From: orina Nyamwamu
From: Mars Group Kenya
1. ARE YOU LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ON KENYA?
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2. FOOD INSECURITY A SERIOUS THREAT TO ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO HIV TREATMENT IN KENYA (Millennium Development Goal Target 6B)
Addressing the nutritional needs of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) is not adequately prioritized within HIV and AIDS prevention, care and mitigation programmes currently underway in many sub-Saharan African countries. Yet there is recognition that HIV infection, food and nutrition are closely linked.
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I found this on Mars …..Excellent . I am really FED UP of the Non Performing ego seeking heads who do not seek to help anyone but themselves. sickens me to see some of them being called tycoons and doing nothing for their own people.
BY LEO ODERA OMOLO
Earlier this, week the Central Organization of Trade Unions secretary- general Francis Atwoli accused Western MPs of sleeping on the job.
I agree with Atwoli. Western Kenya, especially Nyanza, lags behind in development and job creation. There are no projects to fight poverty worth talking about. MPs from the region engage themselves in endless empty political slogans at the expense of development. Most are busy serving their narrow selfish interests.
Our MPs must wake up, initiate genuine fight against poverty, and build a rural economic infrastructure which has direct economic benefits for the common man. The residents have had enough of these empty political slogans and sycophancy. We have not heard the leaders talking about the possibility of reviving the collapsed industries in Kisumu City such as Kicomi, the closed Kenya Breweries plant, Kibos Industries and other medium and small manufacturing industries. Some of these factories closed down 10 years ago. In fact, Kisumu is the only major town in the country where there is not a single manufacturing plant.
The closure of the industries has rendered thousands of youth jobless. This has led to increased in crime. The Kenya Breweries plant and Kicomi had more than 5,000 workers together. All these people were sent home and apparently they may never be reinstated soon. Another important facility which closed down was Miwani Sugar Company. It went under while owing the workers millions of shillings in unpaid wages, and most of them could nor move out of the company houses because of lack fare to go their rural homes.
A series of meetings called by the MPs and leaders in Luo Nyanza to strategise on these contentious issues have all ended up discussing the next presidential elections. Fishermen in Lake Victoria get meagre earnings because leaders have not helped to access good markets. Nobody in this region is talking about the revival of the cotton industry which had a ready market. The last time Nyanza produced bails of cotton was in 1957. The Agoa agreement between the US and the African nations has created a ready market for cotton, but its production has dwindled.
When former Rarieda MP RaphaelTuju initiated tangible development projects in his constituency, he was dismissed by his fellow Luo MPs who accused him of serving the interest of Mt Kenya politicians. The same group has now focused their attention on Ndhiwa MP Joshua Orwa OJode who has managed to transform the constituency, which was regarded as one of the most backward in Nyanza, into a thriving breadbasket.
The ailing sugar industry has hit the Luo the hardest. All the five white sugar factories are located within the region with four of them in Nyando and Kisumu districts where poverty is said to be highest. We have not heard a single voice of an MP from this region articulating or championing the interests of cane farmers in Nyanza. What we do hear is that some of our leaders who are supposed to defend the farmers turn against them in support of inefficient and incompetent factory managers.
In most cases such inefficient managers only serve the interest of politicians.
The writer comments on topical issues.
Wachal jok mane oir ni jaluo kaochako gimoro to jogi ema yanye. We need to get a few intellegent and service oriented , non gonya sort of people who have the aim of assisting those in the nyanza people genuinely. I was really disgusted with waindi that give 5cents to grandmothers who walk for miles , sick with very intelligent people reduced to boda boda and tuk tuk driving because the stupid so called tycoons and heads are busy feeling hot in the city. They are some of the most corrupt idiots in town and I hope that as Kenyans we realize that a few people were not destined to rule the country. That gonya shi..t that goes on needs to stop. We need to demand and detest those who have too much and not worship them. Every person in Kenya deserves better.
After repeated and continuous calls by civil society and others the Chief Justice has finally picked a tribunal to investigate claims that TJRC Chairman Kiplagat’s past conduct which some quarters have reason to believe “erodes and compromises his legitimacy and credibility. The tribunal members are namely W.S. Deverell, B.P. Kubo, Prof. O.K. Mutungi, E.Okello and P. Waitere. It is not clear how the Chief Justice arrived at these choices but that notwithstanding they are bound to raise severe controversy.
Allegations made against Kiplagat include collusion with a past regime riddled with “unethical practices, absence of integrity and impunity”. His acts or omissions during the Wagala massacre, his continued silence surrounding the murder of Robert Ouko (Kiplagat was his Permanent Secretary) and his being named in the Ndung’u Report as a grabber of public lands in Nairobi and Eldoret. These are serious allegations that require investigation by an independent, impartial tribunal without links with the same past regime (s) that Kiplagat is accused of colluding with.
A cursory look at the history of some of the tribunal members with all due respect however tells a sorry story and casts aspersions as to the veracity of the whole process. Retired Justice W.S. Deverell is a former senior Partner in Kaplan & Stratton Advocates a firm associated with former President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi. He was for many years their most celebrated individual and corporate client. Indeed so attached to the firm was he that one of the Partners A.S. Wako was appointed and remains Attorney General to this day. A former employee Keriako Tobiko is the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Retired Justice B.P. Kubo is a former State Counsel and Prosecutor during the dark days of the repressive Moi regime under former Chief Justice Chunga then the Director of Public Prosecutions. Both men were rewarded by the Moi regime with plum appointments in the judiciary after ensuring that thousands multi-party campaigners were imprisoned as members of Mwakenya, Fera and others . In sum total, he was one of the reactionary elements used to abuse the human rights of citizens and should not be a member of the new tribunal.
Prof. O.K. Mutungi is a reactionary loyalist former lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Nairobi who broke ranks with his University faculty colleagues Kamau Kuria, Kiraitu Murungi, Anyang’ Nyong’o amongst others by declining to agitate for multi-party democracy and was subsequently rewarded with a judicial appointment. A clique of loyalist lecturers acted as informers and sleuths for the past regime. Why are we recycling discredited retired persons when we have clean highly intelligent young blood within the Bar and Bench?
That these men who owe absolute allegiance and a comfortable existence to the Moi regime have been appointed to investigate Bethuel Kiplagat who’s only sin is complete and absolute allegiance and obeisance to the same regime is a tragedy of unmitigated proportions. One does not need to a genius to know which way the “wind will blow!” It is a clear sign that the same forces of impunity that have held the country hostage for decades are still in operation through proxies within the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The tribunal is therefore a farce, an insult to the intelligence of Kenyans and a total waste of public funds. It is a non-starter and will be used to rubber stamp and legitimize the Kiplagat factor in the TJRC. The whole process is now fatally flawed. Whereas initially there were allegations of one individual being a participant and defender of a former regime we now have a battalion! God help Kenya.
DAUDI MWENDA. P.O.BOX 24943-00502 NAIROBI. CELL: 0722 154 722.
These MPs cannot wake up before they fill their stomachs to the brim. Most of them do not appreciate what it takes to realize development and the do not engage the common man constructively to mobilize them for economic activities.
They are doing a great diservice to Raila and the people and he should ensure no foxes enter the ODM pen in sheepskin anymore. Most of the Luo MPs are foxes who wore the orange sheepskin to woodwink the electorate.