Eurobonditis

Raila Odinga should never, ever become President and Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces because if he ever does, my life will become immeasurably boring. He is in his element when he is tilting at windmills. I had overestimated the spine that Cabinet Secretary Rotich had and underestimated just how much fun Agwambo is having—until he commandeered the Serena Hotel and name-dropped like crazy this morning. Now you useless shits can keep saying that he is not "presidential material", whatever that shit means, but you can't deny that the next two to four weeks will be spent by those who have been named by Tinga—and those who imagine they have been named by Tinga—defending their debatable white-as-snow reputations.

Jakom has a penchant for just upending things at inconvenient moments, upending them with a relish that is a little disturbing to those on the receiving end. Since he decided that he had self-actualised and he had nothing to lose really, he has been a pain in the neck of men—and a few women—who simply refused to admit that they had something to lose, that they had yet to reach self-actualisation. At some point I thought the former Devolution CS would arouse a twinge of sympathy in me because f how she was hounded out of office, until she decided to pen and Op-Ed in response to a genius economist and followed it up with a tone-deaf interview on Sunday prime time TV with this stupid phrase, "Nothing special, nothing to write home about" regarding her 160 million shillings in assets and 80 million shillings in debts. Now I am glad that the Raila Odinga steamroller flattened her ministerial career.

This Eurobond affair is not that complex. The Central Bank is the Government's banker. It is the one that does the borrowing for the Government, that is, when the Government borrows, the Central Bank does the borrowing for it. The borrowed funds are not the Central Bank's; the borrowed funds are managed by the National Treasury on behalf of the Government. The instructions to the Central Bank are given by the National Treasury. Everyone else, from the Auditor-General to the Controller of Budget to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee to the Chairman of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to the Director of Public Prosecutions is either an accessory after the fact or a witness—they are not principals in the Eurobond story. It is no longer a technico-legal headche; it is now a political headache.

The erstwhile Devolution CS was the proverbial blue-eyed girl, in charge of a massive department with a massive budget and she had the ear of the President. Everyone said she was powerful and untouchable. She would be around until Jubilee was done with this place, they said. A friend once told me that the Government has no honour and no friends; if you become an enemy of the Government (by fiddling with its money, for example) the Government will come after you and it will prevail. The erstwhile Devolution CS is now the former Devolution CS and the Op-Eds and TV interviews will not hide the fact that bar the President (maybe), she is now an enemy of the Government—and the cause of all her problems is Raila Odinga.

Agwambo doesn't really need to be President; in his unique place in Kenyan politics, he keeps shaping and reshaping Government. Now that he has made the Eurobond the object of his political interests, let us see how long National Treasury CS Rotich lasts before he too decides that his health has been adversely affected by Eurobonditis. He doesn't have to be guilty of any wrongdoing, but by digging in his heels and refusing to meet Tinga halfway, he has more or less guaranteed that the next two to four weeks will be spent trying to figure out what to say, how to say it, when to say it so that the people who matter don't think he is a thief. On the psychological effects of being the target of Agwambo's attentions, he should look no further than to the travails of the former Devolution CS and learn the proper lessons.

It isn't personal

It's not personal. Honest!

Public discourse in Kenya is frequently coloured by ad hominem attacks, allegations of fifth-column conflicts of interest, tribal biases and good old fashioned personal vendettas. I have my pet peeves: the thin-skinned overreactions of the Law Society's honchos is prominent among them as is the refusal in certain quarters to accept that I have a identity that is impossible to pigeon-hole. On this blog I am also guilty of all that I accuse others of, perhaps even worse, but I believe that I have been even-handed, setting out my stall, as it were, without reacting to criticism as if the criticism is directed at me personally and not against my weak ideas. I don't take it personally when someone disagrees robustly with that which I propose; this is the price one pays for advancing an argument in the public domain.

I am not as astute a student of Kenya's politics as some of the public commentators I admire, but I have noticed a tendency to overreact to any insinuation against leading political figures. Take the reaction to the David Ndii assertion that Uhuru Kenyatta's government's investments in infrastructure are yet to translate into real GDP growth. Those who believe in the President's vision have not taken Mr Ndii's argument as honest criticism but have variously alleged that Mr Ndii has a personal animus against the President and that he must be in the pay of someone, perhaps even an outside power. Despite Mr Ndii's credentials as a world-renown economist, the more passionate members of Mr Kenyatta's fan base are unwilling to accept that Mr Ndii's assessments of the economy are based on his technical qualifications and not his personal biases.

I happen to agree mostly with Mr Ndii, but only because I am attracted to his fact-based analysis of things. Many Kenyans agree with him too, though some agree with him because it reinforces their personal animus against Uhuru Kenyatta. I have nothing against Uhuru Kenyatta. He is my president and until he leaves office, I will not take up with those who would wish to make his job impossible to execute. If I can contribute to his successes, I will do so willingly, because his successes will inevitably be our successes. I believe he was validly elected and I have no truck with those who keep hankering after proof that Mr Kenyatta rigged himself to power. In my assessment, Mr Kenyatta out-strategised the opposition and emerged the undisputed winner.

That, however, does not mean that he is infallible and he would, in my estimation, benefit greatly from contrarian voices like Mr Ndii's when it comes to public investment and the general direction of the economy. We must take to heart that not all criticism of Mr Kenyatta's policies is personal; some of it is genuinely made to assist Mr Kenyatta in adjusting his sails to the prevailing winds so that the ship of state avoids rough seas and instead enjoys clear horizons and fair skies. It is for Mr Kenyatta, and his passionate supporters, to separate the chaff of the personal attack from the wheat of the genuine criticism, for in making the distinction we may yet forge a better nation.

Rather than take all criticism as the constant whingeing of the cantankerous and morose, unhappy with everything the President has done or has promised to do, it would help to address the criticism of the President with an open mind. That would require robust, fact-based responses, and would better inform the President of the true state of his government. I will not make the ludicrous assertion that the President's ardent supporters are sycophants; they too must not equally assert that Mr Kenyatta's critics are in the pay of a foreign power or something equally ludicrous.

On regulating churches

No one wants restraints on what they can or cannot do. In a perfect state of nature, one would be absolutely free to act as one saw fit and others would be absolutely free to react to one's actions, if those actions affected them. We don't live in a perfect state of nature, better known as anarchy. We are a nation of laws, foremost being the Constitution, and those laws define our rights as well as enforce liabilities upon us.

That is the simple explanation. But with the proposal to regulate faith-based societies, the Attorney-General has responded to a situation that has gotten out of hand. Kenyans profess to be a faith-based people, and the allusion to "Almighty God" in the constitution's preamble is proof enough of this. It is therefore, a little distasteful to many Kenyans who profess a faith top hear that the manner in which they practice their faith is set to be regulated, because they labour under the illusion that it has never been regulated.

If one wishes to worship, there is no law that says how that worship is to be conducted. If one wishes to believe in a deity, there is no law that says what that deity should be or how that belief is to be expressed. If one wishes to worship in community with others, there is no law that says how that should be done. However...

The Income Tax Act provides for exemptions from the payment of income tax if one is a registered charitable organisation. Most charitable organisations, if not all, are registered under two principal statutes: the Societies Act and the Public Benefits Organisations Act, 2013. Many faith-based organisations, such as churches, are registered under the Societies Act. The Societies Act provides for the conditions that such organisations must satisfy in order to be registered. It is this registration that allows, for example, churches to operate without paying income tax on their income.

What the Attorney-General has proposed is not a restriction on who, how, where and when people can worship; he has proposed that organisations that facilitate the worship of the people must be registered in a certain manner to protect the people from harm. In the recent past, Kenyans have been injured by leaders of organisations that purport to lead them in worship. Victor Kanyari's case is only the most notorious. The Attorney-General's proposal is well within his mandate and it is a timely one.

The single most important status these organisations, and their leaders, wish to protect is their tax-free status based on their registration as charitable orgabnisations or bodies under the Societies Act. If they are compelled to pay income tax, just like other Kenyans, that will not inherently affect their congregations' right to worship in any way. Therefore, if they do not wish to be bound by the provisions of the Societies Act and the Regulations made under the Societies Act, there are two options: they can apply for their registration as not-for-profit societies rescinded and wind up their operations or they can register as for-profit organisations, just like any other business.

Where the people are at risk, the State has an interest to know the full details of the organisations and the organisations' leaders or managers that pose that risk. Faith-based organisations have demonstrated that they pose a risk to the people and self-regulation among them has not mitigated that risk. It is imperative that if a person purports to lead or manage an organisation that calls on the people to comply with its own rules on the interpretation of canon law, the State must be informed of the identity of that leader or manager, his or her credentials, his or her antecedents and the nature of his or her intentions. The organisation he or she leads or heads must fully comply with the law on disclosure of information, especially the organisation's other leaders or managers, staff and financial details. If they refuse to comply, the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions should enforce the law on unlawful associations to its fullest extent.

Mr Mugambi, transparency is the key

First, I commit to ensure continuous dialogue, transparency and accountability at the LSK Council. By doing this, we will together ensure that the LSK experiences less sharp divisions as has been the case in recent days. Further, this will ensure that all members' interests are addressed objectively and members' welfare prioritised at all times.—Mugambi Laibuta, Reactivate the Law Society of Kenya

I came across this while looking over the promises of various candidates for office in the Council of the Law Society of Kenya. This one especially captured my mind; it is precise and concise, something that many advocates find difficult to achieve, and, given the other promises floating out there, surprisingly well-written. Whether the author is sincere, only time will tell. I offer my ideas on transparency.

They say that sunshine is the best disinfectant and the Council of the Law Society has been notoriously averse to sunshine. The most controversial decision of the past two years has been the one to finance the International Arbitration Centre from mandatory subscriptions by members of the Law Society. The decision was capricious and the Council's defence of it was high-handed and tone deaf and it split the Law Society right down the middle. Transparency by the Council would have saved everyone this headache.

The first thing the Council should have borne in mind when making the decision to move forward with the IAC is that the Law Society is a membership-driven institution; the welfare of the members supersedes the interests of the Council. If the Council had embraced this truism, it would have published everything related to the IAC, especially after it was challenged by the more youthful members of the Society. Transparency, as contemplated in Article 10 of the Constitution, demands that every scrap of paper related to the IAC would be published so that the members could make an informed decision on whether the Society could move forward with the IAC or not.

If Mr Mugambi is truly committed to bringing transparency into the Council's boardroom, he must campaign, if elected to the Council, for total transparency in the affairs of the Council. Every meeting the Council holds must have its minutes published, voting patterns and all. When the Council expends money—even if it is a hundred shillings for envelopes—in addition to accounting for that hundred shillings, the accounts must be published in full, no detail of how the member's money is expended should be too small. Mr Mugambi should, if he is willing, commit to an era of absolute transparency; the Law Society is not the National Intelligence Service and secrecy is not and should not be its watchword.

There will be an instinct among the more conservative members of the Society and of the Council to reject this proposition out of hand. That is a legacy of the Society's history with betrayal. But that betrayal was because of the self-preservation habit of members of the Council of picking sides in political disputes. Transparency, especially on the conflicts of interest that will arise in the Council, may not eliminate the instinct to pick political sides among members, but it will compel them to think deeply before they let those conflicts rule the roost during deliberations of the Council.

This is the Information Age and the habit of the Council to treat every decision as if it were the results of a conclave to choose the next Pope needs to be jettisoned. Inevitably, all will out. So long as it is written down somewhere, it will not remain secret forever. To reduce the intrigues and the conspiracy theories of the past year, the Council must be absolutely transparent. The incoming Council could set the ball rolling by publishing everything in the Council's possession related to the IAC. That will engender my trust.

One day my caesar salad will murder me

One day my caesar salad will murder me. It won't really matter where it is served, my caesar salad will enter into a criminal enterprise with unknown parties and murder me to death. At least that is what boffins in Nairobi are suggesting. One day soon, when I'm feeling all health-food-conscious and shit, I will order a caesar salad at Java or the Kempinski or the Eka or one of those fancy schmancy places that serve rib-eye and the caesar salad will be the tail end of a plot to murder me in cold blood because some "farmer" I don't know, an "agro-vet" I've never visited, a kanjo askari I will never meet will have conspired to let the salad part of the caesar be grown in circumstances that will see me snuffling shown dangerous levels of toxins like calcium carbide, hydrogen peroxide, polychlorinated biphenyl-laden transformer oil, formalin and lead.

This one sounds particularly murderous: polychlorinated biphenyl-laden transformer oil. All this because someone, Uncle Kidero really, is asleep at the wheel. Or he seems to be asleep at the wheel. Public health - the prevention of polychlorinated biphenyl-laden transformer oil from becoming the murder weapon of choice for my caesar salad - is his government's job. Not Uhuru Kenyatta's. By all accounts, his government simply doesn't get it, and so markets have become incubators of some really scary shit -  polychlorinated biphenyl-laden transformer oil!

No one in the food supply chain of this fair city is blameless. No, not even the sainted Mama Mbogas. It boils down to simple things like clean water supplies and safety inspections that actually enhance safety and not just boost safety inspectors' bank balances. Many saintly Mama Mbogas would prefer not to use Ruai's sewage supply to grow the sukuma wiki, nyanya or pilipili hoho that ends up on my plate, every now and then, but the wholly owned company of City Hall called the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company operates like most bad monoploies do: shit service at exorbitant prices. So some of the Mama Mbogas' sukuma wiki we haggle over in the evening - actually a significant amount of it - is covered in calcium carbide, hydrogen peroxide, polychlorinated biphenyl-laden transformer oil, formalin or lead, or something much, much worse. At the end of the day, even Mama Mbogas understand the basic rules of economics and appreciate the immutable law of profitability.

What should scare the "emerging" middle classes is that even up-market "farmers'" markets, where "organic" food features prominently, contamination is almost certain because Uncle Kidero's serikali can't and won't be bothered to do its job halfway decently. There are few things that matter in this fair city: solid waste management; reliable water and sewage services; a good public health system; effective and efficient public transport; and a safe food supply chain. Uncle Kidero's serikali gets good marks for public healthcare; everything else, it gets a failing grade. This is not the rocket science that my brother George actually does. (Okay, not rocket science, but a tad more complex than what Uncle Kidero's serikali has to contend with.)

For three years now we have watched as prmises are broken by our city's government. Not even the Sonko Rescue Team galvanised our city's government to improve services. Instead, now we are informed that officers of that city government's inspectorate have been murdering traders! Those who voted for the Governor must now be prepared to admit to themselves that he has been an utter failure. The calcium carbide, hydrogen peroxide, polychlorinated biphenyl-laden transformer oil, formalin and lead in our food supply chain are an indictment of the Governor's leadership of this fair city. If he reacts to this tirade by blaming farmers, brokers, supermarkets, middlemen, or the Ministry of Health, he will have confirmed that he really doesn't understand what being Governor actually entails.

TB drugs or forensic labs?

I love the phrase "forensics lab" because it is a sign that the Government of Kenya, in its heart of hearts, is still living in a world where white elephants are the key to someone climbing up the Forbes' list of one-percenters. First it was those nice guys in the securocracy with their Anglo-Leasing who came up with the words "forensic lab" but ended up spending billions for air. Now it is the turn of the environment Cabinet Secretary who is being egged on by wildlife conservationists in the name of the elephants an rhinos and Nairobi National Park.

The Wildlife Management and Conservation Act (No. 47 of 2013) is a brilliant piece of legislation; it misses a fundamental point about the Government of Kenya, wildlife conservation and the nature of the public service. The pressure from wildlife conservation groups to enact a more robust wildlife law was done almost in denial that the decimation of pachyderms and odd-toed ungulates happens because key members of the wildlife conservation establishment want it to happen. Just two weeks ago a lorry belonging to the National Police was intercepted as to was ferrying twenty million shillings worth of sandalwood. I wasn't surprised that a week later the lorry and the sandalwood disappeared from the police station where both were being detained.

Those who are whispering in the Cabinet Secretary's ear about a "forensic lab" are either very naive, which I don't believe, or simply don't care to learn from the Anglo-Leasing mess, which might be true  if they are true believers in wildlife conservation, or they are eyeing a slice of the "forensics lab" pie when it all goes "KABOOM!" as it always does when mega-bucks and public procurement are involved. This thing with the "forensic lab" will end badly, as all mega public procurement white elephants tend to.

I am supposed to give the Cabinet Secretary and her people the benefit of the doubt; after all, after the enactment of Act No. 47 of 2013, the rate at which pachyderms were being decimated fell, as did the rate of odd-toed ungulates, if you believe the CS and her boosters. Yet, despite the detainment of Faisal Fazul, a notorious poaching kingpin, someone packed a forty-feet long shipping container with elephant tusks and rhino horns, labelled it as "tea" and was on the verge of shipping it to Thailand before it was intercepted by an uncharacteristically eagle-eyed customs officer. It would just be the latest of previous "tea" exports to Thailand that seemed to pass through the port of Mombasa despite the new "tougher" wildlife law. How a "forensic lab" will slow down "tea" exports remains a mystery.

Forensic science is the application of science to criminal and civil laws. Forensic scientists are tasked with the collection, preservation, and analysis of scientific evidence during the course of an investigation. While some forensic scientists travel to the scene to collect the evidence themselves, others occupy a purely laboratory role, performing analysis on objects brought to them by other individuals. Thus far no one has persuaded the long-suffering people of Kenya that a billion-shillings "forensics" lab is a priority over basic shit: like TB drugs.

The police, not the most honest of people at the best of times, loved the phrase "forensic lab" so much we are still paying for it a decade after the swindle was exposed for what it was. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We are not falling for that again, almost-extinct odd-toed ungulates and pachyderms notwithstanding. Best put that money in Cleopa Mailu's hands and hope he can buy all the TB drugs he needs.

The Law Society: How many more will crawl out of the woodwork?

"The President of the Law Society will be required from time to time to defend the Constitution and the Public in accordance with the Law Society Act.Here our preferred candidate seeking for an injunction to stop payment of 1.4 billion Angloleasing money on behalf of the people of Kenya.The matter is pending in Court."

Good people, this screed is from one of our better-known candidates for the Law Society presidency. I will, for the moment, restrain myself mightily from enquiring too deeply into the troubling grammar and syntax. Instead, I shall occupy myself with examining the remarkable declaration that "The President of the Law Society will be required from time to time to defend the Constitution and the Public in accordance with the Law Society Act." (Gods of grammar, please forgive him.) And anyone that refers to themselves in the third person should be treated with great, great suspicion.

Let us get the pettifoggery out of the way: Act No. 21 of 2014 may be cited as the Law Society of Kenya Act, 2014, and not as the Law Society Act. You'd think a senior member of the Kenyan Bar, a former vice-chairman of the Society no less, would be mindful of the way statutes should be cited.

Now, to the substance of his assertion. Section 4 of the Law Society of Kenya Act, 2014, enumerates the objects and functions of the Law Society. Two are especially notable: (b) uphold the Constitution of Kenya and advance the rule of law and the administration of justice; and (d) protect and assist the members of the public in Kenya in matters relating to or ancillary or incidental to the law. So far as I can tell, the President of the Council of the Law Society is not some kind of Lone Wolf who will single-handedly "defend the Constitution and the Public" against enemies of the Constitution or the people.

Sadly, this is not the only candidate in the LSK elections with delusions of grandeur. One intends to amend the Law Society of Kenya Act, 2014, without further reference to Parliament, the only constitutional organ that makes law in Kenya. Take a gander at this:

 "My second agenda, if elected, will be to overhaul and improve the LSK management. To this end, I will work towards a clear decision making process and communication from the LSK secretariat. I am devoted to pushing for a clear remuneration guidelines within LSK which will in turn serve to foster transparency and accountability. I will also pursue an audit of LSK accounts and management decisions to ensure that they were and are in line with members expectations and LSK mandate. Finally, we will make LSK open to scrutiny by members in furtherance of its visions and goals."

 Again, I shall restrain myself with a mighty effort from enquiring at all into the troubling problems with both the grammar and the syntax in this declaration. Unless this lawyer has not been paying attention, the governance of the Law Society is set out in Part III and, to some extent, Part IV of the Act. That is neither here nor there, however. What should come as a surprise is that the Council of the Law Society does not have "clear remuneration guidelines" and that it is opaque and unaccountable. Why is it that this candidate is only raising this matter during this election juncture? While members' funds have been dealt with sans guidelines, in opaque and unaccountable ways, where has this soul been keeping himself? Why should we trust his goodwill today when he has made a pretty damn good show of keeping it hidden all along?

These two candidates are a symptom of the atrophying ideals of the Black Bar in Kenya. They are the tail end of a long queue that stretches back to the early 2000s. The Society is in trouble. These candidates are not the solution.

Tribal politics.

When you listen to the tribal politics of the United States, you know where Hilary and Bernie stand, you know where Jeb, Cruz and Rubio stand, and you may think you know where The Donald stands, but since not even he knows where he stands it is safe to assume he'll stand where he can piss on everyone else without peeing on himself. The Right and the  Left in the US are well defined and the shades of grey between each have the added advantage of advocates who passionately articulate and fight for them every single day. It is why the Big Tents that are the GOP and the Democratic Party have survived for decades.

The same can be seen in the United Kingdom, India, Australia, France, Germany, Chile, Argentina and Mexico. In Kenya the most important factor that informs our virulent form of tribal politics is the utter lack of ideological or philosophical coherence. We define ourselves by our ethnic or linguistic tribes, taking our cues from the men and women we have chosen to elect again and again. And for that folly, really, a political party is a mere convenient vehicle, designed to pursue one object only: to fight an election. It is not founded on any principles or ideology; it's utility is quite limited in the political grand scheme of things. It is pointless to ask for the ideologies or principles of Kenya's political parties; our politicians have none and neither do we.

There is a whiff of the hypocritical about the outrage over the Jubilee Party. Maybe Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, TNA's and the URP's supremos, have a long-term game plan when it comes to the parties they head, but I am not putting money down. Mr Kenyatta's move from KANU to TNA was as calculated as was Mr Ruto's from UDM to UDF to URP. Their previous parties were vehicles of convenience and it will turn out that the Jubilee Party is too. Therefore, it doesn't need an ideology or principles; all it needs is to win!

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have been consistent in what they want: to keep ODM's Raila Odinga out of State House. They have succeeded. If they keep their nerve in 2016, and through August 2017, Mr Odinga will remain the best president Kenya never had - together with Peter Kenneth, Martha Karua and Kenneth Matiba. Mr Odinga is partnered by Moses Wetangula, whose constituency is as puny as his reputation, and Kalonzo Musyoka who has proven incapable of corralling the canny Machakos Governor. The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy is a joke and if the Jubilee party does materialise, it will crush the CORD just as the Jubilee Alliance did in 2013. Back then it had nothing to do with ideologies or principles and everything to do with raw tribal numbers. Jubilee had the numbers; CORD most certainly did not.

2017 will still be a game of tribal arithmetic. It would be nice to imagine that the tribes we're talking about are conservatives, liberals, libertarians, progressives, greens, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, social democrats, Christian democrats, communists, socialists, and the like. But that will not be and I am willing to put money down for that. This is who we are and it is time we embraced our true nature. When we choose our political champions, their notoriety notwithstanding, the first thing Kenyan voters take into consideration is: does he belong to my tribe? When we finally transcend the ethno-linguistic tribe, perhaps that question will gain credible salience and import. That day, my friends, is still far away.

Sam's Sweet 2016

Yes, they are at it already. And, yes, predictably, the other guys are at it - losing their rags in such spectacular fashion. First things first. If you are that thin-skinned about where you wen to school, leave stage left right now because "misuse of a licensed telecommunications device" is set to become a political rallying call in the next few months. (The CA can go on and on about tracking all online users but unless the CA has morphed into the People's Liberation Army's Cyber Army, it can go fry an egg!)

Second, don't lose sight of the place of the Village Madman in the grand scheme of things. Without him, or her, the village strongman would live under the false illusion that he is loved by one and all and might miss the poisoned drum of busaa into which the whole village has taken an almighty crap. Given the givens, the Village Madman will not strip butt naked and run yelling from one lamp post to the next about the idiocy of this, that or the other fatcat. The Village madman is likely to be a sophisticate, with a deep understanding of complex issues, unafraid to criticise in light of received wisdom, to do it with erudition and fearlessness. In the land of the sycophant, the Madman is King.

Third, the Hague will continue to figure prominently, even long after the Titanic has rammed into the iceberg and sunk a thousand feet below the cold North Atlantic. There are a few loyal-seeming voices perpetuating the illusion that He Was Fixed. They have done a good job of it. They haven't done a good enough job. The trial proceeds apace and it is now a toss up whether the prosecution's case will be thrown out. I fear not.

Fourth, Jubilee Party is a stupid idea. It's brilliant in its own narrowly-focussed, KANU-is-back way, but in the end it is a stupid idea. Its cynicism is so plain that I wonder whether its architects realise that Kenyans are fed up at being taken for granted in this way. And absolutely no one wants KANU back, which is what Jubilee Party is shaping up to be, the rump in the hands of Gideon Moi and Nick Salat notwithstanding.

Fifth, the CIC is gone! Thank God! Enough said!

Sixth, the CIC is gone. OMG, WTF?! We may come to rue having given the CIC such a broad remit and such a short tenure. It acted as a valuable safety valve in the constitutional implementation scheme of things. It kept the parliamentarians and the national Executive on their toes whenever knotty problems of constitutional interpretation arose. It was a pain in the ass, and it got many things wrong, but its importance cannot be gainsaid. I will miss those big crybabies.

Seventh, what referendum? Okoa what? No one wants one. The only people who want one don't seem to have a job at all. What exactly does the leadership of the CORD do in its spare time, other than try and keep some of its people out of the corruption hot seat? They are a waste of space. Not that the ruling alliance has the most useful people in the world. In paraphrasing Martha Karua, "We will not be lectured to about the referenda by people who have contributed absolutely nothing to Kenyan politics except by being nuisances." The nuisances of the Jubilee are well known, aren't they?

Critics are not Fifth Columnists

According to Britam, David Ndii "has a doctorate and M.Sc degrees from the University of Oxford, an MA and BA degrees from the University of Nairobi, is a Rhodes Scholar and Eisenhower Fellow." I am vaguely familiar with the Rhodes Scholarship - Bill and Hilary were both Rhodes Scholars - and they are not awarded to the feeble-minded nor to intellectual pygmies. By all accounts Mr Ndii is an accomplished economist, respected in his field and consulted by many for his expertise. Last Saturday, Mr Ndii discussed "What [the] Magufuli presidency means for Uhuru’s reign" in the Saturday Nation.

In his lengthy article, Mr Ndii recalled:

In his [Jomo Kenyatta's] introduction to Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 Kenyatta declared the development debate closed.

This was a paper that justified favouring the development of high potential areas in the name of maximising economic growth, setting the country on the path of distributional grievances and criminalisation of dissent.

Mr Ndii argues that because of this, multiparty politics would not serve Kenya's economic intersts well and that the seeds of doom laid down in the Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 led to the violence of 1997 and 2007. He adds

Kenya’s economy was a third bigger than Tanzania’s in the early 90s. This obtained until Kenya’s economy crashed in the aftermath of the 1997 elections, just as Tanzania’s was taking off. By 2003, the gap had reduced to a fifth. Tanzania’s economy has grown by 6.1 per cent per year since 1997, Kenya’s by 3.7 per cent. If our economy had kept pace, it would be almost 50 per cent larger than Tanzania’s. Instead, the Kenya’s economy took another political hit in 2008, narrowing the gap to less than 10 per cent.

One reaction in Twitter was baffling. An argument was advanced that Mr Ndii based his comparison of the Kenya and Tanzania economies on factors other than the correct ones: political stability, effect of external shocks, and quality of weather. The argument is silent on political stability, but attempts to show a correlation between terrorism (external shocks) and drought (quality of weather) and the slower pace of economic growth Kenya. The argument further posits that because Tanzania has not suffered from similar external shocks or erratic weather as Kenya, it's economic growth numbers should not be compared to Kenya's.

Mr Ndii pointed out that where Tanzania truly differed from Kenya was in the "moral-ethical realm" and the difference is yet to be honestly acknowledged by members of President Kenyatta's circle. Mr Ndii declared that Tanzania's John Pombe Magufuli is "rekindling Nyerere’s leadership ethos — humility, modesty, integrity, the personal discipline and public service ethic" while "President Kenyatta is a reluctant graft buster, tethered as he still is to the Kanu kleptocracy that nurtured him, and surrounded by instant millionaires" Mr Ndii argued that President Kenyatta's "tolerance for corruption has to be significantly greater than zero."

This did not go down well in some quarters. In response to what Mr Ndii called "signalling" in relation to President Magufuli's anti-corruption crusade where he has personally ordered the dismissal of public officers, on reaction was that President Kenyatta "is not going [to] walk [into] hospitals, chase away [d]octors/nurses like a plantation supervisor [because] we've institutions to do that work" and that "[President Kenyatta] directs that corrupt individual steps (sic) out of Govt and be investigated, it's the work of relevant institutions to do that work." These quarters ignored the second part of Mr Ndii's argument where he states

Investors can come to Tanzania with the confidence that when they encounter the corruption and bureaucratic obstacles, the man at the helm can be relied on to deal with it.

In some respects, President Magufuli resembles Rwanda's Paul Kagame who has led my an ascetic example, eschewing the pomp and circumstance, the trappings of power, and a personal probity that engenders confidence in Rwandese and foreigners alike. No one is arguing that Kenya is short of foreign investors or foreigners interested in investing in Kenya; Tatu City, the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, the Standard Gauge Railway, the Port of Mombasa Expansion, the Two Rivers and Turkana Oil Field are proof that foreign investment interest in Kenya is true. 

But, what separates Rwanda under Kagame and Tanzania under Magufuli is the impression that Kagame and Magufuli are truly committed to the fight against graft and waste while President Kenyatta is famous for Presidential Warnings and a fat-wallet senior public service. Only just yesterday the President's Chief of Staff was forced to issue a circular forbidding state corporations and parastatals from paying allowances to parliamentarians whose allowances should be properly paid by Parliament!

Mr Ndii is a harsh critic of the president and his criticism must be seen in the light of Kenya's penchant for co-opting independent voices. But unless one has a serious economic argument to make against Mr Ndii's analyses and predictions, arguments such as "Ndii should be made aware that countries transitioning out of planned economies (e.g. socialism) into more deregulated capitalism tend [to] register higher economic growth in initial years. As was the case with Estonia. (due [to] people being freed [to] invest as they wish)" should only be made when the maker of the argument can at least explain why Mr Ndii's numbers do not add up instead of declaring "Ndii's schema (sic) is not to inform, it's to denigrate GoK. Who is he working for?"