GEMA AND NEPOTISM

Revolutions are defined as drastic changes in specific areas of a culture and could be political, economic, or social nature and always involve major changes in the way the governed and governed. Most political revolutions have more often than not involved the violent overthrow of regimes. The French revolution for instance occurred because the monarchy under Louis XVI was viewed as oppressive and corrupt and the social structure was rigid and did not allow for social mobility. The poor, uneducated class made up 98 percent of the population. While the upper classes of nobility and clergy only made up a mere 2 percent of the entire population. It is no wonder the people of France rose up in a spirit of nationalism to overthrow the oppressive system and establish a society controlled by them. Thanks lord, since independence Kenya has not had a violent revolution. As per the state of things, we might soon need a peaceful but radical revolution, which should dramatically shift the way things have been done so far.

The way things are done in Kenya can make one sick. One of the daily newspapers reported the following recently "we should stop pretending that we can ever be one people, sharing equally in the national resource. Two years ago, they took to Othaya Sh595 million for water development and to the larger Meru Sh429 million. The rest of Kenya’s 72 districts got Sh5 million each. This was in a year when tax collection was as follows: Central Province Sh1.8 billion, Nyanza Sh6.9 billion, Western Sh5.5 billion, Rift Valley Sh5.56 billion, North-Eastern Sh43 million, Coast Sh2.7 billion and Eastern Sh920 million”. The above seriously angered many Kenyans, yet nothing has changed, the Kibaki government is completely silent.

Just a few days ago, some MPs produced a list of top official of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), which stunk of nepotism to say the least. Fifteen out of fifteen top KRA officials were confirmed to hail from the Mt. Kenya region. To make matters worse, it also emerged that KRA had sacked all top employees who did not come from the named region. Even though KRA Commissioner General Mr Michael Waweru claims that, the officers were sacked due to non-performance and failing to meet set revenue targets, the fact that employees from Mt. Kenya region were not affected raises eyebrows. It seems that KRA was ethnically cleansed.

It is such blatant tribalism, which make people to want to change regimes by any means necessary. Why should such a central authority be controlled entirely by one tribe? Is this conducive for democracy or in a country with forty plus tribes? The MP for Mbita Otieno Kajwang had the following to say about the matter, "It is common knowledge both from within and outside the authority that the affected officers are some of the most technically endowed, experienced, principled and hardworking personnel with high level of integrity," I only hope that Hon. Otieno Kajwang is completely wrong for if he is right we are in for big trouble.

President Kibaki has constitutional powers to create districts, but has been going about the same in manner a reminiscent of the Moi´s regime. He is using the creation of districts to divide and even bribe regions, tribes and individuals. Even though he has, the constitutional right to create districts, common sense tells us that he should consult widely before doing so. Unilateral decisions were the cause of Biafra war. The former Eastern Region under Lt. Col. Ojukwu saw the act of the creation of states by decree without consultation as wrong and declared the region an independent state of "Biafra". The Federal Government in Lagos saw this as an act of secession and illegal and set to bring the region back to the fold by force of arms hence the civil war. It is also the same kind of tribalism, which sparked genocide in Rwanda.

The Government should see to it that national resources are shared equally among its citizens, after all every region pays taxes. Even as he is preparing for a second term re-election, president Kibaki has shown Kenyans that he does not care about their well-being. He has shown that all he is dong is for self-preservation and if he has to trample on them on his way there, so be it. He has clearly shown that he knows about politics of survival better than former presidents Moi and Kenyatta. Not only has he sidestepped what he was elected for by breaking almost all election promises but his hands off style has lead to serious nepotism. It is not therefore surprising that a government anti-corruption body ranked the Office of the President as the most corrupt department in a recent survey.

The president is a well-educated man but has constantly made some very uneducated mistakes. He has enough political experience but has made some very amateurish moves that at times threatened the very cohesion of the country. He has slowly but steadily taken the country back to where it was before Narc took power. Funnily enough, there are all sorts of moves on his part to rule for five more years. However, Kenyans have become wiser and will never let him, for he is a person whose actions or inaction can turn tribe against tribe, region against region and cause civil war. The trend of open nepotism in KRA, which is a reflection of what is happening in all governmental departments, scares many. This madness has to stop if Kenya is to continue being stable. The only way to ensure that is to show Kibaki the door in December 2007.

Kenya still corrupt as hell

Mahatma Gandhi once said that he “would go to the length of giving the whole parliament a decent burial, rather than put up with the corruption that is rampant." I would like to have the same burial for the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), which has so far achieved completely nothing, while at the same time guzzling hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s money. While we are at it, let us also get rid of all anti-corruption bodies, which seem to do nothing but waste our hard-earned shilling. Alternatively let us have these bodies in place but replace the current tired good for nothing personnel with others who actually want to work.

Even though the term corruption is abstract, it is a multi faceted evil, which can economically grind a country to a halt. The one big thing which corruption feeds on is tribalism. The (mis)use of tribe and tribalism by the ruling class has contaminated the people’s mindset, which judge the status of an individual on his capability to flout the law to favour them. This is one of the reasons why corruption is no more viewed by people with abhorrence in Kenya. Leaders who have been sacked due to corruption or who are facing corruption charges, continue to have wide range of support, both from people within the government and from their tribes. Just like the slogan “najivunia kua mkenya” recently launched by the government spokesperson Dr. Alfred Mutua, transparency, responsiveness, accountability, probity in public life and good governance are now only slogans. They sound hollow and mean nothing.

President Mwai Kibaki, apart from sloganeering has never taken a definite stand against corruption. His failure to take a principled stand against corruption has clouded the system to the extent that it is now difficult to understand whether the system is alive or dead.

Impunity is on track and people get away with all acts of corruption. A good example is Prof. George Saitoti who has now been forgiven all his sins in spite of granting 15 per cent export compensation to Goldenberg International for non-existent gold. The judgement sounds cheeky and out of sync with the reality. It simply tells Kenyans to forget the 160 billion shilling Goldenberg scandal and the two billion poured into the Bosire Commission to investigate it.

Even after the seemingly cheeky judgement, nobody seems to care. It looks like undemocratic rule since independence has made people so immune to corruption that they have learnt how to live with the vice even though the cancerous growth of this malady may finally kill them. It has become a way of life. There is widespread impression that failure of integrity is not uncommon among ministers and that some ministers, who have held office during the last three years have enriched themselves illegitimately, obtained good jobs for their sons and relations through nepotism and have reaped other advantages inconsistent with any notion of purity in public life. They are a network of mafias virtually running a parallel Government pushing the state apparatus into irrelevance. There has been a rapid spread and growth of criminal gangs, drug mafias, smuggling gangs and economic lobbies in the country, which have over the years developed an intensive network of contacts with bureaucrats, government functionaries at local level, politicians, media persons and strategically located individuals in non-state sector. Some of these syndicates have also international linkages including the foreign agencies. We all remember Anglo-leasing and Goldenberg scandals with their international contacts.

The government is the reflection of a nation. It is therefore understood that government leader’s mirror the collective consciousness of all the people. The head of the government is President Kibaki and it is upon him to keep the country’s collective consciousness on track. If he does not uphold the said consciousness or disintegrates and makes it negative, people will fail to behave according to the natural law. This in turn will lead to problems of corruption. President Kibaki has failed to lead the fight against corruption from the front. Sloganeering without taking real action against corruption will never succeed. Of course, he or anti-corruption bodies alone cannot finish the vice, but it is upon the president to create an atmosphere conducive for such bodies to operate. Currently, the atmosphere is dense with the vice, which makes one wonder if the government has any tactics of tackling it. Refining the system of administration to make it difficult for corruption to penetrate is very important. The one and only attempt to do this was the purge, which took place in the judiciary. That however, was the beginning and the end of such action.