Category Archives: HEADLINES

CHINA & KENYA: CHINA OVERSEAS ENGINEERING GROUP COMPANY LIMITED (COVEC) SUCCESSFULLY DELIVER YET ANOTHER AIRPORT PROJECT

Dickens Wasonga.

The lake side city of Kisumu finally has good news.

In most occasions what is churned out of the city home to over a half a million people has just been negative stuff.

Usually it is the violence related stories or bad politics that we associate our beautiful town with.

Things however are set to change and so is the image of Kisumu which is the headquarters of Kisumu county.Now it is celebrating a successful completion of an international airport which is set to transform the region into a travel hub, south and east of Africa.

Three years ago, the Kenya government in collaboration with the World Bank set out on a journey to upgrade the facility at a cost of sh.3b.

After a competitive bidding and rigorous search for a contractor , the airport project was awarded to the multinational Chinese Overseas Construction Engineering company COVEC whose proven competence in delivering timely , cost effective and magnificent projects earned itself international recognition.

With its newly acquired status, Kisumu International Airport which is the third busiest airport facility after Moi International Airport in Mombasa will now be able to handle direct flights within Africa, Europe and even Asia.

The upgraded project whose implementation was done by COVEC under the able leadership of Mr. Yang Liuyin ,the Project Manager will boost economic en devours between Kenya and countries within the great lakes region including the southern Sudan.

The Chinese experts used their professional acumen to give their clients KAA a product worth the amount the government invested into the project and residents of Nyanza are already preparing to make good use of the modern facility by transforming it into an income generating venture.

At the greater Nyakach and the fertile farmlands of Nyando, horticultural farmers have already put under cultivation several acres of land in the wake of the good news about the completion of the airport.

Business in the town has been boosted with many private and public entities such the Kenya Wild Life Service, Kenya tourist board, Kisumu city council and numerous hotels operating in the region embarking on aggressive marketing campaigns to popularize the Western Kenya tourist circuit where the new airport is located.

The good work carried out by the COVEC team and a group of experienced engineers from KAA and the NACO consultants which ultimately saw Kisumu realize the ambition of both the government and the people of Western Kenya in having an international airport can not be underestimated.

The Chinese work ethics where skills is combined with serious dedication to handwork and good behavior truly demonstrated that the country was getting a brake from a past which was synonymous with shoddy and uncompleted jobs.

Such projects which remained white elephants after gobbling up hard earned public funds gave the government’s poorly implemented and supervised works a blot. This is what COVEC and its team worked tirelessly to disapprove.

When the project began , there was a lot of resistance especially from a section of the community who felt they would lose their land to the airport project but those fears were soon addressed by a competent KAA management and the project implementing teams.

Constant consultation and continuous dialogue gave a boost to the project and found favor with the locals with all the affected families receiving money as land compensation from the government.

The same spirit of working in harmony was soon to be adopted by the Chinese workers who gave themselves total commitment to deliver the project timely and at the same time ensuring quality of work was never compromised.

COVEC which floored giant and equally reputable organizations both locally and internationally in the the road and airport construction circles however did not disappoint.

Before it was awarded the Kisumu airport project, the company which is an affiliate of China Railways Cooperation had been implementing a number of successfully delivered projects within the African continent such as in Angola, Morocco,Botswana, Mauritias, Zambia,Mali amongst others .

In Botswana, for example, COVEC implemented a housing project for over 424 affordable housing units which was financed through a concessional loan provided by the Chinese government.

In 2006 in Angola, the reputable company completed a US dollar 8 million hospital project in a record 15 months.

The Luanda General Hospital project built a facility which could hospitalize 100 patients and handle 800 daily.

While implementing the Kisumu airport project and several others mentioned above , COVEC had already curved out for itself a prominent place in the sector once dominated by the South African and European firms.

During the project period, the Chinese reconstructed the dilapidated 2 kilometers by 30 meters runway to an ultra modern 3.3 kilometers by 45 meters runway which now can bigger aircraft than was being handled before.

They also constructed a state of the art two floors terminal building and other associated works like air field ground lighting, sewerage systems, air side access roads, a unique and high security fence amongst others.

Other services includes a dedicated 4 inch pipe water from Kisumu water and sewerage company (KIWASCO) and dedicated power services from Kenya Power Lighting Company .

An access road from the Kisat junction to Kisian has also been constructed.

The implementation of the project was a boost to the locals many of whom were and still are employed at the project either as skilled or non skilled staff by COVEC and their sub contractors.

The locals some of whom were non skilled benefited immensely .They worked hand in hand with the Chinese technicians who in turn were able to impart knowledge in them.

Many were able to acquire expertise in areas such as usage of modern equipment, tools and techniques especially in building construction.

ENDS.

Kenya MPs blames the government for being insensitive as citizens of neighboring countries massacred its own citizens along the internationally recognised borders in the north of the country

Leave a reply

Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

MEMBERS of Kenyan Parliament have come out in full force in wholesale condemnation of the government’s insensitiveness on its neighboring countries violating the country’s international boundaries with impunity.

Kenya has one of the strongest and boasting the most efficient military powers in the East African region, though untested in combats, but its neighboring countries of Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia have been violating its international boundaries unchallenged either militarily or diplomatically.

The legislator who spoke in unity in total disregard of political parties divides cited the recent seizure of Migingo fishing Island in Lake Victoria and the latest reports that Uganda has further seized another nearby fishing island called Ugingo and posted its security forces there.

The massacre of close to 50 Turkana tribesmen living along the Kenya Ethiopia border at a place called Todonyang by the Rendille tribesmen. On the eastern border with the Ethiopia at Moyale, members of the Oromo Liberation Army fighting to dislodge the Ethiopia regime of the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi have intermittently crossed the border into Kenya unchallenged and harassed peace loving Kenyans.

The same has happened along the Kenya border with Southern Sudan, where members of the Sudan Liberation Army {SPLA} have crossed into Kenya at will and harassed inn0cent Kenyans.

And on the Kenya-Somalia border, the al-Qaeda backed al-shabaab militia have incurred into Kenya and killed Kenyans at will. The al-Shabaab terrorist is also said to be conducting recruitment exercise inside Kenya and enlisting jobless youths into its militia forces that is fighting to dislodge the UN/AU backed Provisional Transitional Government of Somalia in Mogadishu.

Speaker after speaker blamed the government for keeping large military force that is only idling in the army barracks, but cannot effectively defend the country’s territories even when it is being threatened by aggressors from the neighboring nations..

The MP expressed concern over the recent killing of over 50 Turkana tribesmen at Todonyang. Those massacred included men, women and children.

The Kenyans had crossed the border mainly to buy some food commodities in market across the border when they were ambushed and shot at random by heavily armed Rendille tribesmen from Ethiopia

Both Rendille and Turkana are pastoral communities and herders who whose historical past have been shrouded with violence cattle rustling operations which resulted in the massive loss of lives. The two communities live across the internationally accepted common borders facing each other. The Rendilles are believed to have crossed into Kenya and settled along the border villages after vandalizing beacons marking the exact border between Ethiopia and Kenya.

The Prime Minister Raila Odinga visited the border areas and was shocked to learn that the Rendille tribesmen living inside Kenya have gone as far as uprooting the beacons marking the common border. The Prime Minister was also prevented from visiting the border area by his security details following advice of the police that it would go against his personal safety.

Officially and diplomatically, Kenya and Ethiopia have no known or reported boundary dispute and the two neighboring nations are serving in various regional organizations such as IGAD, AU, Nil Basin Commission, Comesa and several other regional bodies. There has never been any diplomatic thaw between the two countries, which share many things in common. So the massacre of close to 50 Kenyan Turkana tribesmen by the Rendilles came as a shock to both governments.

Residents of the Turkana region maintains that the recent disarmament exercise carried by the Kenya government in which thousands of guns from the Kenyan tribesmen has exposed them and made the community vulnerable to their enemies from neighboring pastoralist communities. It deprived the impoverished Turkana of their weapons which they could use in defending themselves and their properties from external aggressors.

The Turkana people had consented to the disarmament exercise on the understanding that the government would post Kenyan security personnel along the common border to protect them. But nothing like that has come.

There are several security personnel at the Todonyang border post, but the few who are there are ill-equipped and could not match the Rendilles tribesmen armed with much more sophisticated weapons with higher fire power.

The disarming of Turkana herdsmen appear to have given their hostile neighbors from both Ethiopia and Southern Sudan courage to carry out attack in their territory.

This is what happened at Todonyang Massacre on May 2,2012.The disarmament operations netted a total of 737 illegal guns..And in the last two weeks to the end of an amnesty period issued by the government, Turkana residents voluntarily surrendered a record 250 illegal firearms.

The government carried out the exercise despite the fact that neighboring Ethiopia and Sudan had no pan to disarm their equally armed border residents

Before the disarming the Turkana, the government should have beefed up security along the border areas separating the two countries. Apart from Rendille tribesmen, there are also the heavily armed Oromo Liberation Army across the Ethiopia-Kenya borders operating around the border town of Moyale.

Since independence in 1963, the Turkana tribesmen have been defending themselves from their hostile neighboring communities, which are equally pastoralists’.

Reports from the region say that during the disarmament the government through the Deputy Provincial Commissioner in the Rift Valley Province Christopher Musumbu is reported to have promised the Turkana community of the maximum security protection. Musumbu said the government had mapped out areas prone to insecurity along the border areas where more security personnel would be deployed and stationed on permanent bases.

The Turkana residents have been equally facing internal aggression from their hostile and much drilled Pokots tribesmen in the South who intermittently attack or cattle rustling. But the Pokots were also recently disarmed thereby minimizing the threats to the Turkana.

In Parliament there were heated exchange between MPs and front benches during which an Assistant Minister for Internal Security Joshua Orwa Ojpde readily admitted that there was a total collapse in security adding that although neighboring countries had beefed up security along the border military personnel, Kenya was still dragging its feet.

Ojode said the setting of military bases in Turkana region has been in the drawing board for along time.

In parliament the legislator decried insecurity along Kenya’s border with its neighboring nations. One core function of the military and all other armed forces is primarily to protect the country’s territorial against any external aggression from foreigners, but this has not been the case in Kenya.

It was only Uganda which jointly carried out similar disarmament exercise with Kenya in an operation that has since yielded in the relative peace between Kenya’s Turkana and Uganda’s Karamojong pastoralists’ after the recovery of 27,000 illegal guns.

The MPs blamed the government for keeping members of Kenya armed forces idle in army barracks while the country’s boundary is being violated lft, right an center by the neighboring states with impunity.

In the Western front, Kenya has lost fishing islands in lake Victoria one after the other. Uganda this week announced that it has seized Ugingo Island which is only a few kilometers from the controversial Migingo Island it seized five years ago.

Kenya residents were told by the Ugandan armed forces to keep off the Island. Speed boats were seen ferrying building materials from Bugiri district in Easter Uganda to the island, where Ugandan traders were seen constructing makeshift corrugated iron {Mabati houses}.

And those Kenyans resident fishermen who were previously operating on the island were expelled and warned to keep away. Ugandan police official told the Kenya that they had come to the island in order to keep the pirates who in the past have been raiding the island and robbed the Kenyans at will at bay.

At least 30 makeshift houses were put up at the weekend by Ugandan traders under close supervision of the Ugandan armed security personnel.

Ends

Kenya: Bogus policeman is in custody in Migori on suspicion of series of robberies in the region

Leave a reply

By Our Reporter.

The police in Migori have nabbed an ex-police officer who deserted the force and carried with him his appointment letter, uniforms and other government stores.

The man according to sources in Awendo, Uriri and Migori district the man has been impersonating police and at time even using a serving police corporal stationed at Awendo Police Station in collaboration work of arresting the suspect criminals

The Corporal, according to our source, has since been moved to Migori. The matter recently came to the surface when the impostor and the corporal crossed the border into Tanzania in pursuit of a stolen motor bike boda boda machine..

The two are said to have recovered the motor bike and brought it back without any suspected thieves being taken to court either in Tanzania or back home in Kenya and this is what aroused suspicion about their activities.

When the news of the recovery of the mtor bike reached the village, and some names given as those working in cahoots with thieves, it sparked off violence in a village in Katieno Two sub-location where the mob met at several houses of one of the people whose names were allegedly mentioned in connection with the theft.

The suspect is known as “Soldier” in his home village of Nyambeche near Oria market, which is located close to Kuja river bridge which links Uriri and Ndhiwa constituencies.

The suspect according to source was employed in the police force in 2004 and had served with the General Service Unit {GSU}. He deserted the force some year back and has been imposing himself either as a uniformed senior police office or a CID in the region.

The Uriri D>C George Kiplagat confirmed the arrest, but referred this writer to the Migori DCIO whom he said was handling the matter. The man is likely to be taken to court later this week with several criminal charges preferred.

There has been a series of armed robberies around Awendo, Rapogi, Migori and other places. These heists have resulted in the loss of lives of innocent traders or other people and the authorities are suspecting that the “Soldier” could be one of the suspected culprits.

The breakthrough has come after frantic joint efforts involving Chiefs, Assistant Chiefs, Administration Police .regular policemen and sleuths from the Criminal Investigation Department. It is suspected that the man has been responsible for serious crimes in far field as Narok and Trans-Mara districts, Kericho and some parts of Kisii region.

The D.C. said one way of eliminating criminal elements in the area is for the members of the public to cooperate with the police and administration authorities in facilitating them with information in connection with the people of suspect characters.

Ends

Kenya: Kibaji and Raila endorses lawyer Willy Mutunga to be the new Chief Justice of Kenya

1 Reply

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

It is only Parliament and the courts that now stand between law scholar and icon of human rights activism Willy Mutunga and office of Chief Justice.
The two principals in the ruling coalition government of PNU and ODM have endorsed the appointment in defiance of vehement opposition from various quarters such Christian Council of Kenya{CCK} even some cabinet ministers who included the suspend Higher Education Miister William Ruto

This is because President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whose falling out over initial nominations to four key constitutional offices including that of CJ, forced fresh hiring process, yesterday gave him their stamp of approval.
Two other nominees are bound to benefit from the softening of the ground and possible lowering of political temperatures ahead of Parliament’s debate on the pending appointments by the two leaders.

They are Nancy Barasa, the nominee for Deputy Chief Justice, and Keriako Tobiko, who has been recommended for revamped office of Director of Public Prosecutions. The President and the PM made the announcement against the backdrop of revelation in Government they have also agreed on a ministerial reshuffle and reorganisation of key State departments, and that the new changes would be unveiled in the next few days.

It is expected in the reorganisation of Government, the two principals will make known who they have agreed to succeed Attorney General Amos Wako who leaves office in three months.

Political Goodwill

Judicial Service Commission recommended Dr Mutunga and Ms Barasa after the televised interviews last week. Appellate Judge Alnashir Visram – whom President Kibaki had earlier proposed as CJ – was also interviewed. Visram was, however, among the nine serving judges who lost out in the race to Mutunga, the only one interviewed from outside the Bench.

Mr Tobiko was among three nominees for DPP, whose names were forwarded to Kibaki and Raila by a panel chaired by Cotu Secretary General Francis Atwoli. The other two were former Goldenberg Judicial Commission of Inquiry’s assisting counsel Dorcas Oduor, and lawyer Patrick Kiage.

By endorsing the three nominees, and exhibiting consensus after two rounds of meetings, the President and the PM gave the nomination that has been vilified by some politicians the requisite political goodwill needed to push it through Parliament. MPs, however, do not have to vote along the line given by the coalition leaders. This means the three are not yet assured of their positions — the first under the Constitution promulgated last August.

However, apart from Parliament there is still the ruling awaited from According to a dispatch from the Presidential Press Service, Kibaki and Raila had agreed to approve the names after they consulted yesterday. “On recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission and after consultations with Prime Minister, President Kibaki has today nominated for approval by the National Assembly Dr Willy Mutunga for the post of Chief Justice and Nancy Barasa for post of Deputy Chief Justice,” PPS reported.

It went on: “In addition and following the recommendation of the interviewing panel President Kibaki after consultations with the Prime Minister has nominated for approval by National Assembly Keriako Tobiko for the post of Director of Public Prosecutions.” Should the House approve the names, they would enter history books as the first occupants of the positions following the promulgation of new Constitution.

Mutunga will also become the head of the Judiciary and will chair the Judicial Service Commission as well as serve as the President of the yet-to-be established Supreme Court. Sources told The Standard the two principals met Tuesday morning at the President’s Harambee House offices and quickly agreed on the names. They first met on Monday.

Ambush Applicants

The source said the principals only spent more time on the appointment of Tobiko since the panel that interviewed them had forwarded three names and therefore there was need for consensus.

The principals were also supplied with the scorecard for the three, which had Tobiko leading followed by Oduor and then Kiage.

“There was no much ado between the two principals and they agreed on Mutunga and Barasa since there were no other names. For Tobiko they picked him because he led in the interviews among other factors,” sources privy to the deliberations told The Standard.

Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Mutula Kilonzo commended JSC for nominating Mutunga and Barasa, and the principals for endorsing the nominees.

“I am very happy and proud of my country Kenya because in a period of eight months since the Constitution was promulgated we have now produced a Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice in an open and transparent manner,” he added.

However, Mutula hit out at the Atwoli panel that came up with three names for DPP: “Whereas the process to pick a new Chief Justice and Deputy CJ was transparent and in the public domain, the other one was shrouded in secrecy and there was no public participation as required by the Constitution.” Mutula said he has a lot of respect for those nominated for the DPP position but was opposed to the process that picked them, as the public cannot judge who was best suited for the position. Mutula described the process by Atwoli team as “unacceptable, substandard and archaic” in light of the new constitutional dispensation.

On CJ nomination Mutula said whereas the process could not be described as perfect, there were challenges that the commission faced and there was need for JSC to set certain standards. He argued it was unfair to ambush applicants with allegations while no opportunity was given to them to confront those claims

Ends

EAC has ok-ed the construction of a new natural gas pipeline from Dar to Mombasa

Leave a reply

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

INFORMATION emerging from the EAC secretariat in Arusha says the EAC has agreed on the construction of the Dar Es Salaam-Tanga-Mombasa natural gas pipeline.

The pipeline will potentially reduce the cost of energy in the region as more opportunities for natural gas open up.

The Community’s Arusha based secretariat approved a feasibility study conducted by COWI consultancy firm from Denmark. The pipeline is expected to carry natural gas from the Songo Songo Island from the Mnazi Bay gas fields in Southern Tanzania near the border with the neighboring Mozambique.

Recent discoveries of natural gas off the coast of Tanzania have taken the East African nation’s total reserves 7.5 trillion cubic feet, sufficient to allow exports to the region.

African Development Bank under the New Partnership for African Development- Infrastructure Project Preparatory Facility is facilitating the construction of the pipeline with a grant of USD561,700 for the project.

Based on demand for gas the pipeline has been estimated to be a 24 –inch line from Ubungoin Dar Es Salaam to the Kenyan coastal port City of Mombasa.

There will be a metering/regulating station at Tanga and Arusha branch and another at the end of the line at Mombasa.

The pipeline is expected to significantly contribute to diversification of energy sources within the region thereby enhancing security of energy supply.

“Diversification will mitigate the challenges arising from reliance on a limited type of energy sources in the region”, the Permanent Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Energy, Patrick Nyoike said, adding that the pipeline will also contribute to the reduction of energy costs and shield power generation from variability of weather and international crude oil prices. The PS said the pipeline project will also support cement manufacturing in Tanga as well as supply power for tourism and industrial activities.

Demand for power is surging in Tanzania and the country is expected to save millions of dollars over the next 20 years using natural gas instead of oil imports.

Ends

Nile Basin: Egypt and Sudan finally lost the control of River Nile waters as upstream riparian nations ganged up in a new arrangements

Leave a reply

Writes Leo Odera Omolo

INFORMATION emerging from the Ugandan capital, Kampala says control of the Nile waters by Egypt and Sudan came to an abrupt end last week, paving the way for development of irrigation related projects upstream of the river.

In a ceremony held in Kampala, the six riparian countries ratified the Cooperation Framework Agreement {CFA} that repeals the close to one century old treaty, which Egypt signed with the colonial power Great Britain in 1929.

The Treaty was signed between Great Britain colonial rulers and Egypt and was later reviewed in 1959 before most of the riparian countries got their political independent in early 1960s.

The World Bank Trust, which manages the Nile Basin resources, had been blocking development projects along the river because the Nile Basin Initiative {BBI} lacked legal basis, which the CFA now provides.

“As long as we do not have the CFA, Egypt and the Sudan will continue to block development activities because NBI has no legal recognition in other countries”, said Dr. Callist Tindimugaya, Uganda’s Nile Basin Initiative representative and also Commissioner of Water Resources Regulation at the Ministry of Water and Environment.

The colonial treat barred other countries from using the water for development purposes that could impact negatively on water flowing to Egypt.

The Egyptian government had posted a team of military water engineers, who are permanently stationed at the eastern Ugandan town of Jinja, where the source of River Nile is located at the northern tip of Lake Victoria to monitor the flow of the water to Egypt. It has posted similar team of water experts of its embassies located in Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam and Kampala as well as in other riparian countries.

In 1959, however, Egypt and Sudan renegotiated the treaty a fresh and came up with the Full Utilization of Nile Water Agreement, which allowed the construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt for mutual benefit of both countries.

“Without the consent of Egypt no irrigation or hydroelectric works can be established on the tributaries of the Nile or their lakes if such works can cause a drop in water levels harmful to Egypt,” read the section in the 1959 treaty.

The riparian countries include the DRC Congo, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda.

The breakaway group of riparian countries includes Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania-undertook technical audits that culminated in the establishment of CFA last year.

In February this year, Burundi became the sixth nation to sign up to the agreement to alter the historical water-sharing the River Nile, thus raising sufficient numbers to move the process towards ratification.

Egypt, Sudan and DRC Congo did not sign while Eritrea maintains observer status. The organization’s name changed from Nile Basin Initiative to Nile Basin Commission with its administrative secretariat in Uganda.

The CFA provides sharing of benefits and costs of maintaining the river.

Regional Interconnection Project a USD 385 million power project expected to be completed in 2014 – is one of the development programs that are expected to generate cross border electricity for the benefits of all tributaries countries.

Ends

Kenya: Prison authorities urged to issued ex-convicts with certificates of good conduct once they are released at the completion of their convictions

Leave a reply

Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Homa-Bay Town.

Prison authorities have been requested to issue the ex-convicts,especially those whose characters have gone through total reformation with certificate of good conduct to enable them secure jobs and get rehabilitated fully back to the society.

The Prison authorities has also been asked to issue the ex-convicts who have trained in the prison industry and qualified as apprentices and artisans with certificate of proficiency.

This will help the ex-convicts in access to job markets once they are freed.

These appeals were made by a Homa-Bay politician Hilary Ocheng Alila when he addressed and hundreds of inmate and prison officials during the open-day prison visits at the weekend.

Alila who is the ODM youth regional coordinator in Nyanza and also an aspirant for the Hoa-Bay County Senate seat was accompanied by religious leaders pastors and civic leaders.

He said people should not view prison in the context of as place where punishment is mated out to the inmates, but an important institution where bad elements within the society can have have their characters changed and fully rehabilitated for the better.

Alila told the Wananchi in the rural areas to accept the former inmates once they are released and accord them all sorts of generosities so that they could be fully rehabilitated and actively participate in the real task of nation building.

Alila appeals to residents of Homa-Bay County and those lving in other parts of Luo-Nyanza town out in their number and register as voters when the execise is open. His way, he added, they will be able to vote for the party supremo Raila Amnolo Odinga to realize his presidential ambition during the impending general elections next year.

He reminded the residents of Nyanza to turn out in their thousands and elect new party officials during the ODM grass toot election exercise slated for May 27.

He issued a stern warning to unnamed characters said to be collaborating with the party enemies from other region who are allegedly sending agents into Luo-Nyanza with their pocket lined up for the purpose of sabotaging the party. The party would soon go public and name the political turn coats said to be in the pockets of leaders of other parties to sabotage the operation of the ODM in Nyanza.

Ends

Kenya: Many aspirants of various positions in Nyanza Counties have run short of money and gone underground not to be heard of anymore

2 Replies

THE POLITICIANS WHO HAD LAUNCHED HIGH PROFILE CAMPAIGN FOR THE VARIOUS ELECTIVE SEATS INSIDE LUO-NYANZA UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION HAVE BURNT THEIR FINGERS AND DISAPPEARED.

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

When President Mwai Kibaki promulgated the new constitution on 4th August 2010 many politicians in Luo-Nyanza immediately rushed into premature campaign for most of the elective positions.

Many declared their intention to contest this or that seat under the new County governance. The seats which attracted many were those of County representatives to the Senate, County governors and deputy governors.

The politicians show an opening of many big jobs under the constitutional dispensation and rushed into premature campaign. Other visited the rural areas flying in hired helicopters, other came using fuel guzzling four wheel drive cars hired from car hire companies in Nairobi and Kisumu.

The high profile campaign hit the ground in Luoland with thuds. These aspirants were everywhere, attending funeral gathering, offering niceties to the youths and women folks. Other had gone as far as forming local football clubs, buying trophies and uniforms for teams to popularize their campaigns. Other bribed musicians with fat cash money, or hired live performing orchestra jazz bands and the popular Ohangla musician to compose sweets songs in their praise hoping to attract large following in rural areas.

In fact the Luo-Nyanza had been turned into the election mood. Aspirants showed off their financial might, dishing out money to the youths and women folk in the form of handout. It as if the election would be held before the end of this year.

Some of the would – be aspirants for the various seats even hired helicopters, which flown them into the villages in some remote parts of the region.

But all these premature campaign have since turned into hot-air. Most of the would be aspirant, we are told have burnt their fingers to an extent that they no longer having any money left in their pockets even for visit their own rural homes to attend funerals of the dead relatives and friends.

Majority of them are said to have gone as far as changing their phones numbers to avoid their supporters and followers back at home, and are said to have taken refuge in the city of Nairobi not to be heard of seen back in their rural homes.

Another crucial subject, which has sent many would – be aspirant packing is the recently announcement by the CIC that those seeking to be elected to the lucrative and covenant position of County governors must be armed with university degrees from recognised universities as prerequisite for one to be elected as a County governor.

This seems to have knocked out some of the aspirants, the majority who are said to be only armed with fake degrees.

The former Nyanza Province has four counties under the new constitution, namely Siaya, Kisumu, Homa-Bay and Migori. But only in Homa-Bay County, where many politicians had launched high profile campaigns, though prematurely. They scrambled for the positions of governors, senators, deputy governors with another relatively higher number of them seeking to unseat the current Luo MPs.

At the same time, some of those sitting were rumored to be switching to Senate instead of defending their seats at the next polls. But so far none has come forward and declared that he would contest the Senate seat.

The Immigration Minister Gerald Otieno Kajwang’ was among those rumoured to have decided to contest the Senate seat instead of defending his Mnbita parliamentary seat, but Kajwang’ strongly refuted the allegation and came out gun blasting the rumour – – insisting that he would defend his Mbita seat.

Another legislator who had declared that he would switch from Parliament to the position of governor is Ranbgwe MP Geoge Otieno Ogindo,But the information on the ground seem to favor his arch-rival Enbg. Phillip Okoth Okundiwhom he had trounced in 2007.

Among those aspirants seeking new positions, who seemed to be still going strong, is Okundi who is contesting the Homa-Bay governor’s position. Okundi is facing the former Marie Stoppied Country Director, Cyprianb Otieno Awiti, who had launched his campaign on high noire last year, but who has since slowed down, and never to be heard of again. The other credible aspirant is dr. Mark Matunga, who is also contesting the same governor’s seat. It is only Matunga and Okundi who are still reported to be active.

In the neighboring Migori County, the potential candidates for the Senate and Governors seats seemed to have withdrawn from the race, or like elsewher3e have burned their finger and found the going rather tough. With new and popular culture of “Gonywa” {loosely meaning paytus} some of the would – be aspirants for these seats have found the going so hard due to high demand for money.
One man, however, is said to be still in the race. He is the past two time MP for the old larger Homa-Bay constituency Phares Oluoch Kanindo who although is said not to be so liquid, has been seen attending nearly all funeral gathering as far field as Karungu and kadem in Nyatike in search of votes and support.

Miori County Senate seat represent Nyatike, Rongo, Uriri, Migori, Kuria as well as the newly created Awendo seat. Another aspirant for the same seat is Cjhacha Ogwe a former Nairobi PEO.

Also rumored to be interested in the Migori Senate seat is the Minister for Public Service Dalmas Otieno, who is the current Rongo MOP. But Otieno has yet to declare his stand.

With sub-division of Rongo and the creation of Awendo parliamentary seat, Otieno appear to be safe in his old Rongo because his arch-rival also a former cabinet Minister George ochilo-Ayacko would now be contesting the Awendo seat easing out to put pressure on Otieno.

But still the Minister will have to square it with Joseph Ong’ondo Ng’ani, and other youthful aspirants while Ayackois to face it off with the populist youthful secondary school head teacher Jared Kopiyo the Principal of Gamba secondary School in Sakwa West.

Kisumu County, two aspirants of the Senate seat are said to be still going strong. They are Eng. Maxwell Otieno Odongo and the Naiobi based architect Ocholla Ogoda. The Minister for medical Services Prof. Anyang’Nyong’o is also said to be interested in contesting the Senate seat instead of defending his Kisumu Rureal seat, whch is also likely to be realigned to pave the way for the creation of Kisuu Town Wqest and Kisumu Town Central.

The position of Kisumu County Govrnor is said to have attracted the former Nyakach MP Peter Odoyo’m the former KRA senior official Jack Ranguma,a Kisumu businessman Walter Kitoto Adell. However, there could be more aspirants for this particular position, but the culture of “Gonywa” seemed to have scared away candidates from making premature announcement.

It is unusually quite on he Siaya side, with only former Gemn MP Joe Odonde being mentioned as interested in the position of Siaya County Governor. But George Weya, the immediate Mp for Alego-Usonga, had already confirmed to thi writer that he would contest the post of Siaya County Governor.

Other prominent names being mentioned in connection with the position of Siaya County governor is that of the Mombasa Town Clerk Tubman Otieno.

The Homa-Bay County Senate seat appeared to have attracted the least numbers of would be contestant. Hilary Ochieng Alila who had launched his campaign for the Senate seat in earnest is said to have slowed down. The former kasiula-Kabodo MP Oloo Otula who had also announced his intention of contesting the same position has gone underground not to be heard off again

What is, however, certain is that the ODM grass root election which are slated or May 27 would produce a shocking result to many established politicians. In Migori, the sitting MP are said to have already declared their lineup with the position of the party chairmanship being floated for a Mr Magaiywa from Kuria, a proposal which has met with the vehement opposition from a number of parliamentary aspirants in Uriri, Migori, Nyatike,Rongo and even Awendo..

MPs have no business telling us who to elect in what position. They should wait for the electorate to decide, retorted Martin Owiny a potential parliamentary candidate for Uriri. Owiny said the locals want to be left alone to elect men and women of their own choice, and should not be told as to who is to be given what position. Such kind of politics are long gone with the bonfire of the old constitution, said Owiny.

The MPs, he said must steer clear fro telling the party members as to who they should elect who is not. That kind of politics amounts to dictatorial tendency and must be discarded in modern Kenya.

The rumor making the round in some quarters is that those who had declared their candidature prematurely have run out of money. Owing to shortage of cash money most of them have switched off their phones

Ends

UGANDA: SOME OF THE BIG NAMES EXPECTED TO MAKE IT TO THE NEW UGANDAN CABINET TO BE FORMED BY PRESIDENT MUSEVENI WITHINA WEEK OR SO.

Leave a reply

forwarded By Leo Odera Omolo

PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni is expected to announce a new Cabinet that will serve with him in the next five-year-term. Some politicians are already lobbying for consideration.

The Saturday Vision has published some of the news faces that could make it to the Cabinet

Mary Karooro Okurut
Okurut, the Bushenyi District Woman MP is the NRM spokesperson. She has NRM at heart and her loyalty to the party cannot be doubted.

In the previous parliamentary elections, most of the ministers lost and she is currently one of the surviving senior politicians from the district. President Yoweri Museveni may appoint a few MPs from Bushenyi to replace those who lost and she is likely to be top on the list.

Tim Lwanga
The MP-elect for Kyamuswa County, Kalangala District, is also likely to bounce back on the list of the ministers.

Lwanga, a Born-again Christian, is a former Minister of Ethics and Integrity. He had been dropped from the list of ministers after losing in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Lwanga was replaced by James Nsaba Buturo, who was also defeated in the recent elections.

Amelia Kyambadde
The MP-elect for Mawokota County North in Mpigi District is also likely to be among the ministers in the new government. She is among the NRM caders President Museveni treasures because of being dependable and trustworthy.

For over 30 years, Amelia has been working closely with Museveni. The President commended her for the work and promised support in her future political plans. Shortly after, Amelia was elected treasurer of the NRM party.

John Chrysostom Muyingo
The MP-elect for Bamunanika County in Luweero District may also be one of the new ministers, even though he is an independent MP.

Museveni may wish to tap into his wide knowledge in education matters. Muyingo, the proprietor of Seeta High Schools in Mukono is also a former education minister in the Buganda government.

Mike Mukula
Mukula has proved to be a politician of all seasons. Although he lost his parliamentary seat in 2006 and later was dropped from the Cabinet, he never disappeared from the political scene.

He continued campaigning for the NRM in Teso and across the country. Suddenly, NRM won back the Teso region, which the party had lost in 2006. Because of his effort, President Museveni may compensate Mukula and Teso for their support.

Betty Bigombe
For the first time in the history of NRM, northern Uganda voted in favour of NRM in February.

The President was amazed and has been commenting about the twist. He says the main reason the north voted for NRM was because of the peace which the Government has ushered in the region. Bigombe initiated the peace talks between the Government and Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. As a result, the people of northern Uganda treasure her for the efforts. To recognise her efforts, many believe she may be rewarded with a Cabinet portfolio.

Museveni is likely to appoint her as a minister in recognition for her efforts and the support NRM got from the north.

Richard Todwong
Todwong is one of the youthful NRM carders. In the recent general elections, he played a key role in luring the youthful voters towards the NRM party.

Since the elections ended, Museveni has been praising the youth for the role they played. The former adviser of the President on northern Uganda, may thus ride on their success to earn a position in Cabinet.

Dr. Sam Okuonzi
Okuonzi is one of the top health policy experts in Uganda. He has popular support in Arua District, an area where he mobilised support for the ruling party.

He defeated minister Simon Ejua to take the Vura County MP seat. NRM needs such a strong politician to consolidate the party’s support in the region.

Edward Ssekandi
The Speaker of Parliament is also likely to be part of the new Cabinet. Ssekandi is expected to seek re-election as Speaker, but in case he loses, the President may include him on the Cabinet.

Some people say Ssekandi is not seriously campaigning to retain his office because he is sure he would be appointed minister if he is not reelected.

Theodore Ssekikubo
The youthful and firebrand Lwemiyaga County MP may this time be appointed a minister. Although Ssekikubo sometimes openly criticises NRM policies, the President may appoint him so that he advises him where others may not.

Vincent Bagiire
Vincent Bagiire, 36, the MP-elect for Bunya County West in Mayuge District is another candidate for a ministerial post.

Bagiire who defeated his namesake, Aggrey Bagiire, the state minister for agriculture is an ICT expert.

He participated in the formulation of the ICT for development policy. Since the two ministers of ICT, Aggrey Awori and Alintuma Nsambu lost in the parliamentary elections, Bagiire may be perceived as the next suitable candidate for one of the positions.

Who is likely to remain?

Kirunda Kivejinja
President Museveni most times drops politicians who lose in parliamentary elections from his cabinet, but Kirunda Kivejinja, 77, stands high chances of appearing on the next cabinet list, despite losing in the parliamentary elections.

The Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs has worked closely with Museveni for long. And his political experience dates back to the 1950s.

He played a key role in the pre-independent struggles and served in the post-independent UPC government. After the NRA captured power in 1986, he was appointed Minister of Relief and Social Rehabilitation. A man with a wide scope of political experience and close ties with Museveni, he is certain to serve in the next cabinet.

Amama Mbabazi
Amama Mbabazi, 62, is the Kinkiizi West County MP in Kanungu district and the security minister. During last year’s NRM party’s elections, Museveni described him as a reliable and sober cadre. Since the NRM government came into power in 1986, Mbabazi has been occupying sensitive positions, especially in the security circles. He was cited in the NSSF and CHOGM scandals, but in both cases Parliament cleared him.

Namirembe Bitamazire
The education minister was floored in the parliamentary elections, but could bounce back to the Cabinet. Namirembe Bitamazire, 70, has a clean record as a Minister of Education. She was an education minister in the late 1970s during Idi Amin’s regime. She joined Museveni’s Cabinet in 1999 and has never been dropped.

John Nasasira
John Nasasira, 59, is one of the longest serving Cabinet ministers in the Government. The MP for Kazo County in Kiruhura District has represented his constituency since 1989. He is one of Museveni’s most trusted cadres who, for at least three presidential terms, has been the works minister. He always stays away from controversy.

Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafire
During the NRM delegates’ conference, Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafire, 61, contested for the post of Secretary General. The campaigns portrayed him as an overzealous politician ready to succeed some of the more senior people in the party. That he lost the race was not a surprise. The surprise was that the Ruhinda County MP emerged second, ahead of Vice-President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya. Despite running a heated campaign, Otafire conceded defeat and remained loyal to the party.

Eriya Kategaya
Eriya Kategaya and President Museveni are inseparable friends, which gives him certainty of remaining on the Cabinet. The 66-year-old 1st Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Cooperation is a longtime friend of President Museveni. The two studied in Ntare School and have worked closely in government. A few years ago, a crack had developed in Kategaya and Museveni’s relationship, but they found a common ground and sorted out their differences. Kategeya came back on board and was appointed in his current position.

Prof. Gilbert Bukenya
Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, the Vice-President, lost the bid for the office of the party’s Secretary General, but he still remains a mahogany tree. The Busiro County MP has been playing a key role as a mobiliser in the party. His upland rice project marketed NRM across the country. Bukenya has also served as a strong link between the NRM party, the Catholic Church and Buganda Kingdom. The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee implicated Bukenya in the CHOGM funds scandal, but later Parliament cleared him.

Sam Kutesa
Sam Kutesa, the foreign affairs minister may also not miss out on the next cabinet. Kutesa is one of the influential ministers in the NRM government. The MP for Mawogola County in Ssembabule district has been in active politics since the 1980’s. Between 1980 and 1985, Kutesa was the MP for Mbarara North. Before he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kutesa had served as the Minister of State for Investment.

NRM and President Museveni enjoy a lot of support in Ssembabule. The strong NRM support in Ssembabule is partly attributed to people like Kutesa.

KENYA: OVER 10 SUSPECTS ESCAPE FROM POLICE CELLS IN BONDO AND SIAYA

Leave a reply

From: Dickens Wasonga

Police in Siaya county woke up to a rude shock when over 10 remand prisoners made a dramatic escape from Bondo and Ukwala police stations in the wee hours of Friday morning.

According to Bondo district police boss Patrick Mangoli, at least five suspects who were remanded at the police station and were due to appear before the local law courts to answer various charges that morning scaled a perimeter wall after braking the doors to the holding area in an incident that threw the police into confusion.

The OCPD said the five suspects reportedly broke lose after they allegedly cut the padlock used in locking the cells by a hark-saw before they made the daring escape at 4.00 am.

It is not clear how many police officers were at the sentry or at the report desk at the time of the incident.

It is also a puzzle just how the tool they used to brake the doors leading to the cells found its way into the holding area which is usually under guard throughout by the police.

Amongst those who escaped includes four hardcore criminals who were being held by the authorities to answer robbery with violence charges.The fifth was a suspected burglar.

We were not able to confirm how many suspects were being remanded at the cells by the time the incident took place. The police said they have launched a man hunt for the escapees but none had been rearrested by the time we went to press.

In Ukwala there was conflicting reports about the actual number of the suspects who fled from the police cells.

Independent sources claimed all remand prisoners who were being held at the station had escaped but according to the Ugenya DC Carolyne Onchoka, 11 suspected criminals went missing.

The DC however asked for more time to get the fine details of the police station escape incident that sent the local provincial security team into panic.

The daring escape at Ukwala police station reportedly took place in the morning at around 6.00 am and it is not clear how 11 suspects could successfully flee with the high number of police officers normally at work at any police station.

Efforts to have the Nyanza PPO Njue Njagi to comment on the matter was futile. His cell phone went on ringing unanswered. He was said to have rushed to Ukwala as unconfirmed reports indicated his deputy Larry Kieng was dispatched to Bondo where a similar escape was reported.

Kenya: Ruto-Kenyatta axis infiltration in Luo-Nyanza is steadily on the increase as their agents are said to have dishing out million of shillings in hand out cash for potential catches

1 Reply

By Our Reporter.

The Luo-Nyanza an area considered to be the stronghold of the Orange Democratic Movement {ODM} is currently experiencing massive covert operations by agents and operatives of the G7 outfits.

Million of shillings is said to have been poured in the region to the express purpose of undercutting the political clout and influence of the Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the Luo political kingpin ahead of the 2012 general election next year.

These intrigues of the rapidly changing pattern of politics in Luo-Nyanza is likly to have adverse effect on the popularity of the ODM and its absolute control of voting system in the region.

In the seemingly unlikely events, the area could see many independent candidates spinning up during the forthcoming general election.And even the sitting MPs seeking re-election as independent candidate cannot be ruled out.

Several aspirants vying for parliamentary seats in various constituencies and for Senate seats and County governors are said to be the conduits. They are said to have already established contacts with Raila’s political enemies in the Rift Valley and in the Mt Kenya region, particularly the PNU alliance under the amorphous G7.

Already One unnamed aspirant for the Kisumu County Senate seat is reported to be so liquid and dishing thousands of shillings to the youth and other targeted ODM local leaders. The man is said to have held a series of nightly meeting in various parts of the region with youths and political operatives previously associated with the ODM in attendance.

The G7 is loosely associated with the Eldoret North and suspended High Education Minister William Ruto and the Finance Minister Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta. Other active members included the former South Mugirango MP Omingo Magara, the Minister for Tourism Najib Balala,Saboti MP Eugene Wamalwa,the Vice President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka and other luminaries from the North Eastern Province and other regions.

Going by what happened during the much touted prayers at the Uhuru Park, which was held on the day the Ocampo Six jetted home from The Hague in the Netherlands, the G7 has already got a foothold in Nyanza and recruited in its rank and file two prominent Luo politicians. One of them is the former Foreign Affairs Minister Raphael Tuju, the immediate Rarieda MP who a couple of weeks ago hosted Uhuru Kenyatta at a meeting with Nairobi based Luo professional caucus and businessmen caucus in a Nairobi hotel.

The other notable associate of the G7 group is a prominent Nairobi lawyer Onyango Oloo who has recently launched his own political party called The Democracy and Freedom Party {DFP}, which is also said to be making major inroad inside Luo Nyanza

Ruto’s point-man in Luo-Nyanza is Joseph Ay.

Onyango Oloo whose party is said to have succeeded in a limited scale in mobilizing former Kisumu youth associated with the deadly Kondele Bagdad Boys has of late become a thorny in the flesh of the ODM.

Ayugi {Mbuta} the youthful political operative who had accompanied the Eldoret North MP to The Hague in Netherlands, where he was held briefly by the Dutch policemen for carrying placards outside the ICC court. Mbuta and lawyer Onyango Oloo had briefly addressed the congregations at the Uhuru Park prayers as the representatives of Nyanza region.

Tuju’s stand, however, remained unclear because he is still serving the government at a senior position of Presidential Adviser on media and Cohesion. But the former Minister Tuju is credible and could give the ODM a run for its money if he wished to join the Ruto-Kenyatta alliance.

Reports reaching us, says Ruto had secured a large following inside Luo-Nyanza while serving as the Minister for Agriculture, especially with those whose activities are related to sugar milling and sugar-cane growing areas. He said to have secured lucrative contracts and jobs for a number of Luo personalities in the sugar industry. The exercise is said to have given the ODM rebel MP political mileage in some parts of greater Southern Nyanza and Kisumu regions.

Men who are alleged to be acting as protégé of Ruto are said to be high liquid and are said t be dishing out cash wherever they go in the form of handouts to the youths and ODM selected individual party leaders and members.

Also targeted are popular Ohangla musicians across the region. We have received unconfirmed these musicians are being hired to compose popular songs in praise of Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta G7 alliance ahead of their impending tour of Nyanza.

Other unconfirmed sources say that disgusted Luo MPs who do not agree with the ODM leadership are reportedly secretly consulting with the G7 leaders. Some of them are said to be drifting towards the Ruto-Kenyatta alliance, but for fears of possible reprisals from the party stalwarts.

Insiders say it is only a matter of time before these political man oeuvres exploded in open fuelling confrontation in Nyanza an area which is usually politically volatile and at times prone to political violence.

Other allegation making the round is that a number of political luminaries in Luo-Nyanza are presently sneaking out and trooping to Eldoret for secret meetings with or Ruto or his agents.

There is also the case of Luo MP who were perceived to have been black-listed be unwanted by ODM leadership prior to the 2007 general election, but who eventually soldiered on and won their seats owing to the good will of the electorate are also reported to be uncomfortable with the party sparking off the rumors of the impending massive political realignment, which could see some of the sitting MPs fro the region changing sides ahead of the next year’s general election.

However, the ODM thank-tank group members are said to be very concern at the attitudes of some aspirants allegedly receiving the campaign money from other competitive parties.

The electorate wants the aspirants acting as the moles of other parties within the ODM to come out clear and declare their sources of money. The electorate wants such political turn-coats be banned from contesting the elections while using the ODM name, slogan and manifestos.

Rising opposition to the ODM in Nyanza came as come about as the result of the alleged distribution of top government prime jobs since the formation of grand coalition of PNU/ODM government, which has seen the Prime Minister Raila Odinga influenced the employment of kith and kin in total disregard to the larger areas of the Luo-Nyanza.

Ends

KENYA: ATWOLI SET TO TRIUMPH ONCE AGAIN

Leave a reply

By JEFF OTIENO

Flamboyant Central organization of Trade Unions (COTU) Secretary General Francis Atwoli is headed for historic victory once again in the forth coming elections slated for 21st May 2011.

The combative and non nonsense secretary General will be going for his third term after he took the mantle for the first time in 2001. During last polls in 2006 the pragmatic Atwoli known for his valour and mobilization antics triumphed in his second term unopposed in what many of his admirers attributed to his sterling and unrivalled track record compared to some of his predecessors.

Speaking to the press on telephone Atwoli said his is politics without rhetoric and chest thumping but to strive to salvage the down trodden Kenyan worker who is shackled in bondage of poverty and York of oppression from the brutal establishment.

His die hard and admirer who is also a trade unionist Ismael Noo also showered Atwoli with accolades saying that the revival of Tom Mboya Labour which was almost becoming moribund as a case in point.

The team has currently embarked on building a multimillion (450m) resource centre and is nearing completion.

According to Ismael Noo who is the chairman of the board and an affiliate of communication workers union the new outfit has got a conference facility capable of accommodating 1,000 people and over 100 rooms including 6 presidential suites.

Over 150 delegates drawn from bodies affiliated to COTU are expected to attend and participate in the polls to be held in Tom Mboya Labour College.

Over 58 international dignitaries have been invited to attend the function. Among them President and General Secretary of all Chinese Federation of workers, Chief guest Director General I.L.O, presidents of workers from U.S.A, Germany, Nigeria and Local dignitaries.

“All the arrangements for the occasion have been finalized”, said Atwoli.

Although his admirers argue he’s a humble, caring and generous man nowander he’s at the helm, but some of his critics say he’s living a luxurious life spinning state of the art vehicles yet Kenyan workers are suffering.

In defense Atwoli said,” How can you negotiate on behalf of the oppressed yet as an advocate you’re also hungry and marooned in tatters.” He continued, “No regime can listen to a desperate frail looking man world over,” he concluded during an interview.

Some of his rivals both in the government and private sector have tried in futility to back journalist Erick Orina for the seat to topple him but their move flopped when the scribe who is a green horn in Union politics ran out of steam and has embarked on blame games against his backers that they dint do enough to propel him to glory.

Atwoli will leave a legacy for having also agitated relentlessly for Kenyans during the quest for a new constitution. “ Even during implementation of the constitution Atwoli should be included based on his records,” Noo said.

END

Kenya: MPS engaged the government on a heated debate over elephants poaching and illicit ivory smuggling trade

Leave a reply

Writes Leo Odera Omolo.

For the first time, members of Kenyan Parliament on Tuesday night this week took the government to task in a tension parked and heated debate to explain why it has allowed the exportation of 247 tusks worth Kshs 380 million.

The elephant tusks in question were reported to have been shipped to Thailand in suspicious manner, but were later nabbed and impounded by the Thai customs officials in Bangkok.

The MPs were also shocked to learn that the company which is said to have exported the ivory tusks fro the Kilindini Port in the Kenyan coastal City of Mombasa does not exist.

The Forestry and Wildlife Minister Dr. Noah Wekesa who had partly answered a parliamentary question last week skipped the heated exchange and stayed away from the House, leaving the crucial matters to be handled by a junior Minister Hon Joseph Nanok.

The House was stunned by the Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo who kicked off the debate by tabling a letter from the Kenya Revenue Authority {KRA} indicating that the company that had exported the 247 tusks two months ago P.I.Prozen and Partners Limited is a ghost that does not exist.

The legislators were further shocked to learn that KRA had issued a Personal Identification Number { Pin number} to the ghost company to transact business in Kenya even when its directors were unknown.

“How can KRA issue a Pin number to a company it doesn’t even know?, Thundered Kilonzo amid the prolonged foot thumping by the stunned MPs.

He added, “this is bound to encourage illegal activities in this country,”

The disclosure seemed to have angered the House Speaker Kenneth Marende who promptly directed the Internal Security Minister Prof. George Saitoti who was in the House to liaise with the taxman and deal with the “undesirable practice that has been embraced by the KRA.”

An Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife Joseph Nanok had earlier informed the Speaker that he had written to the KRA on Monday this week seeking to determine who the owner of the ghost export company was and that he had not so far received any response.

Kilonzo while on his feet on a point of order said that he had written to the KRA bosses on Monday this week seeking to get information and he had received no reply the following day and he wondered how that information is being availed on request.”IF the government Ministry cannot get information from one of its departments.” was there something fishy or the government is hiding something”

The Ol Kalou MP Erastus Mureithi told parliament that when goods are exported, there are several documents involved and he wondered how that information was not being availed to the MPs.

Meanwhile one of the Nairobi dailies has published a series of articles explaining that wild animal poachers in Kenya have of late identified soft targeting their quest for quick

The STANDARD reported that criminals have identified loopholes in the security operations, which they continue to exploit to their advantage,

The rhino poachers particularly have identified private game sanctuaries as the soft targets perhaps due to their perceived lack of adequate security. The poachers have also not spared elephants to their hunt.

“Ironically, the retired and serving Kenya Wildlife Service {KWS} rangers and other members the disciplined armed forces have been identified as the major threat to the wildlife.” says the report.

The report cited the recent killing of a poacher and the arrest of his colleague at the world famous Ol Pajeta Conservancy in Laikipia East District exposed the rotten side of some KWS officers and other disciplined forces.

One of the poachers was found to have been a former KWS ranger who was highly trained in anti-poaching skills while his colleague was a serving Kenya Army officer.

A sacked KWS identified as Mr Sonko Ole Kaparo was gunned down and Carbine rifle loaded with nine round of 5.5 mm caliber recovered. Also recovered during the 10PM shootout was a pier of plies, three spent cartridges, a mobile phone, suspected poisonous substance and a gunny bag.

The items were recovered from the deceased Ole Kaparo. The captured suspect was identified as one Hassan Heso Sabale from Moyale district in the North Eastern Province.

KWS has since raised alarm over increased attacks in private conservancies, which is scaring the resident communities who participate in wildlife conservation and the private conservancy proprietors.

Ends

Kenya: Government officials in Kenya blames Chinese national working in the country for being responsible for poaching of the elephants and smuggling of the ivory

Leave a reply

Writes Leo Odera Omolo.

The high number of Chinese national working on various road construction projects are blamed for the increased poaching of elephants and smuggling of ivory out of Kenya.

The alarming increase in smuggling of ivory has raised concerns that elephant poaching is spiraling out of control.

And the officials of the Kenya Wildlife Service {KWS} and conservationists are pointing an accusing finger at the swollen number of Chinese national working in Kenya for the various road construction works at the suspected culprits.

Statistics released to the media early this week by the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife show that poaching of elephants is resurging and is being aided by lax in control at points of exports where corrupt government officials are aiding poachers to operate freely.

Environmentalists have warned that it will be just a matter of time before the elephants population in Kenya is wiped out if the government does not step in to stem the illegal trade.

The Kenya Wildlife Service {KWS} Director Julius Kipng’etich was yesterday quoted by one of the dailies {The STANDARD} as saying that the increase in elephant deaths has correlation with the presence of a high number of Chinese construction workers in the country.

He said most of the elephants killed by poachers recently occurred in areas in Samburu and Laikipia Counties, that has private ranches and are close to the Moyale-Isiolo road, which is currently under the construction by a contracted Chinese construction firm.

On of the reasons cited by experts for the failure to achieve to eradicate poaching in Kenya is weak penalties meted out to the offenders. A person caught with Ivory can be fined Kshs 10,000 {USD 112} while in some countries, the same offence leads to a life imprisonment sentence.

Parliament is this week debating on a damn report presented by the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife Dr. Noah Wekesa after parliamentary questions were raised on whether Ivory was now gradually replacing drugs as an illegal source of money for corrupt individuals.

The report presented last week shows that two months ago, 247 elephants tusks valued at Kshs 380 million were exported from Momnbasa by ship to Thailand, but Thais Customs officials seized the consignment.

The Ivory was packed in cartons with customs documents indicating that they were frozen mackerel fish. A day after the report was tabled in Parliament, 100 tusks destined to Nigeria were seized at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Since 2003, poachers have killed 844 elephants in Kenya. Out of this number, 70 were butchered within the first four months of this year. But this number is believed to have risen because of the 100 tusks seized last Friday.

In the case of 247 tusks smuggled out two months ago, the Minister said customs officials at the Kilindini Harbors in the coastal port city of Mombasa.

The Minister wants directors of a clearing agency that facilitated the export to be arrested for aiding as illegality, forgery and falsified of official documents.

The report tabled in Parliament named the clearing agency as a Mr Mhaso as the agent and two of its directors as Edward Mhaso and Frederick Sababu Mngulo..

KWS confirmed that there has been an increase in poaching activities but only outside National Parks, which are well guarded.

Kipng’etich disclosed that he has requested the Commissioner of Police of Police Mathew Iteere to allow his rangers to patrol private ranches in Samburu and Laikipia regions.

THE KWS director blamed the poaching on the increase number of Chinese national presence in the country undertaking various road construction projects in particular the road between the capital Nairobi and Moyale.

“There is a clear link of presence of Chinese national in the country and illegal export of elephant tusks.”.

Whereas the offense is handled as an economic crime and punishable by death in China, Kipng’etich said her our laws are weak since one is only fined Kshs 10,000 {USD 112}.

Kipng’etich called for the amendment of the laws to enhance the punishment saying the move will instill ear in poacher and consequently, eliminate the vice. He added Ivory smugglers chose Kenya as their point of export since it has a robust port as well as an international airport that links them with the world in the region. Questions are now being asked how the Kshs 380 million contraband shipments managed to pass through customs officials at Kilindini Port in Mombasa only for officials in Thailand impound them.

“I am shocked that x-ray machines at the port which should have detected them did not.”said Kipng’etich, adding that they would deploy sniffer dogs at all ports and airports.The KWS director also disclosed that they have requested for Kshs 120 million to purchase surveillance equipment.

According to the Minister’s report, the illegal exportation of the tusks was made easy at the Kilindini Customs, Export section because officials do not maintain dispatch register. Laxity of th Kilindini Customs, Export Processing and Verification officers facilitated the exportation of the prohibited cargo, adds the provisional report on the investigations.

The report shows elephant poaching has been on the rise from 2003, with the number now reaching 844.

According to the report, on March 31,this year, Thailand Customs officials intercepted 247 elephant tusks weighing 2,033 kilogram’s that had been shipment from Kenya.

In 2003, the numbers of 57 elephants were poached 63 in 2004, then 70 in 2005.The number went down to 55 in 2006 and 47 in 2007.

But in 2008, the number rose to 91 and in 2009 to 204. Last year, the number went to 187 while in the first four months of this year, the number of elephants so far poached is 70.

KWS has succeeded in arresting 496 in the last eight years with 10,552 kilograms of ivory having been recovered.

Ends

Kenya: What the Kenyan Papers says about the series of murders and executions connection with ICC cases

Leave a reply

RECENT KILLING OF A RETIRED SENIOR POLICE OFFICER PERCEIVED TO HAVE TOP SECRET ABOUT THE SIX ICC SUSPECTS.

Writes Leo Odera Omolo

The usually extremely authoritative and reliable Kenyan daily has come out with puzzling allegation that the killers of a retired senior police officer have been executed in covert police operation.

In its Saturday edition the NAIROBISTAR for the second time in a week reported that the murders of former Kenya Police College commandant Benard Kimeli Kemei, who was found dead in his Nairobi house on April 28, were reportedly executed in a covert police operation.

It says it has gained its information from a multiple sources that the three men suspected of shooting and stabbing the ex-police chief, were shot dead and their bodies mutilated with acid were later dumped on the Nairobi-Magadi road in Kajiado district after the murder.

The body of the fourth suspect, according to the STAR picked up by detectives from the Special Crime Unit of the Kenyan Police, was retrieved from Ndakaini Dam in Thika district on April 30 and take to Thika district hospital mortuary.

No identity documents were found on all the four bodies.

The paper reported quoting its unnamed source as telling its reporters that the four dead men were allegedly picked up by police in Githurai and Dandora estates within Nairobi City after detectives traced one of them through his cell phone. The cell phone in question is alleged to have been used to make a call to the deceased Mr Kemei a few hours before he was found dead.

The STAR report says the man was arrested and he allegedly led the police to the other suspects who were also arrested and questioned before they were executed. However, the paper’s story is also intriguing when it quoted the police source as saying that the police were yet to zero in on the actual motive for Kemei’s murder. But in an earlier report the same paper had made it clear that the death of the murdered former police chief could be connected to the incriminating evidence he had presented to the Waki Commission, which investigated the post election violence of 2008. And that the deceased evidence former the best part of the evidence ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo intend to produce during the trial of the Ocampo Six at the ICC trial of the suspect who masterminded and financed the post election violence in Kenya.

The Kenya Police has so far fiercely refuted the allegations contained in the two reports, which have appeared in the press for the second time within one week.

The ex-policeman had been stabbed twice in the abdomen and shot twice in the torso. His lifeless body was stretched out on a sofa seat in his living room at the Muguga Green Flats in Westland’s suburb of Nairobi. Neither his neighbors nor his son who was living in the adjacent servant quarters herd of anything like commotion coming from the main house.

The house was not broken into and neither was anything of value stolen. The deceased was buried in His Kabiyet Division in North Nandi district last Friday. The police on the other hand said they were pursuing the led that Kemei was murdered because he had information which could incriminate some former and current security chiefs who were covertly involved in dealing with the 2007-08 post election violence.

The report says the police as well as the people associated with the Waki Commission confirmed that the late Kemei had actually appeared before the commission and some of the testimony he presented before the commission in camera formed part of the evidence that the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo intends to use in his prosecution of the six suspects he has identified as bearing the greatest responsibility for organizing, financing and planning the violence.

A close relative of the late Kemei who claim to know of the existence of the classified information had confirmed this to the STAR.

“He collected some of the information from his own trusted junior officers in the field in the period leading to, and during elections and after President Mwai Kibakji was declared the winner. The information included the selective manner used by some partisan police commands to deal with election violence in the volatile Rift Valley Province.”

“Kemei had been ordered by some people in the government to provide undercover and uniformed police officers from the Police College to do some dirty work against some ethnic communities which he refused,” said the relative who claimed some of the document with the information had been taken away by Mr Kemei’s killers.

The source said orders were allegedly issued to Kmei to release “the idle policemen” at the police college to go out and assist deal with the violence. “The decision about which of the trainees were going to take in quelling the violence was done in a selective manner because it favored one ethnic group”, says the report.

“There are forces in Kenya who are fearful that the officer’s evidence cloud have been dangerous to some of the Ocampo Six. These people would not have wanted the late Kemei to testify or provide any documentary and photographic evidence to the ICC or even a local tribunal if one is established,” said another source attributed to unnamed a senior office who worked with for the Waki Commission. But a lawyer who had represented the police the Waki Commission has denied suggestions that Kemeli could have been murdered because of what he knew of the post-election violence.”Kemneli was never a witness. He never presented a memorandum to the Waki Commission and was never intended to be a witness by anybody. He did not have any information that could make anybody scared. This is misinformation by Ocampo who has lost his case to try and enhance the conditions for the six suspects. He wants to use the report of Kemei’s murder to claim that witnesses are being killed,” said, reported the STAR quoting the lawyer Evans Onari as saying : Ocampo, meanwhile has filed another application in which he is asking the ICC court not to compel him to present the witness statements he has so far collected to the suspects’ lawyers claiming doing so would jeopardize their safety.

The Police Commissioner Mathew Ireeri had categorically denied there was any link between the three executed men and Kemei’s murder which was still actively being investigated. The Commissioner’s spokesman Charles Owino, denied the three men had been executed by police and said their deaths were being investigated.

Kemei’s abrupt retirement in 2008 raised concern with Keiyo South MP Lucas Chepkitony asking a question in parliament to know why Kemei had been retired out of the service. But responding to the question the Assistant minister of State for Internal Security and Provincial Administration Simon Lesirma told parliament that Kemei left service on March 3, 2008 after he had attained the mandatory retirement age of 55 years. He added that the officer had not asked for the extension of his contract to continue working for the police.

The latest claims and counter claims have thrown everybody into darkness which has shrouded the crucial issue of murder and the impending ICC trials.

Ends

Kenya: Raila faces hecklers and plcards – carrying youths in kisumu protesting commoty and fuel prices

1 Reply

By Our Reporter.

The weekend visit of the Prime Minister Raila Odinga to the lakeside city of Kisumu was shrouded with heckling and placard displaying youth protesting the high cost of living and fuel prices.

The Prime Minister was also confronted by hundreds of boda boda and motor bike taxis operators who pleaded with him to intervene with the Kisumu Town Council to allow them resume their operations within the Central Business District areas {CBD}. The meeting came in the wake of conflict of interest in which the Council had introduced stringent measures barring Matatus, Boda boda bicycle and motorbike taxis from ferrying their passengers into the Central Business District. The Council had designated certain areas where the Matatu, boda boda and motorbike taxis are required to stop and park their machines.

Flanked by the Tow’s Mayor Sam Okello, the Prime Minister told the taxi-men that the plan of locking them out of the CBD was in line with the economic blueprint and development agenda for the town.

He said the decision to relocate the matatus, boda boda and motorbike was arrived at after consultation with stakeholders and called for support of development plan.

The group had told the Prime Minister, The Council has locked us out of town center and they are constantly harassing us. Kindly intervene to allow us =0Aoperate in our former areas.

Raila, however, came face to face with rowdy placard carrying youth in Muhoroni constituency when he visited the new site of the Great Lake University at Kibos areas. Accompanying the Prime Minister was Mrs Rebecca Garang, the wife of the former Southern Sudan freedom fighter the late Dr.John Garang De Mabior. The PRIME Minister’s wife Mrs Ida Odinga and Mrs Garang were the joint guests of honor this year graduation ceremony at the Kisumu based University of Great Lakes.

The youth shouted “Njaa Njaa {Hunger Hunger}” while displayed placard reading “Vision 2030 ni njaa being ya unga ni juu”.

These shouts reigned in the air at Number Kondele and also at the Kisumu Bus Terminal, The Prime Minister, however, ignored the protesters and went about his business undisturbed.

Meanwhile rumors and speculation are high in Kisumu that the Kisumu Minicipality is currently involved in what the residents alleged as rampant landing selling ahead of the coming of the Counties under the new constitutional dispensation.

The Council, the residents say had sold almost every vacant parcel of land available in town. The Council has also sold some of its housing estates in hasty also ahead of the coming of the Counties.

Unless the government moved with speed and stopped the rampant sales of vacant land and Council property in hasty, the coming Counties will find no more land for offering land attracting investors in Town.

The residents say they are puzzled in the way and the manner in which the land sales transaction is taking place in Kisumu City.

It is as if the looting of the Council property and land is in the offing. These sales are taking place when the area is just about to fall under the new County under the new constitution.

Something must be done to bring this to an end, this beautiful lake side City will be left empty with no more land or future development. Even investors wishing to invest in the town will not do so because there will be not even one single piece of land in the areas to accommodate new development.

Both the Town Clerk and the Mayor were not available for comment over the allegation of rampant sales of Council property, which includes the Council housing estates and land spaces.

Ends

Kenya: Museveni comes face to face with a “heckler” in Nairobi

Leave a reply

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

Kenya was last Saturday sucked into the escalating crisis over rising food prices in Uganda after the two main players arrived in Nairobi within hours of each other.

There were fears that the visit to the country by both President Museveni and the Opposition leader Dr Kizza Basigye would trigger a diplomatic incident after one you brave Kenyan unhappy with the Uganda leaders treatment of protesters in Kampala threatened to mobilise anti Museveni protests.

A ring of security was thrown around the posh Hotel Intercontinental where the Uganda leader addressed business leaders under the auspices of Mindspeak forum. One young man braved the security and shouted at Museveni saying,” We can’t have you speak to us whereas back at home you are brutalising the Ugandan citizens. Then the young man was thrown out by Museveni detailed security who handed him to the Kenyan police.

But addressing a mammoth crowd of people, who attended the Labour Day at the Nyayo National Stadium, the COTU{K} secretary-General, Francis Atwoli, demanded that the young Kenyan who had attempted to shout Museveni down should be released immediately, because he has done nothing wrong to warrant his continued detention by the police. “We can’t have dictators here and can’t tolerate the rule of gun under dictatorship”shouted Atwoli.

So far there was not much news about the whereabouts of the Nairobi “hecklers”. The visit of the two leaders,one for business forum and the other for medical treatment would have acquired more political overtones had Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga visited Dr Basigye at the Nairobi Hospital where he is lying critically ill after the last Thursday beating by the combined Ugandan regular and military police during his arrest for the fourth time within one week.

The planned hospital visit by Odinga was called off at the eleven hours, after the authoritis at the Nairobi Hospital said the patient was too ill and not ready to receive any visitors. Basigye is believed to have undergone eye surgery to clean his eye lenses following the attack on him with policemen using pepper laced papers. He is also said to have sustained injuries on his both sides of the ribs as he was thrown forcefully onto an open pick-truck during the arrest.

President Mwai Kibaki on Saturday held talks with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni who paid him a courtesy call at State House Nairobi.

President Museveni, who arrived on Saturday morning, is in the country to attend the Social Economic Transformation and the East African Political Federation Forum.

During their meeting, President Kibaki and President Museveni discussed ways of developing and improving cross-border infrastructure including the proposed construction of a new standard gauge railway line and the Kenya-Uganda petroleum pipeline.

In this regard, President Kibaki expressed Kenya’s commitment to continue improving sections of the Northern Corridor to ease the movement of goods and services between the two countries and the region in general.

The two leaders further discussed the East African integration and agreed that the process should move with speed so that the citizens of member states can fully enjoy the fruits of the regional economic bloc.

The two leaders also underscored the need for peace and stability as the cornerstone of development of the East African Community.

Kenya: Killing of a retired senior Kenyan police officer is linked to the impending ICC trials at the Hague and its evidence

1 Reply

Writes Leo Odera Omolo.

The last week cold murder of an ex-senior Kenya Police officer has rekindled rumors and speculation that his slaying could be connected to the incriminating evidence he had given to the Waki Commission.

Benard Kimeli Kemei a retired former senior deputy commissioner of police was discovered dead inside h living room of his house in a Nairobi suburb with numerous bodily stabs would and a gun shot.

The killing, according to police looked highly professional and appeared to have been done by people whom he knew as there is said to be no sign of forceful entry into his house, which is located in an area which is highly secured as far as the security of home are concerned.

On Saturday, one of the dailies the NAIROBISTAR come out bold with an article speculating that the death of the former top police officer may have been killed because the testimony he gave to the Waki Commission probing the 2007/2008 post-election violence.

The paper cited its sources from the police as well as other sources associated with the Waki Commission, which it says had confirmed that the deceased Kemei had had appeared before the Waki Commission and some of the evidence he presented to the commission in camera, formed part of the evidence that the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo intend t use in the prosecution of the six suspects he had identified as being responsible for the post election violence.

In the same week the Kenya police in Nairobi discovered the bullet riddled bodies of three well-dressed and well nourished young men in the bush on the main Nairobi-Kajiado road. The men appeared to have been shot from the back had their faces flashed with acid liquid to conceal their identity. They carried no identification papers in their bodies, and speculation is high within the Kenyan capital with rumor that these people could as well be the potential witnesses in the Ocampo Six impending trial at the Hague.

The ICC court at The Hague will on September 1st,2011 decide whether Kenya’s Deputy Primne Minister Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, Eldoret North MP who is also the suspended Higher Education Ministr William Ruto, The Head of the Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Ambassador Francis Muthaura, the suspended Minister for Industrialization and MP for Tinderet Henry Kosgey, the former Commissioner of Police and a vernacular FM radio presenter Joshua Sang should stand trial for crime against humanity.

Kemei according to the paper report had appeared before the commission in camera in his private capacity.”He was at the time the Commandant of the Police College, which is located at Kiganjo. “ he gave us very useful information that helped us in deciding, the final list of people who should be hold greatly responsible for the post election violence of 2008.” The paper quoted a source at the Waki Commission.

“So ital was his information that we had to make a special arrangements for him to come and see us,” the paper further quoted unnamed former Commissioner who had served in the now disbanded Waki Commission. Kemei is also reported to have been a close friend of the former Deputy Commandant of the Administration Police Oku Kaunya who was forced to flee the country and went into exile in undisclosed location abroad following threats to his life and who is also reported to be a possible prosecution witness during the ICC trials at the Hague.

During the 2008 post election violence, Kemei was the Commandant of the Police College, Kiganjo where it is alleged that secret security meetings were held on how to respond to the violence.

Most startling detailed account have emerged that Kemei, was murdered by unknown people last Tuesday night at his house in Muguga Green posh estate in Westland’s. His killers entered his house, stabbed him several times and sneaked out of the well secured estate where some of the Kenya’s top civil servants live. Kemei’s gun was found lying on his side. Neighbors said they did not hear any commotion coming from the house.

The NAIROBISTAR further revealed that the deceased next door neighbor is the deputy commissioner of police Francis Okonya.”it is mystery how strangers could have gained into Kemei’s compound without the knowledge to the armed police sentries guarding Mr Okonya’s house which is in the next door, “ said a senior CID officer at the scene of the crime.

The slained former police officer’s widow is a senior police officer working in the neighboring Machakos County. The deceased was sharing their Westland’s suburb home with their seventeen year old son who was sleeping at the adjacent servant quarters house.

Piecing stories together, the police source was quoted as saying Kemei’s killer may have been people known to him as there were no signs of struggle of forced entry into the house.

The sae source the house was not ransacked, but the police believe that the killers took away some documents which are linked to the testimony he had presented to the Waki Commission.

They also say that a supply contract he had been awarded by the government department which was the subject of a dispute were also confiscated and take away.

The police sources also hinted that Kemei had kept classified information, which he did not surrender when he decided to take an early retirement in March 2008. This was during the peak of the post-election violence which had gripped Kenya following the disputed results of presidential election. The violence claimed the lives of close to 1300 people and rendered close to 550,000 homeless. Some of these people are still living in the camps occupied by the Internally Displaced persons {IDPs} Kemei is believe to have collected the information from his own trusted junior

police officers working in the field in the period leading to, during elections and after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner. The information in his possession is believed to include the selective manner used by some partisan police commands to deal with election violence in the Rift Valley Province. It is reported that the late Kemei had been ordered by some senior people in the government to provide undercover and uniformed police officer from the police college to do some dirty work against some ethnic communities which he refused.” a close relative was quoted as saying.

The same relative, according to information made available, claimed to have known the existence of classified information.

By virtue of his position as the boss of police academy, the deceased could authorize trainees to various ranks and categories under his command to be assigned duties of quelling the riots. However, officially, such trainees were not supposed to be involved in such tasks until they graduate from the college. Other sources were quoted by the NAIROBISTAR as saying that K ordered was issue to Kemei to release the “idle policemen” policemen at the police college to gout and assist in dealing with riots.

The decision about which of the trainees was going to take part in quelling the violence was done in a selective manner because it favored one ethnic group. “There are forces in Kenya who are fearful that that the murdered officer’s evidence could have been dangerous to some of the Ocampo Six.”These people would not have wanted Kemei to testify or provide any document and photographic evidence to the ICC or even a local tribunal if one is established the paper quote another senior police officer who had been working with the Waki Commission.

Kimeli Kemei’s murder raised the concern about the safety of the five Ocampo Six witnesses who have yet to be taken out of the country. Incident has reinforced the sentiments expressed eelier on by Morene Ocampo about the safety of his witnesses.

The five, the paper says considered important but not at risk as they were below the radar of some of the suspects and their associates, have been receiving death threats as well as being offered millions of shillings not to testify and retract their testimony to the Waki Commission. Some have gone as far as making an abortive attempt to expunge their testimony. Among those fearing for their lives are said to be policemen, who human rights activists say were involved in operations carried out in different parts of the country. So far there is a total silence on the side of the government following the publication of this damning report by the NAIROBISTAR in its Saturday edition.

Ends

Kenya: Man is being hospitalised after savage attack by a ferocious crocodile

Leave a reply

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

A fisherman is recuperating at the New Nyanza General Hospital, Kisumu after he was attacked by a ferocious crocodile while fishing in Lake Victoria.

The incident occurred at Omia Mwalo village in Central Asembo Location, Rarieda Constituency, Rarieda district within Bondo County.

Maurice Ouma Omire had gone fishing along the lake’s shoreline when the reptile struck and tried to drag him away deep into the lake. His colleague braved the attack and hit the crocodiles head repeatedly until the animal disentangled from the jaws of the animal. The victim sustained injuries – – a badly devoured and damaged leg. The cases of wild animals attacking and even killing residents along the shoreline of Lake Victoria are on alarming increase. On the neighboring Rusinga Island, there is a record of attack by Hippos reported of having killed five people within the last two years.

Experts say the Hippo have become more wild and ferocious following the disappearance of green pasture which they usually feeds on.

There have been numerous reports whereby Hippo have attacked domesticated animals and even killed cows along River Kuja, which is the natural boundary between Ndhiwa and Uriri constituency.

An Assistant minister for Internal Security Joshua Orwa Ojode, is amongst the victims. He had lost two cows killed by crocodile when his herds of cattle ware taken for watering in Kuja River. The river traverses the MP’s farm and it is only a kilometer from his Unga village home in East Kanyamwa/South Kabuoch location boundaries.

Coun, Adongo of East Asembo called upon the government and KWS officials to combat the area and to ensure that hippos and crocodiles are driven away. A clause in the Kenya Wildlife Services Act stipulates that any citizen attacked, injured or killed by wild animal is entitled for compensation But in another not related incident, two young boys who were early this month attacked and injured by crocodile in Mwingi district, will not be paid compensation, and the KWS official argued that the boys had stayed into a game reserved conservancy area.

The two boys aged, between 16 and six years old, were savagely attacked by a killer crocodile while watering their goats in a place called Ikome. The boys, two brothers had strayed into the crocodile infested Tana River two weeks ago. The newspaper have quoted the KWS officer in-charge of the Mwingi North district Mr Fredrick Owino said that the boys had broken the law by venturing deep into the game park, a restricted areas.

Owino who previously was in-charge of KWS station in Tseikuru said the attack happened in a restricted area thereby denying the victim of any compensation payment.

The government, he said, cannot pay compensation to people who encroached deep into the game reserves. He cited a man who in 2009 was killed by a Jumbo {Elephant} in the same area was never paid compensation.

“This is a clear case, that anyone who ventured into game animals infested areas and get injured or killed are considered as the offender and therefore deserves no compensation payment.

The two brothers were Mwangani Mtunga 15 and his younger brother Mutia. They miraculously escaped at the jaws of a ferocious killer crocodile and were hospitalized for two weeks. Their father had already lodged a letter seeking compensation for his school going sons. The incident occurred on April 9, 2011. Mutunga is a standard two pupils at Ikome Primary School, while his younger brother is attending a nearby nursery school.

Ends

KENYA: JOURNALIST TO BE BURIED ON SATURDAY.

Leave a reply

By Our Reporter

The late journalist Alphayo Otieno will finally be buried on Saturday 7th May 2011 at Kalwande Village Karapul Sub Location in Siaya District.

According to the late Otieno’s friend and journalist Agwanda Saye, the body will leave New Nyanza Provincial Hospital on 6th then the body will be viewed at his Upper Migosi Residence before the body heads to his rural the same day.

Agwanda added that there are tow burial committees in Kisumu with the late Otieno’s processional colleagues meeting at Hilbrew Hotel situated at Jommo Kenyatta Grounds while his friends will be meeting at Ofafa Bar situated along Kisumu -Kakamega town.

“All those who were Alphayo’s friends and colleagues should see where they would wish to go and make their contributions” Agwanda added.

Meanwhile condolences messages continues to stream in in regard to the late Otieno’s death,Nairobi Businessman Tom Alwaka,Kisumu Advocate David Otieno Njer,East Africa Law Society of Kenya Vice President James Aggrey Mwamu,Kisumu businessm and Peter Opondo “Tausi”,the proprietor of Vic Hotel and The VIC Hotel and Mon Ami Nirman Dabba have all condoled with the late Otieno’s family that the family had lost a man worth not loosing.

Former Marie Stopes County Director Cyprian Otieno Awiti,Kisumu Town MP Shakeel Shabbir ,leading Kisumu Insurance Broker Robert Otuge Oruko and Unionists Ishmael Nooh Ooro and Francis Bushuru Wangara have also sent messages of condolences to the late Otieno’s family.

Media Consultant Kwendo Opanga condoled the family that Otieno wasa happy chap who really enjoyed what he used to do.

“He would antagonize you and still come back to you remorsefully and he was determined in all that he used to do, he used to call me “Opash”,”Kwendo added.

Mr.Rafiq Dhanji the Director of JRS Security Services said that Otieno used to leave with his words while his Robinson Security Services Provider Jim Joe Chege said he had lost afriend.

The late also was a contributor to leading online publications i.e.”Jaluo.Com”,”Majimbokenya” amongst others died after ailing while undergoing treatment at the Victoria Hospital where he died last Friday,he leaves behind two wives and five children.

ENDS

Jaluo dot Kom

East African, international, news, politics, culture, business, discussion forum

Category Archives: HEADLINES

CHINA & KENYA: CHINA OVERSEAS ENGINEERING GROUP COMPANY LIMITED (COVEC) SUCCESSFULLY DELIVER YET ANOTHER AIRPORT PROJECT

Kenya MPs blames the government for being insensitive as citizens of neighboring countries massacred its own citizens along the internationally recognised borders in the north of the country

Kenya: Bogus policeman is in custody in Migori on suspicion of series of robberies in the region

Kenya: Kibaji and Raila endorses lawyer Willy Mutunga to be the new Chief Justice of Kenya

EAC has ok-ed the construction of a new natural gas pipeline from Dar to Mombasa

Nile Basin: Egypt and Sudan finally lost the control of River Nile waters as upstream riparian nations ganged up in a new arrangements

Kenya: Prison authorities urged to issued ex-convicts with certificates of good conduct once they are released at the completion of their convictions

Kenya: Many aspirants of various positions in Nyanza Counties have run short of money and gone underground not to be heard of anymore

UGANDA: SOME OF THE BIG NAMES EXPECTED TO MAKE IT TO THE NEW UGANDAN CABINET TO BE FORMED BY PRESIDENT MUSEVENI WITHINA WEEK OR SO.

KENYA: OVER 10 SUSPECTS ESCAPE FROM POLICE CELLS IN BONDO AND SIAYA

Kenya: Ruto-Kenyatta axis infiltration in Luo-Nyanza is steadily on the increase as their agents are said to have dishing out million of shillings in hand out cash for potential catches

KENYA: ATWOLI SET TO TRIUMPH ONCE AGAIN

Kenya: MPS engaged the government on a heated debate over elephants poaching and illicit ivory smuggling trade

Kenya: Government officials in Kenya blames Chinese national working in the country for being responsible for poaching of the elephants and smuggling of the ivory

Kenya: What the Kenyan Papers says about the series of murders and executions connection with ICC cases

Kenya: Raila faces hecklers and plcards – carrying youths in kisumu protesting commoty and fuel prices

Kenya: Museveni comes face to face with a “heckler” in Nairobi

Kenya: Killing of a retired senior Kenyan police officer is linked to the impending ICC trials at the Hague and its evidence

Kenya: Man is being hospitalised after savage attack by a ferocious crocodile

KENYA: JOURNALIST TO BE BURIED ON SATURDAY.