Local participation a win-win on Standard Gauge Railway project

Pius Maundu

@piusmaundu

Local participation a win-win on Standard Gauge Railway project

On September 24, 2014, the Daily Nation carried a commentary by Jaindi Kisero titled “Excessive demands by communities a threat to major infrastructural projects.”  In this article, Kisero bemoans that local communities are delaying the realization of the seamless railway project by exerting undue demands fertilized by their short-sightedness. This is not true.  

Specifically, I’m finding fault in the anecdotal inclusion of the Kibwezi section of the proposed Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in this commentary. When local communities through their leaders seek to be involved in the realization of the SGR project, to me, they should be applauded. 

Participation of locals is a win-win move to both the contractor, the government and the locals.

By locals knowing how the railway design will affect their social-economic well being, and advising accordingly on the location of underpasses, for instance, possible conflicts are minimized. 

Just as Kisero notes, no contractor prides in parachuting a project in the midst of a community without seeking the community’s blessings. Such a move eats into the sustainability of the project. 

Interestingly, Kisero seems to be unhappy that locals want to be allowed to clear bushes and supply locally available building materials for pay by China Road and Bridge Corporation, the contractor trusted with the project. 

According to Athanas Maina, the Managing Director of the Kenya Railways, 40% of the total contracts in this Shs 327 billion project are reserved for the locals. 

Local leaders are aware that unless locals are allowed to clear bushes, supply sand and ballast, they’ll be technically barred from earning from this project which is certainly going to disrupt their economic lifeline, at least temporarily. Everybody knows the value of public-private partnerships in enabling the success of massive projects the size of SGR. 

If the SGR is to get to Kigali, Bujumbura, DRC and Juba, its prudent to get everything right. Let’s not be offhand on this infrastructural life changer simply because it is snaking through Ukambani in the meantime, or because it is funded by the Exim Bank of China. Doing so will be parochial and dilatory.

Published 21/09/2014 by 2014 Storymoja Festival Newswire

Collective Punishment: We Aren’t Solving Terrorism Yet

When I started working, even before I got my first pay, I acquired my first jacket from a Somali trader. But this could not just pass as any other acquisition. It was the only way I retained my maiden teaching job, for it required one to dress formally, in a suit.

It was not only the pocket-friendly prices that earned Rashid Omar loyal customers amongst Makindu residents, but also his allowing customers, even first time customers, acquire stuff and pay for them later at their pace. How could he just trust us?

From the ingenuity and resilience of this trader, one could hardly tell that he belonged to the most marginalized communities in Kenya: Somali.

None of the Kenyan communities has experienced half the suffering that the Somalis have gone through. Kenyan Somalis have been marginalized for decades. Only for the world to train its cameras on them when famine wrecks havoc in their midst, or terrorists kill and abduct residents of Garissa or Wajir.

Explaining this state of affairs is deep-seated suspicion, engineered and let to brew for eons. British colonialists feared that dealing with Kenyan Somalis would pose administrative challenges. This constituency could become slippery, and easily ebb into Somaliland, they opined.  Ever since, Kenyan Somalis have been discriminated against.

Today, Kenyan Somalis pass as dubious, foreigners, and terrorists. That it is relatively difficult for Somalis to acquire national identification documents complicates the maze. Desperate to enroll for social services, and register businesses, those who are capable result to bribing authorities to acquire these essential documents.

Paradoxically, this marginalization by the state peaked immediately Kenya became independent from its colonial masters in the 1960s. In 1984, the government of the day oversaw the beating, raping and killing of over 5000 Somalis in what became the Wagalla Massacre. Chilling survivor stories in Mohammed Adow’s Not Yet Kenya shown in the 2014 edition of Storymoja Festival posit that Kenyan authorities tossed bodies of the Somalis who succumbed the gory atrocities into Tana River.

None of the successive regimes has shown any resolve to recognize Somalis as Kenyans enough.
Kenyatta’s administration effectively thwarted the miniature efforts to serve justice to the Somalis gained during the Kibaki regime. It is common knowledge that the editing and shelving of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) Report spells doom for any prospects of serving justice to the perpetrators of the Wagalla Massacre. The international community has not been helpful, either.

As if this was not enough, we had Kasarani Concentration Camp. In the wisdom of the state, the urgent need to tame terrorism in the wake of granede attacks on Kenyan soil was to get Somalis in swarms and herd them in Kasarani. In horrible conditions. Today, no one knows for sure how many Somalis were held up at Kasarani, or what crimes lavelled against them.

But then Somalis, it seems, are not only a problem to the underdeveloped.

Imposition of the Hawala system by the United States and other Western bigwigs is the height of the affliction of the Somalis. The wisdom behind this ban in international money transfer is that Somalis living in diaspora are the financiers of terrorism. How careless!

Drawing the line between terrorism and a community is a no-brainer. In fact, Somalis have become the greatest victims of terrorism activities in the region. Not so long ago, a grenade hurled at bus in Pangani, Nairobi left seven people dead, four of them Somalis. But the world would stop at nothing to use the thickest of brushes to tar Somalis, justifying the imposition of collective punishment.

Just like denying Somalis national identity cards and branding them terrorists, taming the transfer of funds to the ubiquitous Somali families located in Somalia, and Kenya, for instance, the world is uniting in ensuring that future Somalis remain miserable. Under development in North Eastern Kenya greets travelers.

Naturally, this turn of events breeds anger and frustration among ordinary Somali folk, scholars, diplomats, journalists and politicians. Telling from the ensuing antagonism, things are no longer rosy. When, for instance, Dr. Ibrahim Farah of the University of Nairobi describes the AU mission in Somali as a “proliferation of mafia groups,” it is clear that all is not well.

In the Storymoja event, Rasna Warah described the suspicion against the Somalis as amorphous and complicated. Ironically, having Somali leaders in leading governance coalitions does little to ameliorate the state of the Kenyan Somali.

If the Kenyatta administration is determined to bring social harmony in Kenya, it should resolve to serve justice to the Kenyan Somalis. To make this happen, the state should encourage efforts that go into reversing the suspicion on the Somalis. For instance, it could start by allowing more Somalis to sit in the committees steering the LAPPSET project.

With an option to dialogue, it is imperative that the issue of intrgrating the Somalis is accorded the weight it deserves. Otherwise, terrorists will remain the underdogs who, paradoxically, buy ink by the barrel.

Among the most sustainable ways of taming terrorism is taking Kenyan Somalis onboard. Judging from its geographical spread on a cultural watershed, this community can be resourceful as a human barrier, and through community policing, wade off insurgents infiltrating through the precarious Kenya-Somalia border. However, this anti-terror approach cannot work when suspicion against the Kenyan Somalis reigns. Failure to address injustice amongst Somalis, the Kenya government is setting a dangerous precedence.

Meanwhile, according to Adow, Kenyan Somalis are learning a lot from their kin in Somalia. For instance, they are learning to become more aggressive.

One can only hope that this translates into the acquisition of rare business acumen and resilience exhibited by Rashid Omar as he transverses the dusty sun-baked Makindu neighborhood, carrying with him loads of apparel, jewelry and perfumery.

Pius Maundu

blog.storymojafestival.com/collective-punishment-we-arent-solving-terrorism-yet/

Counties can learn a lot from Itumbi

Pius Maundu

@piusmaundu

Counties can learn a lot from Itumbi

Dennis Itumbi, like everyone else, is loved and hated in equal measures. But consistency and tact sets the trained journalist apart. County leaders can borrow a leaf from Itumbi’s tact in the taking advantage of digital communication. 

In less than a year, the Director of Digital Communication in the Office of the President has successfully rebranded President Uhuru Kenyatta. Itumbi and team have consistently told and shown the world what the President was up through Facebook and Twitter. 

Importantly, through digital communication, the Presidency has won in delivering information to its consumers.  And its not just posting memes and captioned photos about the President’s traverses. Everyone else is doing that. Some local governments even come with complete communication dockets, infrastructure and all. 

But more needs to be done. 

Not so long ago, Kenya’s twitteratti rubbished a move by legislators from  a country side county to camp in Nairobi training in the use of social media. Gobbling tax payers money training legislators to post comments, share, like, tweet, favorite, and retweet was the height of idiocy, they concurred.  

Unfortunately, that scathing venom against the decision by the county leadership  smacks of naivety. It’s regrettable that in the digital realm where everyone else is blind, the mono-eyed middle class are absconding their kingship mandates. Reading from that script from the middle class, the bourgeois  running counties are reluctant to adopt digital communication. 

Perhaps reeking in mediocrity, most county governments are head over heels with installing traditional media houses. Who wouldn’t have liked to have radio news bulletin begin with a signature recounting of where they donated relief food?

Governors are privy to the power of radio in spewing propaganda. But someone bent on evading the inquisitiveness of citizen journalists and the middle class will stop at nothing in their quest to reach to shortcut to those at the bottom of the pyramid. 

While there is nothing wrong with using traditional media to popularize the government agenda, there is everything wrong in failing to tap on the power of the digital media. In Facebook and Twitter, county governments stand high chances of reaching out to the populace more competently. 

Besides enabling counties cut on their PR budgets, going digital affords the governments insights from the audiences.  Without this ingredient, it would be futile in designing programs that resonate well with the needs of the people. This is not all. 

Digital communication is effective in sustainable branding. ‘Facebook ‘Friendship’ and Brand Advocacy,’ a 2012 study by Elaine Wallace, Isabel, Buil, and Leslie Chernatony published in the Journal of Brand Management found out that brands can count on Facebook to weather storms.

Propping this study is Judee Burgoon’s Expectancy Violation Theory whose nexus is that  rewarding communicators tend to be judged less harshly when they err. Telling from the recent antagonism on budgets between MCAs and governors, county governments are bound to err more often that not. 

To tap to this utility of digital media, county governments should have robust communication strategies. And that is where the prowess of Dennis Itumbi would be handy. Simply put, a communication strategy will mean that county administrators do not whirl posts in a whim, for instance. 

Proper Facebook and Twitter strategy guarantees effective information dissemination. Reaching out to opinion leaders is tested and tried as rewarding. When they report on the transverses of the governor, for instance, a proper strategy should humanize the head of the county. 

Humans interact with humans. Humans do not come to live only when there is a crisis. Or when they are seeking favors from the audience. That is what an effective communication strategy at the counties should achieve. 

Get me right. I am not for the abolition of traditional media at the counties. Instead, I’m urging counties to take advantage of the digital realm to popularize government agenda. To start with, counties can learn a lot from Dennis Itumbi. 

Referendum: It is our time to eat

Pius Maundu

@piusmaundu

 

Throughout this week, a friend of mine in Rabat, Morocco serialized Taking ADvantage: The Sociological Basis of Greed, part of a Washington State University webinar, on his Facebook wall.  From Godfrey Musau’s posts, scions of punchy ad verbatim quotes on Richard Taflinger’s article, insights on greed from this title are spellbinding. For instance: 

“Why are lotteries and sweepstakes so successful? Why do Reno and Las Vegas attract millions of people to their casinos? Because, no matter how much it is decried, people are greedy: they all want more than they have, the the better.”

Going through the posts, the semblance between the inherent theme and Kenyan politics is not remote.  

Recently, the agitation for referenda in this country has risen to unprecedented levels, with the Opposition, Council of Governors, and members of county assemblies (MCAs) raring to run parallel polls. Besides, senators waited until this week to make real their plans to wriggle the public coffers dry. While these moves are icky at least in the eyes of Wanjiku, they are eye opening. 

For eons now, development in Kenya has been sacrificed at the altar of greed. Immediately after independence, President Jomo Kenyatta led from the front in annexing swathes of public land mainly in his Central Province backyard. Perhaps learning from the founding father, powerful individuals in subsequent regimes aggressively seized up acres of land meant for public facilities including playgrounds, schools, hospitals, cemeteries, and toilets. 

Wheeler-dealers not involved in grabbing public land were allowed to grind public service to a halt. Determined to single-handely profiteer from from the lucrative transport industry, for instance, these cartels  invested in matatus, praising privatization as the antidote to the country’s ailing industries. New entrants bore the brunt of the Mungiki, goons fashioned to stymie competition in the jua kali, and the Traffic Police. 

It should not be surprising if the proposed high capacity commuter buses project of the Nairobi City County remains just that: a proposal.  

Kamlesh Pattni’s classical heist tarred the 24-year tyrannical Moi regime. Just like all other episodes on greed, Goldenberg involved the high and mighty. Only minions, the size of Justice Joseph Mbalu Mutava, have been persecuted in connection to the Goldenberg scandal. 

In 2002, Raila Odinga, William Ruto, Charity Ngilu, Wamalwa Kijana, Najib Balala, and Simon Nyachae rallied against Moi. “Kibaki Tosha,” the signature campaign catchyphrase of the day, nubbed Kenyans to abandon their ethnic alignments and send Mwai Kibaki to State House. Kenyans, and indeed the world nation, were jubilant. 

Nothing changed when Mwai Kibaki became president. If anything, President Kibaki is credited for having insitutionalized ethnicity. 

John Githongo, an insider, had to run for his life when he pointed out momentous corruption inside President Kibaki’s administration. Githongo, the main subject in Michela Wrong’s “Its our time to Eat: The Story of a Kenya Whistle-Blower,” a book that lashes at the massive greed that characterized Kibaki’s leadership, is today an enemy of the state.

  

It is during this time that David Munyekei, the whistle-blower on Goldenberg scandals, died miserably. Before his death, the former Central Bank of Kenya clerk had been sacked, something that could have cuased the loss of his only parent. Today, no politician mentions David Munyekei. Similar ambivalency with issues touching on Wanjiku continues to blight our legislators, then and now.

Its hardly surprising therefore that when a Kenya Police Service agent rained bullets on Kwekwe Mwandaza, killing the 14-year-old, Ms Zeinab Kalekye Chidzuga, the Women Representative Kwale County, was indifferent. Equally insouciant was the area governor, Senator, MP and the local MCA.

Legislators in Kenya have perfected the art of taking the electorate for a ride. During the electioneering period, politicians brand themselves as the most approachable persons the world had. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter become awash with photo ops where aspiring politicians are blissfully interacting with voters. Oftentimes, when need arises, these politicians do not hesitate to pull the ethnic card to win votes. 

Elected leaders, in counties and national governments, play partisan politics at the expense of development. Legislators result to herd mentality to vote or shoot down legislation. In other times, their ethnic backgrounds inform their voting behavior. But when it comes to matters touching on themselves, politicians are quick to abandon their pseudo differences. 

Immediately members of parliament decide to increase their pay, Kenyans know for sure the exchequer has to suffer. I have lost count on the number of times Sarah Serem has been cowed by the legislators to give in to their demands. Creativity of the civil society does not abet legislators from doubling their salaries in the pretext that their electorate are becoming a nuisance. 

Perhaps this notoriety of legislators has heightened during President Uhuru Kenyatta’s regime. Every now and then, MCAs are arm twisting the government. The other day it was an increase in their salaries and allowances. Recently, together with the governors, MCAs opined that their spouses deserve pay as compensation for the their endurance of long hours when these legislators are laboring for the electorate. 

Its not only MCAs in Meru that are making these overtures. In Kisumu, for instance, they are fighting to be spared from paying parking fees for the cars the County bought them. They want to be treated like VIPs. 

Away from MCAs, governors are asking the national government for more funds. Either this call started or heightened at the point when senators made a bold step towards installing accountability in counties. The telltale that business was not going to be as usual between the duo was the governors deciding unanimously to shun a proposed meeting with senators in Mombasa scheduled for August 2014. 

On their part, senators have realized that they need their salaries and allowances increased. One of the reasons they advance for this is that they need to be able to afford offices from where to serve the electorate. While these developments are utterly interesting, the national government will find alternative persuasion a hard-sell. 

In the 2013/2014 financial year, the government spent a whooping 1.8 billion on cars for the executive. 

Importantly, these calls for more reward by MCAs, MPs, Senators, Governors show how greed is unifying. Kenyans will be mesmerized when politicians remind them of how the other community has had a upper hand in causing their present economic situation. Consequently, they would even get up in machetes and slay their infiltrating outsiders. 

During pressors, politicians curse these heinous acts, and retreat to the comfort of their family members. They have systems in place to ensure that their enterprises are safe. Importantly, they come together against ethnic and partisan alliances and support calls that translate to more money out of the pockets of their voters into their pockets. 


Musau’s last post in the serialization goes like this: 

“Nonetheless, however you regard it, unrestrained greed is detrimental to society.”

All rise: Lets listen to our members of county assemblies

Pius Maundu

@piusmaundu

All rise: Lets listen to our members of county assemblies

“How come you are not laughing?” Not you.

Rather, this is the question I would have shot at Steve Munene, alias Simba, the Runyenjes Central ward representative, at the pressor after he called upon the exchequer to consider rewarding the spouses of county legislators. What do people do when they trade humor?

“Give our spouses some allowances as compensation for all the time their husbands are away. They spend a lot of time lonely.” This was Munene. Unless this happens, in the wisdom of the legislator, whose moniker is Swahili for lion, devolution will stall. It sounds funny, doesn’t it? Not to our leaders.  

For the one year they have been in power, MCAs have been grabbing  headlines with utmost notoriety. They do this not for playing some abracadabra on the underdevelopment that has been bedeviling their electorates since the days the were under the mercies of MPs and the councillors of yore. In Kibwezi, one had promised free weaves on all women voters, only to deny that barely on the first anniversary in power. How fast they learn the doublespeak! 

MCAs have been in the press mostly for the wrong reason. When they are not quoted making ultimatums when their house and car loan demands are delayed, the 2100 county legislators are arm-twisting their bosses and the electorate in reckless abandon. 

No one but social commentators have won in capturing the growing onslaught by MCAs. A recent caricature by Godfrey Mwampembwa shows MCAs-represented in larger-than-life moles milling around a governor. Here, the menacing rats are threatening the governor of dire consequences if he does not yield to their demands to gnaw the county coffers dry. 

One of the benefits scholars point out for devolution is the development of national leaders. Devolved units, thus, serve as the incubation centers for future MPs, cabinet secretaries, senators, and even presidents. 

President Barack Obama was once a member of the Illinois Senate. Looking at the case of MCAs it becomes clear that this scholarship only holds true in developed countries. 

Immediately President Mwai Kibaki oversaw the promulgation of the new constitution in 2010, Kenyans would have gotten out of their skins had they known that MCAs would effectively multiply what the MPs had perfected: profiteering at the expense of development. 

But what are MCAs saying? Certainly, it is not for free that county legislators are making these overtures. 

One would imagine that the proximity of MCAs to their voters would scare them into concentrating on their poverty alleviation mandates. Instead these law makers are using their immediacy to Wanjiku to arm-twist the national government. More than ever before, legislators are reporting how troublesome their voters are turning out to be.  

In a recent forum by Heinrich Boll Foundation in a Nairobi hotel, Diana Kapeen, MCA South C reiterated that women legislators are risking having their families broken. It is increasingly becoming hard to convince relatives that they lack money, she had said. Her counterparts-in the event meant to recount the milestones of women legislators in the devolved system of government-took this cry a notch higher. 

“Bereaved electorates are stopping at our doors first before informing their relatives of their predicaments. For this reason, I have co-opted my househelp in putting down the issues that the people in my area bring with them when they troop to my home during breakfast.” This was Racheal Kamweru, an MCA, Nairobi County. 

Springing immediately from this experience, MCAs have been up in arms asking for additional perks and hardship allowances. Cars, houses, and offices sit poignantly on the list of their demands.  The latest onslaught, however, seems very interesting. 

Methinks that by positing that their spouses should be enlisted for reward, MCAs are chestthumbing. They are mockingly telling the national government that it is their time to eat. While at it, the are brandishing a mta do? (what can you  do?) to the direction of the taxpayer. 

This or that MCAs are lashing at their pariahs at the county administration. From the theatrics meted on Governor Martin Nyaga Wambora and Governor Paul Kiprono Chepkwony, it is certain that the relationship between MCAs and governors is wanting. 

Makueni County was the fisrt to post a standoff between Governor Kivutha Kibwana and MCAs, when the former could not agree to the proposed consumerism by the later. In the 2013/2014 budgeting period, it took the intervention of the national budget to enable most counties pay their workers. 

To cut their bosses to shape, the county legislators are resulting to flexing their impeachment muscles. Sadly, this hits a snag when the judiciary reverses the decisions by legislators, making MCAs pass as minions.

It is in this backdrop, in my thinking, that MCAs, individually or in a small group,  are retracting to strategize. All along, these legislators have underscored their importance in the governance system. That is why, for instance, they are expressing dismay when the media spotlights on their globetrotting escapades. 

How come we don’t get to hear such furore when MPs draw high perks and allowances, and are sponsored to go on benchmarking trips? They wonder. In such a world of fascination, it is not surprising for the MCAs to borrow from the provanance of previous regimes, albeit cunningly. 

Perhaps as a reward for their burying the hatchet, the President, Prime Minister and the Vice- President had their wives enrolled for pay after the signing of the National Accord in 2008. In addition to the trappings of power was an office for each of Lucy Kibaki, Ida Odinga, and Pauline Musyoka. 

However, unlike the case of Simba, the explanation for the recognition of the spouses of the three national leaders was that they played an important role in enabling their spouses deliver on their duties.

One would think that it is ward representatives who are turning to family values to wage selfish wars. Teachers, and even governors are in the bandwagon too. But that is the far two cases of greed are similar.

Make no mistake. MCAs know pretty well the implications of their overtures on development. They cannot afford not to run in 2017. 

With governors, Opposition and Jubilee winking at MCAs, they can only ask for more. Especially with anxiety the running through the holders of the yam and the knife, in the wake of the calls for referendum, MCAs will continue having a field day. 

Don’t suffer an asystole when MCAs start smiling all the way to the bank and live happily ever after, with goodies wrapped by the taxpayer streaming their way.