Folks,

Moi is thoroughly wrong in all sense and aspects of Mau. Moi should pay the Nation of Kenya %age at interest for rental cost of occupation. It is illegal and unlawful to use public office to manipulate public utility for ownership and acquisition of the same. unfair use of public office to own public utility is a criminal act which require heavy charges and penalties – the Nation is who must be compensated.

The Government is a Public body which is a charitable non-profit making institution, so paying back to the Republic is the most humane thing one must consider doing.

To volunteer to serve, you are duty bound to act sensibly with due care to preserve, not to plunder. It is an honor to be a Public Servant. It is also logical to give back to feed the kitty, so that the government can also be able to generate from its resources enough to serve others, especially the poor and be able to replenish itself.

The Government is not a place for double cross. Government leadership is therefore not a place for corruption. You destroy and kill the nation if corruption is central focus, rather than leading to serve the republic.

This kind of behavior must be severely punished to instill good behavioral conduct in the system, as well as to develop trust from the people/public, and to serve as lesson to all possible candidates in the future.

Cheers!

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

Moi’s insatiable greed inexcusable in Mau
By SYLVESTER OLUOCH
Published January 6, 2009

The arguments making the rounds on the Mau are becoming mundane. We can easily agree that occupation of Mau is wrong; whether within legal or “divine” right. Whether former President Daniel Moi was given land by the council he controlled (he controlled every valuable thing anyway), or it was plain illegal grabbing, Kenyans have stated, time and again, that they want occupation of Mau to stop anon, legal or illegal.

Moi recently went on national television and said he was given Kiptagich by the Maasai community to plant tea to prevent encroachment. Nothing explains perfect abuse of office better; and this is why.

The Narok County Council trust land, like any other trust land, was and still is the responsibility of the Government. Being the charge, or trustee for that matter, Moi would not be qualified to gain favors from beneficiaries of the trust. Moreover, Moi, in his place as Vice President, and eventually President, was required to exercise due care and diligence, in order to provide proper advice as to the significance of the Mau, not only to the Maasai, but also to Kenya and the wider Africa’s great lakes region.

Were it not for Moi’s position as Vice President, the Maasai would not have assigned him that land; and to that end Heritage Minister William Ole Ntimama is in agreement. Moi’s claim that the allotment, somehow, gets him off the hook of shameful snatching of resources from the poor is a case of looking undue influence in the mirror, and seeing legitimacy. It is a misnomer; a poke into Kenya’s conscience; and an insult to the Republic’s intelligence.

With details emerging that Moi made a request to be given that land, the case of undue influence becomes clearer. During President Jomo Kenyatta’s and Moi’s reigns, there was no line between requests and demands from those in positions of power and influence. We therefore take it as having been demand, irrespective of how it was made, for only that makes sense. No doubt, Moi is human and could be innocent in some isolated land cases, but if he got it as a present, or purely to ward off encroachers, then he should do two things: surrender the land and pay damages. Here are the reasons.

Going by Moi’s storyline, the land was assigned on commensalism grounds; where Moi profits from selling tea and its products, and the community benefits from a protected forest. This is called profit a pendre in French, which translates into profit to take. By definition, this arrangement allows one to enter another’s land and take away some natural thing of value. This could be done by fishing, harvesting, hunting, logging or pasturing. Moi indeed benefited from logging even though he denies it.

Much as Moi did additional investments to make the land productive, he could have incidentally invested the money earned from logging in the Mau. If indeed this holds true, then Moi should expect nothing in terms of compensation when the Mau exodus train reaches his vast estate. He got the land for free, profited from it, and just like in traditional profit a pendre arrangements, the beneficiary cannot claim ownership of the land. In this, there is nothing complex, and we would do without that tired phrase that the Mau issue is very complex. It is not. Greedy people are complicating it, and we will not tag along.

Whether we make Mau a moral issue or a legal one, Moi is still on the wrong side of history. Even if Kiptagich would have been hived off through an act of Parliament, it would not have made its impact on our ecosystem any less. Moi’s invocation of good motive is meaningless; Kenya’s history is replete with Moi’s self aggrandizement, and claiming that he intended well in the Mau for any one, other than himself, is hard to swallow.

The only way Moi can cleanse his Mau sins is not to explain it away, but rather to apologize profusely, and pay the exchequer all the profits he has made while bludgeoning the Mau of great indigenous trees into a semi-desert and tea shrubs.