Kenyans in No Mood to Sign Off On Paychecks for Leaders’ Wives
 
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 4, 2008; Page A08

NAIROBI — The deal that ended Kenya’s violent post-election crisis has unleashed a period of one-upmanship among the country’s political troika, President Mwai Kibaki, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and newly appointed Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

In recent months, the three former competitors have sparred over protocol issues, such as who should speak first, who should sit where and the relative size of their limousines.

But the most recent issue to arise in the symbolic power struggle could be its most expensive: a proposal to pay a yearly allowance of roughly $70,000 each to the wives, or ‘gracious ladies,’ of the prime minister and the vice president.

First lady Lucy Kibaki, who has made few public appearances since scandalizing the nation last year by publicly slapping an emcee she deemed impertinent, collects nearly $100,000 a year in state funds as compensation for her ‘social responsibilities. ‘

And so, the argument goes, Ida Odinga and Pauline Musyoka also should get ‘responsibility allowances.’ The head of Kenya’s civil service, who proposed the stipends, has said the spouses play a crucial role in projecting ‘our nation’s family values.’

But Kenyans, who make an average of $1,300 a year, are not buying it

The president’s annual salary exceeds $300,000, and a legislator banks $120,000 plus perks on average. So the idea of two more salaries on the official payroll has prompted outrage, especially in the pages of the country’s two largest newspapers.

One reader called the proposal ‘galling’ in a letter to the Nation, and a scathing editorial in the paper deemed it ‘disgraceful. ‘

‘The leadership of this country cannot continue to pretend that 36 million Kenyans exist to feed them and their families, and keep them in luxury,’ the editorial said. ‘This lack of respect for taxpayers’ money is contemptuous of the fact that this is a poor country, many of whose citizens live on the verge of starvation.’

The matter is especially touchy because tens of thousands of Kenyans displaced by violence after the disputed presidential election in December still live in leaky tents, waiting for $100 grants promised by the government to help them rebuild homes and farms that were burned to the ground.

Writing in the Standard, one reader said that ‘the mood is right for taking the moral high ground.’

‘There is no shortage of deserving causes,’ the letter continued. ‘Try the myriad orphans, internally displaced people, more toilets in slums — need we say more?’

Pauline Musyoka, who earns a top-tier salary working for the Central Bank of Kenya, has not commented on the allowance proposal. Ida Odinga, who manages one of her husband’s family businesses, broke her silence on the matter this week.

She declined the additional paycheck.

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 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/06/AR2008090602666.html

In Kenya, Some Fear That Fissures Remain
Political Deal Is Superficial, Critics Say
By Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 7, 2008; Page A17

NAIROBI — In Kenya these days, tourists are slowly returning to safari camps across the Masai Mara game reserve. The economy is hobbling back to life, and the country’s once-feuding political leaders often shake hands and exchange conciliatory words in public.

Nearly eight months after a wave of post-election violence brought one of East Africa’s most stable democracies to the brink of collapse, it is almost as if there had been no crisis. And that is what troubles some Kenyans the most.

‘My biggest worry is that it’s business as usual,’ said Bethuel Kiplagat, a retired diplomat who helped form the group Concerned Citizens for Peace during the violence. ‘My fear is that the deeper causes are not being addressed.’

A power-sharing deal signed in February ended the immediate crisis, which was triggered by allegations that President Mwai Kibaki stole the presidential election from opposition leader Raila Odinga. The agreement created a prime minister post for Odinga and set up commissions to investigate the election and causes of the violence, which left at least 1,000 people dead and displaced an estimated 350,000, most of them from Kibaki’s tribe, the Kikuyu.

But some observers say the compromise has played out only superficially, as members of the political elite have returned to petty backroom machinations at the expense of a country still divided by the crisis.

Although urging Kenyans to forget the past, Kibaki and Odinga have rewarded supporters with high-salary positions as ministers and assistant ministers, resulting in a 94-member cabinet that is the biggest and most expensive in Kenyan history. Parliament members, the highest paid on the continent, were sworn in and soon got down to the business of trying to resist an attempt to tax their pay of $120,000 a year.

Meanwhile, Odinga and Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka have tussled over protocol issues such as who should speak first and their relative position in motorcades. A more recent spat involved who would qualify to use a proposed VIP lane alongside Nairobi’s main thoroughfares.

‘There has been a lot of childishness, ‘ said Gitau Warigi, a political columnist with the Daily Nation newspaper. ‘But underneath there are major structural problems with how the top offices are relating to each other.’

For example, Odinga was tasked with ‘coordinating and supervising’ government ministries. But the head of Kenya’s civil service — a presidential appointee who effectively did the job before — has dismissed his authority. The two have issued competing orders, to the confusion of government workers.

‘The heart of executive power remains with the president, and it’s in the president’s interest to keep things chaotic,’ Warigi said. ‘That tells me that one side of the divide is not keen on this arrangement lasting.’

But David Murathe, a former legislator allied with Kibaki, said the president and Odinga were sobered by the violence and have no desire to see more fighting. Although human rights groups have accused politicians connected to both sides of orchestrating the violence, Murathe said Kibaki and Odinga became concerned that the situation was beyond their control.

But Kenyans are growing restless as they await dividends from the political settlement, Murathe said.

‘At some point, there will be a revolt against them all,’ he said. ‘They’ve conned everyone, I’m sorry to say. Even I did it. I was one of them.’

The discontent is especially palpable around the white-tented camps for displaced people that still dot the rolling, green Rift Valley where much of the violence took place. Although most of the largest camps have been dismantled, the majority of those who lived there have been shifted to smaller camps closer to their burned-out homes and farms, where they are living face to face with the neighbors who chased them away.

With the help of international donors, including the United States, the government has provided food rations and begun handing out seeds and tools to help people rebuild their farms, but the assistance has not reached everyone.

‘They promised they would come and build our houses, give us $100 for starting life, yet we have not gotten anything,’ said Josephat Ndura, 26, who, with 200 or so other families, moved his tent to a scrap of land near their farms in the Molo district of the Rift Valley. ‘We cannot farm, because we don’t have tools. And the people who attacked, they are still around.’

About 3 p.m. last Sunday, the families who would normally have been tending to their farms were idle, sitting outside leaky tents. Margaret Wangari, who is Kikuyu, said that not one of her old neighbors — who come from the Kalenjin tribe that backed Odinga and supported the militias that chased the Kikuyu away — has welcomed her home. She recently spotted a man herding a calf she said was stolen from her farm.

‘There is no conversation, ‘ she said, referring to her neighbors. ‘They just look at us.’

Things are also uncomfortable in the Kalenjin towns along the roads that wind through the Rift Valley. People there voted for Odinga because they felt ignored by Kibaki’s government, and many took part in chasing away their Kikuyu neighbors, which helped Odinga get his position as prime minister. Now, they say, they’re waiting to see some sort of reward in the form of jobs and development.

‘We haven’t seen any change,’ said Albert Kirui, a spare-parts salesman who was sitting on the porch of the Silent Hotel in Kericho, a trading town amid the tea farms in the valley. ‘You only see a change in Nairobi.’

Hundreds of young men who allegedly took part in the violence remain in jails, Kirui added, a sore point for many of Odinga’s backers, who are pressing him to secure an amnesty deal. The attorney general, a Kibaki appointee, is pushing for full prosecution of those involved in the violence.

Despite the icy relations between the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu, officials are painting a different picture of the situation. ‘Only a few months back, the nation was bleeding,’ said Ali Dawood, who is in charge of resettlement issues for the government. ‘Today, the same people are dancing and merrymaking. ‘

Kiplagat, the former diplomat, said that although grass-roots efforts have begun the reconciliation process, more attention needs to be paid to changing the ethnically based political system that sparked the crisis. That includes adopting a new constitution, possibly one that redraws the electoral map to break some of the largest ethnic voting blocs and devolve power to a more local level, he said.

Kibaki and Odinga have pledged to work on revising the constitution, which critics say concentrates too much power in the presidency.

But Kenya’s leaders must also face up to the reality of ethnic hatreds, Kiplagat said.

‘We’ve got to go deeper and deal with it squarely and not run away from it,’ he said, adding that his group is working on a plan to avert a crisis ahead of the next presidential election, in 2012. ‘I can’t tell you we shall not go back the same way. I cannot.’
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— On Sun, 9/7/08, George Ayittey  wrote:

From: George Ayittey
Subject: The Coming Revolution in Kenya
Date: Sunday, September 7, 2008, 6:30 PM

Folks,

They are eating, devouring huge morsels of meat in a feeding frenzy. Fat salaries, perks and allowances. Each MP takes home a cool $120,000 and they refuse to pay taxes on their salaries. The president takes a stunning $300,000 – more than President Bush. Imagine. And cabinet has swelled to an astonishing 94 ministers.

Their wives are eating too. Lucy Kibaki collects $100,000 for “social responsibilities.” Is she not the one who slaps journalists around? Social responsibilities, my foot.

Were these not the politicians who promised changeand better life for the people? Never mind; ‘better life’ meant for THEMSELVES. it is the same story of betrayal. They are enjoying. As for the people, they can eat grass.

Please see the story below about the coming revolution.

George Ayittey,
Washington, DC
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Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 04:19:49 -0700
From: komarockswatch@ . . .
Subject: Re: The Coming Revolution in Kenya

Prof,

We must all commend Mama Ida Odinga for refusing to join in the Grand Scheme.

The whole world is aware that when the Peace Accord was signed, we had 2 protagonists; Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga. If Ida was to accept any responsibility allowance, it should be at equal par with the wife to Raila’s equal partner, and not at par with the wife to the second in command at PNU.

Not that I support that these people should be paid any salaries!  We have given Raila and Kibaki enough responsibility and allowances that go with those offices, to an extent that the common man should not suffer any more in entertaining their spouses, as much as they are the mothers of the nation.

The times are real hard for most Kenyans that it becomes an affront to our intelligence for Pauline Musyoka to accept the second pay slip from the same government. As we speak, Pauline has been a civil servant drawing a salary from the  state. What rationale do we have in justifying her a second pay cheque from the state?

Kenyans are watching all this with keen interest and come 2012, most of us will be remembering Mama Ida Odinga for having rejected this rip off, hence credit to her husband. At the same time, we will be remembering that Pauline took a second pay cheque from the state in circustances that could have could for restraint, hence indicting her husband.

Odhiambo T Oketch
Komarock Nairobi

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— On Mon, 9/8/08, barack abonyo  wrote:
From: barack abonyo
Subject: RE:  The Coming Revolution in Kenya: Kenyan MPS are stealing from the poor
Date: Monday, September 8, 2008, 8:51 AM

 Our MPs should be ashamed of themselves. $120,000 tax free in the presence of abject poverty and yet they tell us they are fighting for the common men. The question is why are Kenyans not taking to the streets against this? Where is the civil society? I think this is totally outragious.

Here is my proporsal, A grand match, I mean Protest to Kenyan Embassy in Washington and other countries where diasporans live. We are failing our brothers and sisters if we ignore this. We can not afford this for the next four years. 94 mps drawing this much money is 3.666 billion kenya shillings in five years. What a gluttonous group of people. Like any other evil in the society, we must stop this immediately. The diaspora must make the world be aware of this. Our country cannot continue borrowing money just to put it in the pockets of afew mps. We must make those giving Kenya money be aware of this. Somebody in parlierment need to have a bill on this otherwise we will start petitioning donors on this. Our old mothers cannot continue bearing this burden.

Dr. Barack Abonyo

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— On Tue, 9/9/08, odhiambo okecth wrote:

Doc,

You are on the spot.

In human development, 5 things count as cardinal; water, education, shelter, light health. In all these areas, the leadership that we have had since independence has failed us.

In the period that we claim to have been independent, how much have we received in loans and grants?

In the same period, can we justify the wealth of our leaders as derived from their salaries?

It is time Kenyans woke up from this blind stupor to put our leaders to task. We cannot continue like this; a state where loans are borrowed in the name of Kenya and promptly diverted to bank accounts of our leaders.

We cannot continue like this; a state where funds are released to build our roads and yet no roads are built. Just across our borders, Uganda and Tanzania are boasting of very wide well maintained roads, while Kenya which prides itself as the most developed among the 3 East African states has cattle tracks for roads.

Time has come for all Kenyans to demand just results for the taxes that we pay. Let us not play ping-pong with our lives. What we have now is what we will bequeath our children. If we thrive in looting and cash divertion, our children will grow up knowing that that is how things work.

What justification could we have for not having clean piped water across all the homesteads in Kenya? What justification could we have for having estates in the middle of Nairobi without electricity? And what justification could we have to charge so expensively for those services poorly given out?

I will hence support massive and organized demos against the theft of Kenya by those whom we have given the chance to lead Kenya.

Odhiambo T Oketch
Komarock Nairobi

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Date:  Tue, 9 Sep 2008 02:52:58 -0700 (PDT)
From:  odhiambo okecth
Subject:   Fw: RE: The Coming Revolution in Kenya: Kenyan MPS are stealing from the poor