Monday, May 25, 2009

Dr. Tajudeen killed in car crash: Message of Condolence

By Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu, NCA-NCEC

Dear Compatriots and comrades,

On behalf of the The National Convention Assembly (NCA), The Partnership for Change and on my behalf, I wish to share the sadness and shock that has engulfed us on learning of the tragic death of Taju. We learned of the tragic death of Taju from a message Kepta Ombati sent us from Dar at 7 a.m. this morning. This is shocking beyond belief.

Taju, was one of the greatest Pan-Africanist standing. NCA/NCEC tremendously benefited from his wisdom and input over the years.

I knew Taju in 1996 when I met him in Kampala as a student leader of the Kenya Polytechnic Students Union. Then, Taju as Secretary General of the Pan-Africanist Movement was powerful and really the icon of the African vision and leadership. My encounter with him left a permanent impression on me. In 1999, after the death of our Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Taju was with us at the Wasifu Nyerere and since then he has practically turned kenya into his base for pushing the liberation agenda forward for Africa. In 2005, Taju working with his fellow Panafricanists including Dr. Willy Mutunga helped us get Prof. Issa Shivji to address our NCA fifth Plenary Session at Ufungamano House. Taju was simply outstanding.

The great Nigerian he was espoused the spirit of the continent. Those who worked even more closely with like Betty Kaari Murungi, Houghton Irungu, Mwaura Kaara, Mwangi Waituru and the whole team at UNMC Against Poverty and the MDGs, the whole African gender justice and indeed the Social Justice movement shall miss the leadership, inspiration and indefatigable embodiment of our struggle for free, prosperous and just societies in African and the world over.

The Kenyan Youth Movement and the Grass roots based social justice movements including the NYC, Bunge La mwananchi, the Transitional justice and the groups working with communities around land such the Social Economic Rights Foundation, Action Aid etc will find the gap Taju has left simply daunting.

When The Urgent Action Fund Africa co-convened last year the major African region Conference on Sexual and Gender Based Violence, I recall Taju illuminating the room with his originality, fervour and buoyant energy. How I Love the way he filled us with a smile and hope.

I am simply lost for what to say comrades. Let us just call for the Union of African states and the scrupulous delivery on the MDGs to honor Taju's efforts.

I will miss him.. My tears are with his family.

Pole Kenya, Pole Nigeria, Pole Africa.


Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu
NCA-NCEC

Thursday, May 21, 2009

2007 violence, a gift or a curse for Kenya?

By Muriithi Kagai

The Kenyan political landscape is complex and to an extent intriguing at least in my view. We know things are bad, where and why they are bad, who is making them bad, etc. Why then can we not fix them or at least work towards fixing them? A fundamental step towards addressing our problem is to understand that the situation / system is a design by a clique of a few people and it is not in their interests that a permanent solution is found. This system ensures survival of bad leadership and since most of our leaders are really bad, we must understand that they are okay as long as the situation does not degenerate in total chaos. Remember that they were okay as Kenyans continued to butcher each other until they were told that Kenya will be taken over.

Kenya after 2012 is going to be a different country. It is in most times difficult to maintain truth and reality when talking about political matters in situations where the level of democratization is low and where ignorance is high. In these cases, cheap politics demands that you focus on what is popular rather than right. The popular thing might be a lie or a misrepresentation of facts or issues and cheap politicians will go to any lengths to pursue lies just because that is what is popular. This is the reason why you hear politicians making promises that are unrealistic and promises they know they cannot fulfill under any circumstances. They know that they are lying to themselves BUT they know that they are addressing people who can be taken advantage of. Call it deceit or what ever you want to but they will tell you that it is being strategic and what counts is not what you say or stand for BUT a win.

A principled woman or man will tell you that they would rather loose than win through deceit. We have many principled men and women who cannot set their feet in parliament as MPs under current politics. Many cannot dare try while those who tried got rude shocks. Others learnt the trick and traded their principles with mediocrity and sycophancy and they are now in parliament not as principled men and women but politicians of deceit. You know who I am talking about, don't you? They were very vocal during Moi's rule - fighting for "justice" and now that Moi is out of power and they are in parliament, injustices are not issues anymore. Or could they have been pretenders or hypocrites; I don't know. No wonder Kenyans are starting to think that Moi was better.

The real problem

While Kenyans are fed up and ready for change, the ruling elite always takes advantage of such situation by re-inventing themselves so that they look different thereby hijacking the process to maintain themselves in power. If you want to check this fact, check who has worked with who and who has been a student of who in Kenyan politics from the 60s and you will see that they are the same people we are recycling. Then look at elections in 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 and tell me who was spearheading the change in all these elections. It is the same people being recycled. If we ever expect change from these sort of games, WE ARE IN A BAD DREAM AND WE BETTER WAKE UP.

What we have in Kenya is recycling of bad leadership. Its not rocket science that bad people do bad things and good people do good things. To expect bad people to do good or be held accountable is pure wishful thinking.

How do you expect someone who has made a career through corruption or other criminal acts to fight his livelihood? Can you imagine slapping yourself very hard on your face? I think we need to wake up to the world of reality. Kenyans are not poor because of ethnic issues. It is years of bad governance. The less than 10% who own more than 50% of the country are not one ethnic group. How this less than 10% is spread over ethnicity is a different matter and I think focusing on that is diversionally. How they love to say that it is one tribe eating when they own posh properties all over and are driving the latest Toyota Prados, Hammers, Pajeros etc. We need to sponsor inter ethnic exchanges so that Kenyans from different communities can see for themselves how other Kenyans are suffering all over in the same way to
expose these liars.

The future of Kenya:

Step 1: A lot has been said and there is probably nothing new coming out of these articles including this one. The problem is reasonably understood especially by the middle class but also among other levels. What is missing is action. Each one of us talks and writes but we somehow think that someone somewhere will take action so in the end no one takes action. Inaction promotes the status quo and we continue talking and talking. Its time to walk the talk at individual level. We need to take action and there is a lot we can do at individual level starting with educating ourselves and those being manipulated. I wish we know how much we can achieve in our own individual ways if we resolved to take action without waiting for someone somewhere someday.

Step 2: Confront the truth and reality and understand that we have bad leadership that has perfected the art of manipulation and reflect at individual level whether you want to face the truth or bury your head
in the sand. Make a decision and take action.

Step 3: Find out what others are doing and link up with them. Fight detractors who have already been misled and are acting as sycophants of the oppressors and do not let them derail you. They are the minority and should not carry the day although they represent the powerful and the rich. Nothing can defeat the power of the people if the people resolve to go forward.

Important tips:

Focus on rural communities, the youth, the low income and other marginalized groups. They are more prone to manipulation and they have year after year been manipulated through violence, intimidation and bribery. We have relatives, friends, civil society groups etc we can reach to at personal level to build communities' resistance against manipulation. People can take money because it is stolen from them anyway BUT they should not sell their country. Vulnerable people think they owe their votes to those who bribe them and this is a problem we must fight individually and collectively. We have a parliament comprising of people who purchased their way up there and we are asking them to be accountable. What a fallacy?

The diaspora should deny these people platforms because they are not worthy being listened to.

Given our stage of democratic process, giving liars a platform is a big mistake we must not continue making. By giving them such platforms, we are endorsing them among foreign governments, our foreign friends, among fellow Kenyans in the diaspora and most important, we are endorsing them back home and consolidating there base of political deceit. The diaspora is revered back at home and endorsing the wrong people amounts to misleading people who do not have the same level of knowledge. We are at least morally obligated not to mislead an already vulnerable population and if we do, we should not complain that our people are making mistakes when we have ourselves misled them and endorsed their mistake. It is also some sort of hypocrisy and deceit and we must come out clean.

Our media must stand up and be counted at this hour of need. Mistakes they made in the run up to the past general elections especially the 2007 election should not be repeated. The media is one of the most fundamental tools for achieving change and we must use the media positively to help achieve national healing and reconciliation knowing very well that most of current leaders are not committed to healing and reconciliation. We must create a strong and sustainable base on which we can anchor the change that we so desperately need. Kenya has many and better men and women who can lead the country and the media should promote a message of alternative and better leadership.

Our development partners must join the oppressed not the oppressor. I will stop here on this one. They know what I am talking about.

At the grassroots, the people contesting local authority and parliamentary seat must meet the standards of a people driven criteria. We must know where they went to school, where they went to work and what kind of adults they grew to be. What do they own and how did they acquire it. Who are their references? Potential leaders must start addressing public rallies from these points of integrity and people must pay attention to this.

As an individual you can educate people on these things and we know men and women of integrity who must stand for local government and parliamentary positions. Forget the presidency and just focus on the local and parliamentary positions. There is no president or prime minister who can mess a country if surrounded by a clean parliament. He or she would be digging his or her own grave. Next presidential candidates should seek their votes and leave us to decide on councilors and MPs because we need to deny them the license or blank cheque to preside over a government of misrule. Given the way these oppressors have ethicized our politics, change can be tricky if we focus on the presidency and here in this article, I argue that the presidency is not important. If we ignore the presidency, this amounts to killing two birds with one stone. We avoid opening wounds of tribal sentiments since we are not talking against any presidential candidate. We would also manage to get change because we would have a clean parliament that would hold the president accountable as well as all other arms of government including supporting economic development because such a parliament would understand that development is a private sector affair and an enabling environment is crucial.

Kenyans should start to prepare to submit their candidature for local government or parliamentary positions and ignore the presidency for the time being. Others should nominate those they think should be our councilors and MPs.

Good professional men and women should now understand that there is a good chance to be in parliament or in a local authority without having to join unprincipled people with questionable backgrounds. You do not have to join these people to be in parliament and it is time for the principled to state that if you can't join them, you can leave them on matters of principle. If good people do not offer themselves for elective positions, from where do we expect voters to get good leaders?

I submit that while we need constitutional reforms, we must understand that bad people will manipulate and even ignore the best constitutions. What can you do when the law is broken by its upholder? I would rather have a weak constitution but good leaders than a very good constitution and bad leaders. We have a chance to have a better constitution and good leaders. If the process of constitution making is sabotaged, we will be okay if we get good leaders because they will later give us a much better constitution.

Make at least 10 of your friends understand this with an obligation to make their 10 different friends understand the same. In this era of technology its amazing how much this can achieve. There are lots of initiatives going on among Kenyans with or without the support of true friends of Kenya. Great ideas start small and in a very humble way.

If we act at individual level, Kenya is not going to be the same again after the 2012 election. It is time to reconcile ourselves and restore our country because the problem is not between Kenyans but between Kenyans and a clique of oppressors and their tricks are now coming to an end. With good leaders, we can begin the process of undoing the evils that have made Kenya to be what it is or should not. Kenya is a country that has all the potential to become a developed country and we will stop at nothing but making it exactly what it should be. 2007 was a gift for Kenya. It has made Kenyans to wake up. We now know that none of us can be safe if the country goes to the dogs. We also know that the oppressors do not care about deaths of innocent people. They only care when their power bases are threatened and that is why they had to listen and talk when they were told by the international community that Kenya will be taken over. So they listened as the country was put under a humiliating experience where we had to be told what to do by foreigners. Before that, our so called leaders could not talk no matter how many people died. It was shocking and it reminds me of the story of Israelites under mercy of a heartless Pharaoh. 2007 revealed how heartless and cruel our so called leaders are.

But it was not in vain that it had to take innocent lives for us to wake up. The many Kenyans who died plus hundreds of others suffering as a result of this violence have woken up the rest of us from a deep and bad slumber. They are the real heroes and heroines. In their tribute, we must change Kenya in 2012 and say never again should we allow our country to sink that low and go through such humiliation.

Read Hon. Gitobu Imanyara's Bill for a Special Local Tribunal here

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Accountability at last!

After the tabling and debate of the report by the Joint Parliamentary Committee investigating discrepancies in the Supplementary Budget, Parliament moved that the Supplementary Budget should be withdrawn and a forensic audit to be conducted.

Below is a message from the Partnership for Change who assisted in exposing the said inconsistencies, which at last count totalled Kshs. 10.7 billion.

===================================================================================
The Partnership for Change Report on Phase 1 of the Budget 2009 Campaign to save Public Resources for Agenda 4 of the National Accord.

The Partnership for Change is asking you to help us to campaign and encourage Kenyans to demand austerity measures and savings to be made in the June 2009 National Budget, by Government and Parliament. Money saved will be directed to the Development Budget. The Outcome will be to save approximately 200 Billion shillings, which if allocated to the Development Budget, will contribute enormously to Agenda 4 issues of the National Accord, such as unemployment, underdevelopment, starvation, food insecurity and impunity.

The Campaign entered its first phase with scrutiny of the Supplementary Budget. It is envisaged that we will save at the very minimum 10.7 Billion that is concealed in the Supplementary Budget. Further we anticipate that a forensic audit into the Supplementary Budget will also identify waste. Yesterday 13th May 2009 the Report Of The Joint Committees On Finance Planning And Trade and The Budget Committee On The Inconsistencies Contained In The Supplementary Estimates Of The Financial Year 2008/2009 was tabled in Parliament and was adopted by the House.

The Joint Committee Recommended that:

1. Since there are inconsistencies in the Supplementary Estimates, they should be withdrawn and correct estimates resubmitted.
2. An independent forensic Audit be done
3. The fiscal Management Bill be approved and enacted as a matter of urgency

The Partnership for Change is grateful to Hon. Gitobu Imanyara, and Hon. Paul Muite SC who availed invaluable time, advise and support at no cost whatsoever to the Citizens of Kenya, and with no partisan interest, helped us focus Parliament on their duty to those they represent. Our gratitude also to the Speaker of the National Assembly Hon. Kenneth Marende, who has been fair and just.

Finally to those Members of Parliament who sat in the Joint Committee and promised Citizens that they would exercise their oversight role and do the just and right thing. We achieved all our recommendations to the Committee in our submission to Parliament including odious debt such as Ken Ren, which you will see in the report of the Committee. We did not manage to obtain an apology from the Minister Of Finance to patriotic Kenyans that were are only doing their duty, but the Partnership for Change has been commended by both Chairs of the Joint Committee. Either way we are grateful to Parliament for doing their duty and in particular to our request that this matter should not adopt a political nature as public resources are serious matters.

The campaign will now move into its second phase as we advocate for 60% development budget allocations in the National Budget to be brought to Parliament in June 2009.

Read Full Report at http://blog.marsgroupkenya.org/?p=814

Monday, May 11, 2009

THE SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET ESTIMATES 2008-9 is not a casual matter

Partnership for Change
From Dictatorial Impunity to
Democratic Accountability in Kenya
http://marsgroupkenya/partnershipforchange

The partnership for change has been on the front-line to make Kenyans understand their budget and the budget making process. Our leaders in Parliament when the Minister of Finance was reading and presenting the supplementary budget agreed to have it passed without blinking an eye to the details. This shows the importance of also educating members of Parliament on the process so that they do not once again pass a fictitious budget in the future.

We are however dismayed and disappointed even after the damning revelation by the Partnership for change on the 9.6 Billion shillings that was going to be spent on fictitious items. The very serious issues have been reduced to political commentary by the MPs. The issues as raised by the Partnership for change on the budget should not be politicised.

The budgeting principles go beyond the Minister of Finance, it is about the public servants who have worked tirelessly for this nation, it is about the women and children who need food on their tables, it is about the men and youth who are looking for a livelihood, it is about the poor Kenyans, all Kenyans and how the services of the government reach them.

It should be noted that the supplementary budget estimates were approved in one record afternoon and no member of parliament opposed them.

P4C researched the Supplementary budget and raised key questions as follows:

Where is the authority for Variation of what Parliament approved last year?

Where is the authority for the reallocations?

Even though all variations are supposed to be accompanied by explanatory notes why is it that nowhere is there an explanatory note for over 200 items for Ksh 9.6 billion?

The Minister of Finance rubbished the intention of the Partnership for Change in asking the questions. He did not even consult his officers on the issues raised. He later admitted that there could have been an error after realising things were thick following the Speakers ruling that the matter be referred to the committee.

Kenyans are enraged that the Minister could go ahead to read a budget that does not add up. We would like to see a forensic audit on what transpired at treasury while the Government needs to own up to the very big mistake it committed through inaccurate documents of account as prepared by the Ministry of
Finance technocrats, do these documents meet proper accounting standards?

Parliament needs to deal with this issue very FIRMLY as Kenyans can no longer afford to have their taxes embezzled through dubious means. The problem here is much more bigger than an individual in the name of the
minister.

Let Kenyans be very watchful as we await to see the financial estimates for the year 2009/2010 presented. Should we allow the same people who are misleading Kenya to continue being in office at the Ministry of Finance? Are they competent enough to handle our financial resources? Are members of Parliament justified not to handle this matter with urgency of a criminal offence?

Our Leaders MUST be accountable to us.

The Financial Budget should serve Kenyans not a few individuals. Its about all of us. We are very keen to know what the findings of the joint parliamentary committees will present tomorrow.

Emmanuel Dennis
National Coordinator
Partnership for Change

Monday, May 4, 2009

National Youth Convention: A Call to Action by the Young People of Kenya

Dear Friends,

Our country is in a total disarray. Its now Official. The Coalition
Government has made Kenya a FAILED STATE. We got to do something about it.

The National Youth Convention would like to call upon all young Kenyans to rise up and save Kenya from the mismanagement and total confusion that the Political class have resorted to.

The Women have been able to catch the attention of both the local and international communities in calling for abstinence not for the sake of it but for the evil bedeviling this country. Their efforts must be lauded.

The pressure must now be sustained all the way to the ballot day.

Steps to Act on;

We would like to start national activities that are going to set the agenda for discussion all the households in the country on the reform agenda. All means at our disposal should be used. Initiatives at regional provincial and district levels need to be given support. Do not allow your member of parliament to come to the constituency and go Scot free without addressing the issues that are affecting the people. Our leaders MUST be held accountable for the promises they made during the last general election and the livelihoods of all Kenyans need to have improved given the promises.

We need to petition the government on its lack of goodwill to address the ever increasing youth unemployment, massive killings by the state and agents of the state, illegal gangs and thugs, the governance crisis, the status of IDPs and the myriads of challenges that Kenyans are going through now.

Alternative Leadership

It is apparent that the current leadership is not going to protect its people even from external aggression as is being seen by the Forces from Uganda in the case of Migingo and now all the beacons separating Kenya and Uganda on the West Pokot Border have been removed by the Uganda Military and the Uganda Security Forces have been deployed to take over our land.

The Young People need to now arise and present themselves to the people so that they can be elected to take over from the current octogenarians and corrupt politicians.

The NYC calls upon those who are interested in Leadership at Parliamentary, Civic, and professional Bodies to present their intent so that we can start profiling them. The intents should be sent to convener@nyckenya.org

A criteria shall be reached at on democratic process on the NYC forum. The Young Leaders are being called upon to organize for activities at local level that will be coordinated in accordance to ensure the messages are passed on to the leadership. We need to start preparing now for the massive groundswell. Each strategy and tactic will be released at a time.

The messages are ready. We now need to work together in holding this government accountable and finally taking over leadership.

The challenge is huge, the problem is real, the road ahead will be rough and tough. We will either decide to support the same politicians or make that decision to remove them. Our generation, MUST fulfill its mission for this country. We have the numbers. We have the energy. We have one common enemy. Let us take the POWER back to the PEOPLE. PEOPLE .... POWER.

The Forum is open to your suggestions before we settle on the national day that we are going to launch our Onslaught on the current regime.

Please let us be honest with each other and come up with a clear way forward. Vijana Tujipange..... People .... Power.

Emmanuel Dennis
Convener