as the new anti-corruption force and offer an unlikely leader, and so you end up with a President John Magufuli! Kenyan electoral politics these days plays almost exclusively in this third category, thus since 1997 no electoral formation has gone into two elections exactly the same. Even if the name has remained the same, the insides have changed, as in the case of CORD.
The reason for this is that as society and its challenges change and evolve political currents driving how its governed can dry up, and thus the historical dividend ended in Kenya in 2002, and its vestiges buried with the new constitution of 2010.
At first it might seem that these variations don’t make a big difference. After all, as they say, African politics is all the same.
But they do. On one hand, a party like CCM that has been around forever cannot just sit on its historical laurels. It still needs to offer something “new” and find fresh sources of life.
Since it can’t change policy much, it offers something new through its presidents. It’s in this way we got Magufuli who, in his early days, has turned out to be delightfully eccentric and a tree shaker. Hopefully he won’t tire soon.
In Kenya, on the other hand, renewal and reinvention comes in the form of new parties and alliances, but the men and women remain the same, so opposition leader Raila Odinga, Kenyatta, Ruto, have been and will be around for a while. Often, election politics is the highest form of misdirection. In the film Swordfish Gabriel (John Travolta) explains it rather well:
“Have you ever heard of Harry Houdini?…He was an artist. He could make an elephant disappear in the middle of a theatre filled with people, and do you know how he did that? Misdirection.
“Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes”.
The author is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa.
Governor Isaac Ruto launches campaign to popularize own party to take on Jubilee
By Nikko Tanui
Updated Monday, January 4th 2016 at 11:31 GMT +3
Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto speaks during a consultative meeting held in Kericho. He told President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto to ensure complete devolution.
BOMET: The political rivalry between Deputy President William Ruto and Bomet governor Isaac Ruto is set to go a notch higher after the later launched the campaign to popularize Mashinani Development Party of Kenya (MDPK).
MDPK is also expected to field a candidate in the Kericho senatorial by-election which would be an acid test for the Jubilee Party in the March 7 mini-poll.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and the DP have been at pains to popularise JP as the vehicle they aim to use to consolidate and retain power in the 2017 and future general elections.
The vacancy left after the appointment of Charles Keter to the cabinet is also an opportunity for the Bomet governor to assert himself as the unrivalled south rift political king.
Speaking in Kericho Exotic hotel during a consultative meeting which drew stakeholders from 30 wards in the county as well as former councilors from south rift region, Governor Ruto accused jubilee leaders of taking Kenyans on an endless political circle.
“Jubilee leaders have killed all the parties and they should not attempt to bamboozle Kenyans to join Jubilee Party which they don’t know what it is all about and its agenda besides it being a tool to install someone to power,” he said.
He added, “We have since decided that we are letting go of the United Republican Party (URP), The National Alliance (TNA) and Jubilee Alliance Party (JAP). Jubilee Party is where we part ways. We are not going to join Jubilee Party. We are now free to form and join new political parties.”
Ruto said MDPK was ready and willing to work with other like-minded political parties willing to defend the right of Kenyans to education, medical services, water among other development issues.
“MDP was formed due to frustrations after jubilee government abandoned its 2013 manifesto. We wonder what happened to the 40 per cent revenue allocation to the counties. Bye Jubilee we are not heading to that direction, tunabaki Mashinani,” said Ruto.
The governor warned the jubilee’s administration that if it would not change tact, the 2017 general election would be a contest between residents at the counties against elites in government.
“The election would determine who are the majority and holds more power between county residents and a few elites in government,” said Ruto.
MDPK chairman Socrates Sang said the party’s pillar was development in the counties where majority of disfranchised residents reside.
“The country cannot prosper unless there is an equitable sharing of resources. In forming a political party no one should accuse us of playing politics because the constitution states that the country is a multi-party democracy,” said Sang.
He at the same time told President Uhuru and the DP to ensure complete devolution of all the functions provided by the constitution by March 7 lest they would no longer have the authority to lead the country.
Ruto argued that the date would mark the end of the transition period and Kenyans expect that the jubilee government to have devolved all the functions and allocate 45 per cent of revenue collection to the counties.
“By March 7, the national government should cease discharging devolved functions and release them to the counties as well as the monies for the functions. The Jubilee leaders must respect the constitution lest they would no longer have the right to continue leading the country,” he said.
He also pointed out the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) term came to an end on December 29 with the country only managing a paltry 30 per cent transition to the current constitution promulgated in 2010.
Ruto therefore argued that if the term of the Charles Nyachae led commission would not be extended, a section of senior commissioners should be appointed to an independent Law Reform Commission.
“If it becomes impossible to extend the commission’s term, then a section of the commissioners should be appointed to the Law Reform Commission and it should be given its independence,” he said.
Mr President, get your act together this year
Your Excellency, 2015 was a bad year for Kenya. All the pillars of our nationhood were tested and most were found wanting. Some collapsed, some were seriously weakened, while others were desecrated beyond repair.
We are talking about the presidency, economy, security and, most importantly, the people.
We acknowledge the fact that it has been a tough year for leaders across the world — what with global economic upheavals and terrorists wreaking havoc everywhere.
However, we reject the almost criminal resignation and negligence with which your government has responded to our national crises this past year. We need not recount the number of lives lost, the losses incurred by businesses and opportunities wasted for millions of Kenyans due to the incompetence of the Executive.
With the exception of a few family businesses and tenderpreneurs who raked in billions of shillings — thanks largely to political patronage — everyone is losing money in this country.
EXECUTIVE MYOPIA
The stock exchange is brewing losses instead of creating wealth. Companies are sending workers home to stay afloat, while small businesses are shutting down mainly because of Executive myopia.
The people losing jobs are joining millions of desperate youth who have never known a job, despite having an education. This growing army of disgruntled youth and middle-aged people pose a grave risk to the country which, unfortunately, the government seems to understate.
Mr President, unemployment, corruption, bureaucratic incompetence and economic paralysis are the bane of your regime. The country today is crying for action — practical measures to guarantee the citizens that the government has been seized of their concerns.
Instead of providing this leadership, you and your lieutenants — the Deputy President, THE Cabinet, MPs and Senators — have adopted a default campaign mode of regaling the public with tales of largesse to come.
Your Excellency, three years is a long time to live on hope. On more than one occasion you have addressed the nation and promised to fix the fundamentals of statehood once and for all. However, nothing has come of it. Your Excellency, why do you make promises that you cannot keep?
Remember November 24, 2015, when you reshuffled the Cabinet? You promised to constitute a budget office at State House to address the financial mess that’s Jubilee’s hallmark in two weeks. Almost six weeks later, nothing has been heard of it. And this is not the first time.
RELUCTANT LEADER
Mr President, these half-measures are harming the presidency and your authority as the First Citizen of Kenya besides tormenting Kenyans. Among other challenges, it creates an impression of a reluctant leader, one who enjoys the trappings of office but is not ready to get the work done.
Worse, it suggests that you are being held captive by some forces you cannot disentangle yourself from. You swore to uphold the national good, Mr President, what is it that is holding you hostage?
Mr President, this newspaper supports the presidency as the symbol of national unity. However, we will not sit back and cheer when the very pillar of nationhood threatens its very sustenance.
Mr President, there comes a time when the rhetoric must stop and some work gets done. We challenge you, Mr President, to walk the talk of executive probity and nationhood this year.
For close to three years, you have been declaring your tigritude on rooftops, it is now time to pounce. Not least because your legacy hinges on it, but it is the only decent thing to do.
Happy New Year, Your Excellency.