Feeling Failed?

By Moses Omusolo

There is hope for that tree that has been cut.  This Biblical quotation should encourage anyone out there to keep hoping for the best and never stop hoping.

As human beings, we all get to those moments when we feel like throwing in the towel, but experience has taught us not to give up. That discouraging moment always hides your breakthrough, but if you give up mid-way, you lose sight of the best. Even if you have ‘failed’ ,failure is success turned inside out. This is true, isn’t it?

Focus Investigations on KWS officials

The Kenya wildlife officials should be held to account for the increased incidences of wildlife poaching in the country. There is overwhelming evidence that they could be the major perpetrators of the crime.

First,under the full watch of the KWS officials, eighty percent of the elephants were reportedly poached on private conservancies and twenty percent in the national parks and game reserves.

Second, Kenya has lost a total of 375 elephants and 20 rhinos to poaching in 2012 compared to 289 elephants and 29 rhinos in 2011. These figures cannot possibly be rising each year unless the personnel have permitted poaching deliberately.

In  addition,  we should not expect the rate of the vice to diminish any soon because of the alleged poor remuneration of rangers who have reportedly slackened their hands in taming poachers.

Again, it will not be far-fetched to claim that the trade in illegal ivory is thriving largely because of the loopholes created by some of the corrupt Kenya Revenue and Kenya Ports Authority officials.

Therefore, in its efforts to stem poaching, the government should not focus elsewhere apart from the culprits hidden among us.

MURUMBA'S ARMCHAIR

I would like to notify the public and the fourth estate that, I  Jimnah Mbaru have lodged an appeal to the TNA’s Tribunal board, contesting the party’s decision to award the Governor nominee to Ferdinand Waititu.

The decision to appeal was informed by the following decisions;

1. The marred voting process which locked out many genuine members from voting and allowed non party members to vote

2. That the said malpractices and or irregularities include but are not limited to voter bribery, violence, undue influences and intimidation.

3.  That in some cases my agents were beaten up and chased away from polling stations. The worst incident occurred at Mukuru Kayaba, where one of my agents scholastica Mweni was severely assaulted leading to loss of her eye and she is currently admitted at KNH.

4. That the said Ferdinand Waititu pre-maturely declared himself the winner before official voting was completed, thereby…

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Kenyans in a Dilemma

Professor Egara Kabaji’s article in the Saturday Nation  of January 19,2013 revealed a very interesting fact about the March 4 elections.

He reminded many of us to forget the talk about policies and  issues because the best  story tellers will win the March elections.

Through his insightful analysis ,we also discover that the key figures of all the alliances are all story-tellers,but the best  are the ones destined to win.

CORD has been identified as synonymous with the reform story,but their track records are obscured from the reform talk.

The Jubilee Alliance leaders have been portrayed as champions of youthful leadership yet they do not qualify due to their age bracket.

The Amani Coalition with Musalia Mudavadi as its leader recites the “pair of safe hands” maxim while Martha Karua and Ole Kyiapi have been exposed  as masters of the wealth-declaration story.

Perhaps this is why CORD was ranked first as others followed in the recent opinion poll results by Info-Trak.

In connection to that, if this is the plain unvarnished truth, then we Kenyans have been doomed.And it looks like it is too late to mend.

We must blame oureslves for not making the changes early enough and vote we must.

 

 

The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education(KCPE) Should be Abolished

The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Teachers(Kuppet) is largely mistaken to oppose the call by Education minister Mutula Kilonzo and other stakeholders to have KCPE examinations abolished.

 

They have overlooked the obvious but important disadvantages of these exams.The problem of cheating, which is also very rampant even in higher institutions of learning ,is highly contributed by these exams which are done mostly for the sake of competition and not qualification.

 

These exams are an ineffective means to measure ability and intelligence.In this regard, it is very unrealistic for anyone in the post modern era to believe that answering examination questions is still the best way to measure intelligence.

 

Intelligence should be viewed as the ability to do many other things well apart from exams.Besides, KCPE mostly measures the ability to recall information without any originality of thought.

 

This explains why we do not have thinkers and inventors.It explains why we are not industrialized.

 

Some contend  that scrapping KCPE will lead to poor performance.This is still the familiar argument for competition in schools.

 

Should we really be better in class as opposed to in the real world?Those who own 96 percent of the wealth in this world were not even academic giants.

 

Therefore,KCPE exams should be relegated to the dustbins of history for the betterment of our own country.

 

The Puwmani Maternity Hospital Management Sleeping on the Job

 

The Pumwani Maternity hospital management should be held to account for failing to restore sanitation and amenities .

The Nation journalists have revealed that the maternity hospital is in dire conditions and is unsuitable for offering maternity services.

 

Claims of water shortages and poor sanitation abound in Kenya’s largest referral maternity hospital.The toilets cannot flush,and bathrooms are slippery with grime, but the management has not taken any corrective measures.

 

What about leaking taps, blocked drains,and heaps of rubbish? To add insult to injury, the laundry room in most wards are for storing equipment that  have broken down.

 

What more can one say about women who take days before they take a bath just because of the painful shortage of water?

 

I would like the ministry of Public Health and Sanitation to investigate the claims and take action against the negligent hospital administration.

 

The cleaning staff should improve or they be laid off. All the necessary repairs should be carried out or else the hospital should be closed down.

 

Lastly, the plans  by the Nairobi Metropolitan to install a 100,000 liter water tank to sort out the water  problems should be expedited.Otherwise, our lovely mothers have no business going to deliver there.

 

IEBC EXPLOTING KENYANS

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s move to charge people Sh.1O for confirming their voter registration details is exploitative.Hence it should consider offering free services.

If all the 14.3 million people confirm their registration details, IEBC will raise Sh.143 million which is very good for the commission, but for majority of Kenyans a purely exploitative move because it amounts to double taxation.

We wonder whether the government has stopped funding the operations of the commission.But this cannot be the case because Kenyans would have been informed.

On the other hand, the message the commission sends to  Kenyans for confirming their registration details has been designed poorly, a factor that will thwart the commission’s objective to raise the Sh 143 million if its readers are keen enough.

Part of the message reads thus:” Thank you for registering as voter” then at the end, a reader is given the number 15872 for sending their ID or passport number.

A keen reader will have no reason to confirm again because they have already been told that they have registered.Otherwise, if the designers of the message insist that their message is okay, they will be in for a rude shock.

Again, if they want us to confirm our registration details, this basically tells us that their staff are not competent enough to do high quality work.

What could possibly go wrong with a voter’s registration details when the electronic means were used and even the person registering being given a card showing  details correctly filled?

We should not be taxed double . IEBC should simply send free messages to all registered voters with the accurate details it was given at the time of registration.

Most importantly,there is no excuse for inaccuracy at the level of voter registration. If it is allowed, then we should not even expect the results of the March 4 elections to be credible.

Allowances for absentee ministers should indeed be slashed.

It is imperative to join hands with parliamentary backbenchers in pushing for the slashing  of sitting allowances accruing to those ministers  who fail to show up in parliament to answer questions.

This is because they abscond duty and yet they are still paid.

The only way for them to be accountable to the taxpayer is for them to ensure full appearance when needed.

IEBC Should borrow polling kit to save costs.

Economic reasoning compels the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to borrow polling kit.

If the funds it has at its disposal is insufficient to fund the most expensive election ever in Kenya, then borrowing polling kit becomes the best alternative.

Those opposing this move should stop over-relying on moral reasoning.It maybe shameful to borrow,but it is economically viable.

In any case who on earth does not borrow?