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Post by Ed on Oct 29, 2006 6:35:20 GMT 3
Raila, wash your dirty linen at home ! Sunday Nation Editorial Publication Date: 10/29/2006
Senator Barrack Obama, recently given a hero’s welcome by Kenyans, excited his audience at the University of Nairobi by expressing in sonorous vowels how corruption is "a crisis" in Kenya. Whereas he acknowledged that corruption was a problem "everywhere," he did not discuss in detail corruption in the US, such as a region recently reported by the Washington Post as having a corruption or patronage scandal coming to light "every 3.5 hours."
When Israeli Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on the BBC’s HARDtalk programme at the height of the Israeli-Lebanon war, he would not be drawn into criticising the government’s handling of that war. He presented a united Israeli front.
Generally, many leaders prefer to wash their dirty linen at home; abroad they are careful not to say anything that could damage their countries. These leaders understand that there is a difference between their countries and the governments in charge of them, that whereas they could attack their political opponents, their nation was not available for criticism on foreign visits.
On Friday, Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga used the occasion of an address at the University of Toronto, Canada, to strongly criticise the Government. He accused it of having "spent the succeeding four years engaged in fostering and stoking ethnic rivalry and hatred, taking Kenya a giant step backwards."
He said "we have seen a preponderance of ethno-regional appointments and favouritism, which has returned tribalism to a powerful central role in our society." That corruption has "increased to levels far higher than previously reached, wealth has streamed unstoppably into a few pockets" and that we have an "old, tired, bloated civil service behemoth, which is a serious impediment to economic growth and development" and what we have today is "a failed transition to nothing."
Some Kenyans will agree wholeheartedly with these conclusions, others will find them vulnerable to contestation and debate.
What is not in doubt, however, is that Mr Odinga has an enforceable constitutional right to make these and any other arguments of his choice. He also speaks for a constituency, which shares his sentiments.
But why tell the Canadians? Why should they care? What does it achieve other than reinforce the prejudice that Kenya is "unstable" and that Africans cannot govern themselves? Kenya has a landmass of 583,000 square kilometres. Mr Odinga is free to call a meeting on any inch of that landmass and speak about these things. Kenyans will attend such a meeting in their thousands and they will probably agree with him and give him their votes at the election.
But the culture of washing our dirty linen in Western capitals simply has got to stop. Telling foreigners what a mess Kenyans have made of their country is of no benefit whatever. It just makes the country a laughingstock and exposes the immaturity of our politics and politicians.
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Post by by mosaisi on Oct 30, 2006 23:16:55 GMT 3
Raila’s Speech in Canada shameful
If a person -with no clue of where Kenya is on the world map- heard Raila Odinga speak at the University of Toronto, he would have concluded that Kenya is the worst place to invest in. He tore down his country using any negative adjective that he could lay his hands on.
Raila talked in depth about corruption and red tape that is threatening Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). He avoided informing his hosts of the little opportunities that are available in Kenya. As much as Kenya has her own share of corruption, she is welcoming when it comes to foreign investors who are given better treatment than even local investors. A close look at the EPZ will show that foreigners have a better deal than locals. This is attributed to the overkill efforts made to attract FDI.
While on the issue of FDI, I will like to point out that many foreigners have invested in Kenya and continue to do so. An example is the Canadian energy and minerals firm, Energem which owns controlling shares at Spectre International. Many more firms -especially South African firms - are making inroads in the Kenyan market. I do not think that Raila could have advised his business partners Energem to invest in Kenya if Kenya was the hovel he was trying to paint.
In his speech, Raila informed a crowd -made up university professors and people with a minimum of secondary school education- that, “At the moment, the government has laid emphasis, like the West, on the service sector mainly banking, insurance, tourism and the stock market. These sectors employ fewer people and also bring huge disparities in earnings.”
For a start, no country has made it to the top depending on Agriculture as Raila is trying to imply. Building an economy based on the Western model is not a crime. Raila wants Kenya and Africa to be satisfied with the agrarian economy when there is plenty of money to be made in the services and technology sectors.
It is laughable for that Raila belittles the impact of banking on economic growth. Any economist will tell you that the banking sector is the key to economic growth. Raila seems to have focused only on the money “storage” function of banks (by the way, banks never store money. They loan it or invest it). Banks are more than “stores” of money. Banks create money and banks provide loans that are pumped back into the economy.
The Nobel Committee recognized the role of banks in an economy to an extent that it awarded Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank the 2006 Nobel Peace Price. It was in recognition that Yunus and Grameen bank were extending loans to the poor hence giving them a chance to better their lives. As our future president, Raila should be encouraging Kenyans to interact more with banks.
According to Raila, a thriving stock market is not great for the economy because he claims that the stock market does not create jobs. Instead, Raila wants Kenya to hold on to the pipedream of an economy based on Agriculture. Raila seems to forget that companies listed on the stock market employ millions of Kenyans. It is through the stock market that capital is harnessed and put to work. Most Kenyans have realised the importance of the stock market. I don’t think the millions of Kenyans –poor and rich- who have a stake in the market are stupid. Raila may have picked the wrong audience to lecture about the demerits of a stock market. After all Canada was built from the trade of shares and bonds.
Raila blames the services industry and the capital market as the causes of huge disparities in earnings. I wonder where he got that from! From what I know, Bunge is not listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) but the MPs earn several thousand times more than the official minimum wage. This is an indication that income disparity is not a creation of markets but an indication of an inept legislature. It is the legislature that is charged with ensuring a just society and not the NSE.
Today, the NSE ranks the fourth most capitalised bourse in Africa after Johannesburg (South Africa), Nigeria, and Cairo (Egypt) -in that order. This speaks volumes since Kenya unlike the top contenders has no oil or mineral resources. It shows that Kenya remains a destination for investors and should be doing better if political rhetoric is toned down.
Raila told his hosts, “I do not believe the classic capitalist theory of ‘laissez faire’ alone, where market forces are entirely responsible for determining the allocation of resources on the basis of supply and demand, can work in our situation of numbing poverty.”
It is shocking that several years after the collapse of communism, Raila still believes in a system where the government dictates the market. Markets that are free of government manipulation are boon to the economy. The woes of Kenya stem from too much government control. For example, the government controlled telecommunications industry for a long time leading to a near collapse of the industry. It is only after the government loosened her grip that we saw more people get access to telecommunications. I believe that government should be restricted to provision of public goods like security, clean water, roads etc. Government has no business competing with kiosks –though Uchumi- in selling suuke wiki and salt to the masses.
I think Raila chose the wrong crowd to show his petty politics to. It is time our leaders outgrew childish politics and looked at the impact their rhetoric has on the country. Taking a trip to Canada to paint his country as one of the worst countries to invest in is not in the interest of Wanjiku. Raila should borrow a leaf from Senator Barrack Obama. When he visited Kenya, he sold America as a beacon of hope in a desolate world. As a Democrat, he did not use Kenya as a dais to attack President Bush, the Bush administration, the government and his country. Instead, he used the opportunity to buttress the US stand on the Doha Round and farm subsides among other agenda. Hon. Obama also used his trip to sell American foreign policy and build closer ties between African countries and America.
Our leaders should try to notice the difference between the president, the government administration, the government and the country. The fact that Raila wants Kibaki’s seat does not give him a right to market Kenya as a hovel that should be avoided at all costs. We have to put Kenya’s interests above petty politics! Kibaki will at one time go back to Muthaiga but damage Raila et al have done to Kenya’s image will last for years. Even our neighbours in Tanzania never take their dirty laundry to clean in foreign countries.
Raila’s speech fits a Kenyan audience and not a foreign one. After all, only Kenyans have the power to vote. Better still, Raila should stop his “Raila na Mpira” speeches that he gives in Kenya and give Kenyans the kind of rhetoric he entertained the Canadians with.
When he visits the US in a week, I hope Raila will use the forum to sell his policy. We already know that Kenya is not at its best. We don’t want him to regurgitate what we already know. We want him to offer solutions and tell us the steps he will follow to the solution.
posted by Mosaisi @ 9:48 AM
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Post by Felix on Nov 1, 2006 5:19:27 GMT 3
That was downright foolish for Raila to criticise his own homeland in a foreign country.Mosaisi just put everything clear,our politicians should distinguish the presidency,political parties,government and the country our homeland. Raila was an exemplary political activist or freedom fighter ,his politics are now dried out since Kenya is today enjoying much political freedom than ever before.He is what we can call a spent force.Had Raila resigned from politics after removing Moi from power,he would be regarded a hero almost in the same league with Mandela.But he has already squandered that chance by showing us that afterall it was not about KENYA but himself. It is now clear that Raila will go to any extend just to attain power,his interest is not where the country is headed.We saw him join kanu at a time the kanu government inflicted alot of pain on the Kenyan people.
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Post by Jagwassi on Nov 1, 2006 5:20:40 GMT 3
Wankenya,
I am enjoying the freedom of reading your reactiions & critically cheching the spellings of your names.
I will say just a little for now:
1] Who was the Toronto audience ? a] How many people attended ? b] How many non Kenyans were there ? c] What do those non Kenyans repesent ?
2] Kenyan economy is agro-based & if Agriculture does not do well them over 80% of our people are ignored.Remember our Tea,Coffee,Sugar,Cotton,Pyretherum,Tobbacco,Pyrethrum,Maize etc is what we live on.The question is how Agriculture as an industry is doing & Mosaisi's retoric does not touch that at all & it appears deliberately done so for political reasons.
My next response will depend on how I am answered.
Jagwassi
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Post by Kioko on Nov 1, 2006 5:22:02 GMT 3
Both Kibaki and Raila are correct on stressing the value of agriculture in the Kenyan economy. I have no argument with that. Agriculture is important. Kibaki realizes that.
That is why he put Hon. Kipruto Kirwa, who is trained in agriculture, in that docket. And look what he has wrought!
Maize farmers are receiving Shs. 1400 per 90kg bag, up from Shs. 400 in 2002.
Milk farmers are now getting Shs. 19 a litre of milk, up from Shs.9 in 2002 - double. KCC has been revived from a dead organization into a profitable corporations that will soon be going public at the Nairobi Stock Exchange.
The Kenya Meat Commission has been revived, after being dead for over 20 years.
The cashiew farming at the Coast has also come back on board.
Mumias Sugar is one of the most profitable companies in the country. Sugar factories in Nyanza and at the Coast are also on path to profitablity.
Shs. 9billion has been spent over the last four years in Semi-Arid areas mainly in digging bore holes and rural access roads so that farmers can sell their animals. I am told that the vision is to have boreholes separated by no more than 10 kilometres.
Agricultural credit is back.
Good certified seeds are back - and more will be done as soon as land belonging to Kenya Seed reverts back to the company.
Agricultural extension is back. Officers are being retained. Bukura institute was upgraded to offer higher training for extension workers.
Remember all those Vet doctors who couldn't find jobs? With increasing profitability of livestock, a majority have set up clinics and they are doing good business. Those who haven't already have access to myriads of opportunities to access credit as banking has been streamlined and banks are practically hawking credit.
Even while we talk about the future of agriculture, let's think about what Kirwa and Kibaki have been able to achieve within a short time at considerable odds - incessant payukaring and manga mangaring.
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Post by Raila Odinga on Nov 12, 2006 5:05:42 GMT 3
Statement by Raila Odinga MP for Langata Member, ODM-Kenya Saturday, November 11, 2006
MY attention has been drawn to several comments concerning my recent discourse with various groups of foreigners and Kenyans in Canada, the USA and the United Kingdom – to the effect that I have been “washing Kenya’s dirty linen in public”. For one thing, it would not be necessary for anyone to do this in order for the world to know what is happening in our country. The evidence is there for all to see, and various reports by respected international bodies continue to expose the government’s lie that our nation is doing well.
But more importantly, washing dirty linen was not the activity I was engaged in. During my tour, I had the opportunity to talk to many people, including Kenyans, in the North American diaspora – in Toronto, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and New Jersey – and in the UK, in Manchester and London. The presentations I made to them were basically informative. What the government does not seem to realise is that Kenyans living outside this country are part and parcel of our nation. They therefore deserve to be informed about important events taking place back home.
One thing I talked to them about was the Kenyan economy, for which the government has been flaunting growth figures that are meaningless to anyone except the bureaucrats who dreamed them up. As I have said before, the growth rate being publicised by the government has been inflated by the use of a different method of accounting from the one previously employed. When Kisumu Rural MP Professor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o was minister for economic planning, he decided to bring it in line with the current universal practice by expanding the statistical base. But it changed the parameters of the statistics by at least two per cent, and it is this two per cent that I have said skews the government’s figures and gives a dishonest comparison with previous figures. As Lord Courtney said in New York State in August 1895, “After all, facts are facts” and although there are “lies, d**ned lies and statistics, still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of.”
The economic growth the government is flaunting, if indeed there is any, is not being felt by most people in our society. There is need to highlight, as I have been doing, the suffering of the ordinary person, and the fact that the cost of basic necessities, including food, paraffin, transport and rent, have all risen, while people’s incomes have not increased, and their purchasing power has therefore fallen. This is an issue that should be of prime concern to any responsible government.
The fact is that this much-touted economic growth only translates into improved living conditions for a small clique of people at the top. It is an issue that should worry any right-thinking Kenyan. My view is that, for this country to be able to deliver people from poverty, its economy must grow at a much faster rate, and not just reflect statistical manipulation.
One thing preventing this growth is corruption. Shocking figures released by Transparency International confirm that Kenya remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Eighty-five billion shillings a year that could be used to uplift the poor out of their wretched misery is being lost through this national disgrace. All the promises made by this government in 2002 about zero-tolerance of corruption have been betrayed.
And the extreme poverty and hardship being suffered by millions in our country – people the government has no shame in pretending do not exist when it touts its fancy statistics – is nowhere more evident than in the pictures we have seen coming out of Mathare Valley in the past two weeks. As people have fled for their lives from the unchecked murderous villains who control the Valley’s social fabric, we have noted the few ragged belongings they carry as they pick their way desperately through mud and water and garbage. We have read that children have not been able to complete their exams. We have seen pictures of infants separated from their mothers. What about pregnant women? What about the sick, the injured, the old, the lame, the infirm? How do they flee? How can any sane government look at the Mathare Valley pictures published in the press and have the nerve to continue spouting about its own economic success?
The press, which is doing a wonderful job, has exposed for us the daily dread and terror that the people of Mathare Valley face, unable even to go to the toilet without paying a tax to the scum who hold them to ransom.
Yesterday, we visited Mathare Valley. We saw children and women lying outside in the cold and wet, covered in mosquito bites – a most pathetic sight to behold. They are suffering, yet no government official has dared to visit them. Many of these refugees, who have lost or fled their homes, are crowded into four churches. Others are camped outside the Eastleigh air base. In such a situation, there is real danger of an epidemic of disease, and I urge the government and appeal to the humanitarian agencies to come to the aid of these suffering people. They need urgent attention and help in the forms of food, bedding, medical supplies and, most of all, assistance to reconstruct their broken homes.
I also listened to some of their stories and heard about the shocking privations they must endure on a daily basis. Do the people living in Mathare Valley have any basic human rights? It is a travesty of compassion and responsibility to allow this situation to continue, and it is no wonder that the UN Human Development Index placed Kenya far down among the world’s lowest achievers, lower even than such troubled countries as Zimbabwe and Sudan.
Government lack of responsibility can be seen nowhere more clearly than in the horrors that continue to be visited on the people of Mathare Valley by members of the banned Mungiki sect. How can a banned organisation operate with impunity in the heart of a capital city, when the authorities have all the means at their disposal to prevent this? It is a question that leads only to one obvious conclusion: what is being done to the people of Mathare Valley, what is being done to the people of Kuresoi, of Molo, Pokot, Turkana, Samburu, Meru, Nyeri and other parts of the country, is being done with the complicity of the government. This is confirmed by the fact that members of the illegal organisation that terrorises the residents of Mathare Valley – not content with hacking people to death with pangas outside their front doors and burning their homes – were able to run riot in Nairobi streets and proclaim to the world at large their threats of widespread violence and destabilisation. They obtained this freedom through a licence granted by the authorities, reportedly on the order of some senior politician. That is what this government has come to. It is a national and international shame and disgrace.
I should now like to turn my attention to the constitutional review process. On this issue, the government is doing nothing more than engaging in filibustering – employing delaying tactics. It is now quite clear that the government is just playing games, and has no interest at all in meaningful changes. There was supposed to be a November package on minimum reforms by the Inter-Parties Consultative Forum on Constitutional Review, headed by Dalmas Otieno and Charity Ngilu. Are they going to present this package? Key issues that were supposed to be addressed included the independence of the electoral commission, affirmative action, the enfranchisement of all eligible voters, the requirement that the president be elected with at least 50 per cent of the vote, the popular election of chairmen of civic authorities and provision for the central funding of political parties. These remain key issues. It is also totally impractical for the government to suggest that a referendum on a new Constitution be held in September next year, to be followed by a general election in December. In other countries, votes on constitutional issues have been cast alongside votes in a general election. There is no reason why we should not do this here. There are minimal logistical problems involved and we must now begin seriously considering this as the only viable option.
In the meantime, we look forward to the early introduction of the minimum reforms that are vital to ensuring that both the proposed referendum and next year’s general election will be conducted in a manner that meets the definition ‘free and fair’.
I should now like to inform you that we have received reliable information about a meeting that was held on November 5 in the Kilimani area of Nairobi. Present were senior people and a person who resembled one of the mercenaries supposedly expelled from this country – eight people in all. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss elimination of some political leaders. I would like, through the press, to ask the authorities to confirm or deny that such a meeting took place.
Finally, on this weekend, when people all over the western world will mark Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, when World War I ended, and will honour those who have fallen in all the wars since, I should like us to remember not only those Kenyans who fell in those foreign fields, fighting those foreign wars, but also those who fought for our independence, as well as those who have died for their ideals since Independence, and more recently, those who have died in Mathare Valley, Laikipia, Kuresoi, Molo and in other parts of the country where scenes of violence have been played out. They have paid the ultimate price here at home, in a war that continues to this day – the war for the second liberation of Kenya.
“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, We will remember them.”
Raila Odinga, MP
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