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CONVENING POWER VS DEVELOPMENT RECORD
A phrase bandied around during Kenyan electioneering periods is ‘Development Record.’ Development record represents all the tangible things that a parliamentary candidate has done for the electorate. These tangible things can range from the profound: initiating water projects and convincing the utility company to deliver electricity to your village, to the absurd: distributing shukas to women at the local market.
Whatever these developments are, they cost money and in most cases, for instance building roads and initiating rural electrification projects, significant clout within the corridors of power. The ultimate question then becomes, in the obvious absence of this might for young contenders, how will the much talked about generational change be realised this year?
Macharia’s response is one that betrays his background in the development industry, “It is about the size of your Rolodex,” he argues. Macharia believes that it is more worthwhile and ethical to leverage social and professional networks towards achieving tangible benefits on the ground than using one’s own financial resources and public office to bribe voters.
“One of the greatest assets any leader can have is Convening Power,” Macharia argues, “the ability to bring individuals and organisations together to solve a particular problem that a single individual cannot.” He illustrates this point with the story of a woman, Joyce Nyakinyua, a single mother of five that he met on a campaign trip to Kieni. Joyce depends on casual labour to fend for herself and her children and yet on the day Macharia met her, she had not found work for several weeks and her five year old son was so starved and his feet infested with jiggers he could barely walk. During this visit, Macharia was accompanied by his friend a catholic priest who runs a rescue centre for needy children in nearby Naromoru. The priest being touched by the plight of this family offered to take the children under his care. Yet a great imperative to keep the family unit together was noted and so the priest offered the mother a job on the spot.
In this jigger and poverty infested village in Kieni, giving cash handouts would have been the equivalent of the proverbial ‘giving a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish.’ But unfortunately giving cash handouts is the method that Kenyan politicians apply every year to their advantage. It works in postponing the grievances of the electorate for another five years when the politicians return to seek votes with the knowledge that the voters will still be poor and willing to sell their vote.
And though more sustainable models for empowering the people exist, they involve huge human and financial resources that are beyond the means of a single leader and that really shouldn’t, as Macharia sees it, be the sole responsibility of any individual. A good leader her says is the one that connects the needs of his/ her people with the resources of others. That is the reason why he is working closely with organisations such as the Kenya Network of Women with AIDS (KENWA) to support other families in need including facilitating the identification of HIV positive individuals and their subsequent enrolment into KENWA’s programmes.
GOVERNMENT FUNDS
The last few years have seen the government plough back a significant percentage of its revenues into units managed closer to the citizenry. This has seen the setting up of such entities as the Constituency Development Fund, the Local Authorities Transfer Fund and, more recently, the Youth Enterprise Fund.
Macharia applauds the Constituency Development Fund as a force that will steer Kenya’s from the politics of personalities to that of issues. The CDF has defined, through its proper management or the lack thereof, a distinct parameter within which a sitting member of parliament’s performance can be judged by the electorate.
In Kieni, particularly, Macharia contends that the general feeling on the ground is that the current MP has been a disappointment. In Murungaru’s tenure, the running of the CDF has been characterised by a leakage of funds and a seemingly nepotistic awarding of contracts a situation which Macharia believes that the voters will express their disaffection with at the ballot. Interestingly, though, the Chairman of the CDF committee, Mr. Mathenge Wanderi is also a contender for the Kieni seat and he considers what he sees as his prudent management of the CDF as an asset to his campaign. Clearly politicians will argue this way and that but only the voters will carry the day.
In the matter of the Youth Fund, Macharia chooses to disagree with government’s preferred mode of disbursement. The government, in Macharia’s view, shouldn’t be in the business of lending out money; they are not a financial institution and they lack the capacity to determine what is or is not a viable business idea. What the government, Macharia opines, should have done was create a guarantee fund that would serve as security against additional risk financial institutions measure youth borrowers to have. This would not only increase the amount of funding available to the youth by leveraging the institutions’ own liquid capital, but also ensure the institutions lend money to viable projects by having some skin in the game.
But even with access to start up capital, the main challenge for youthful entrepreneurs remains that of markets. One avenue through which markets could be opened to youthful entrepreneurs would be through giving them a weighed advantage in government procurement. Since the Government remains the biggest procurer of goods and services, by defining a formula through which businesses run by women and young people earn affirmative action points when responding to government tenders gives them an opportunity to raise their profile and grow their businesses while still in competition with established corporations.
Macharia is of the opinion that the youth are the country’s most entrepreneurial demographic group and there is an urgent need to harness their strength. The challenge for the youth becomes one of identifying existing gaps in the market and grabbing them. But that is best made possible by availing to them entrepreneurial skills’ training. And that especially for those youths who for varied reasons find themselves out of school at a considerably early stage and thus their chance at formal employment reduced.
THE CAMPAIGN
The battle for the Kieni seat will be long and bruising. The field is crowded and the contest will go down to the wire. But one thing is almost certain; that the candidate who gets nominated to run on the ticket of the same political party, most probably NARC-Kenya, as President Kibaki will take the spoils. And even as Macharia argues that this will be the year of the generational change in Kenya’s politics, he is throwing his lot in with the president’s. Indeed politics is about the strategies of self sustenance.
The number of candidates in Kieni who count on running on the ticket of the president’s yet to be declared party is staggering. As a matter of fact, and an indicator that Kieni will be won at the party nominations rather than at the general election, of the ten or so declared candidates only Mr. Mwangi Mbuthia is running on the ticket of another party- ODM Kenya- of which he is the Chairman in Kieni.
Macharia might want to take advantage of the huge youth and women vote but both Mrs Lucy Kairu, who is the widow of the late Munene Kairu and Mr. Nemeysyus Warugongo might want to directly appeal to the same demographic group and they have an edge over him in that they have been on the campaign trail longer, have a distinct financial advantage and have nurtured local networks for longer.
But Macharia is hopeful. He quotes a recent informal opinion poll held by a local radio station that put him second only to Mr.Warugongo. Mr. Warugongo was the runner up in the last election and has a history of involvement with local women and youth groups but Macharia argues that since Warugongo has been campaigning for at least six years, the tables can easily be turned. In the long run then, one can only hope for a free and fair election and one in which the will of the people of Kieni will prevail.
Mzalendo announces yet another new feature -in depth profiles of 2007 aspirants. Please let us know if you like the profiles. If you are an aspirant who would like to be featured, please contact us.
Kieni Through the Eyes of a Youthful Aspirant - Part 1
By CHARLES A. MATATHIA
A Nairobi based social scientist and freelance writer.
Edwin Macharia wanted to be a well-rounded doctor so he traded his University of Nairobi Medical School admission to join Amherst College in Massachusetts where he majored in Biology as a pre-cursor to medical school. As the fifth Kenyan in Amherst and with the others being Alfred Gitonga, Ngengi Muigai, Uhuru Kenyatta and Francis Michuki (John Michuki’s son), you would imagine Macharia as a child of privilege. Hardly so, he says, as his mother still lives in a house with no running water in rural Kenya.
But Macharia has done well by himself. Born in Nairobi in 1978, Macharia’s family moved a lot, a situation that he credits for giving him a complete Kenyan outlook and an appreciation of the diverse strings of ethnicity and class differences that weave together into Kenya’s social fabric.
He went to nursery school in Thika and then began his primary education at Mugumo-ini Primary School in that industrial town in central Kenya. Shortly after, his family moved to Homabay, in the South of Nyanza Province, where he attended Homa Bay Primary School for three years. It is at Homabay Primary that he had the ‘opportunity’ to learn under a tree an experience he chooses to wear as a badge of honour in marking out his authentic Kenyan experience. In Nyanza he found himself immersed in Luo culture and even learnt the language, a smattering of which he retains today.
But his journeys through Kenya weren’t over yet. Soon after, the Macharia family moved to Kericho and he was quickly transferred to Highland Primary School there. He spent a year at Highlands Primary before the family moved to Nyeri and he joined Nyeri’s Mount Kenya Academy where he sat for his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 1991. It is from there that he joined the prestigious Alliance High School and finally Amherst College.
Somewhere along his way towards being a doctor, he realized that it was one thing to earn the skills and qualification to save lives and another to find the right environment within which to do it. As he argues, he wanted to get his medical degree in America and return to Kenya to practice but he came to the conclusion that despite the shortage doctors in Kenya, what was ailing the health sector the most was flawed management of the existing resources. Macharia decided that the best way for him to be of greater benefit to the largest number of people was to hone his management skills. So when an opportunity to work with McKinsey and Company, a management consultancy that advises leading companies on strategy, operations, organization and technology, he grabbed it.
After two years at McKinsey, they offered him a five month sabbatical. They were paying him, he could come back after the break or he could go somewhere else. He opted to go somewhere else: The Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation offered him two choices: he could either join them in the Dominican Republic, or be part of the core team formulating the National HIV Plan in Tanzania.
He figured that as a Swahili speaker and a national of neighbouring Kenya, he would be of more value in Tanzania than in the Caribbean island. Besides, his father had just died of a coronary embolism the previous year. He needed to be close to home. And so Tanzania it became and there his journey as a globe trotting development worker began as he found himself staying on as The Clinton Foundation’s Deputy Country Director for Tanzania.
A short while later, Macharia was made a global director in the foundation’s Rural Initiative programme where he was tasked with spearheading the thought process towards creating and implementing solutions for service delivery of HIV/AIDS projects in rural areas. Then he was appointed the Director of Agriculture. This came with a 100 Million dollars budget directed towards rural development in Rwanda and Malawi with an emphasis on Agricultural and income development, health, water and sanitation and education.
After holding this post for one and a half years, he continued to feel that there were still other ways through which he could better apply himself towards achieving his quest to move forward Kenya’s and, broadly, Africa’s development. One of those ways was politics. Now he has taken a sabbatical from the Clinton Foundation to vie for a parliamentary seat in his home constituency of Kieni, in the Nyeri District of Central Kenya.
GEOGRAPHY
Kieni is a huge, in fact the largest in Nyeri District, constituency. It is bounded by Mt. Kenya on one side and the Aberdare Ranges on the other. These are two of Kenya’s most important water catchments yet the constituency remains predominantly dry; it is on the leeward side of both.
Served by two major trunk roads: the one from Nyeri towards Nyahururu in Kieni West the other from Nyeri towards Nanyuki in Kieni East, the constituency has two divisions with five locations each.
Kieni East division, on the leeward side of Mt. Kenya, is mainly arid and semi arid lands as the rains are generally poor. Water thus becomes an issue and a huge challenge to agriculture which tends to be the backbone of rural economies. But at least dairy farming is a source of succour. The dairy farming though, owing to diminishing plots of land is mainly of the one or two zero-grazed-cows variety. These dairy farms are served by two facilities very close by: The Nyeri K.C.C factory and a Brookside Dairies cooling plant. There are also a number of flower farms that create significant employment for the local people.
To the leeward side of the Aberdare Ranges lies Kieni West division. This area though receiving a little more rain, and its citizenry seeming generally more economically endowed, is faced with the selfsame challenges as the east of Kieni. Its dairy farmers are also, at great convenience served by the two dairy processors though the farmers there are in the process of setting up their own cooling plant through their cooperatives. Of great importance to this division is the existence of the gazetted Aberdare National Park a tourist attraction that beyond its national significance has a trickle down effect on the economy and well being of the local community through job creation and implementation of environmental management projects.
POLITICS
Politically, Kieni, since the introduction of multiparty politics in Kenya has maintained a strong support for the political leanings of Kenya’s current president Mwai Kibaki. Kibaki is also the Member of Parliament for Othaya constituency close by and as is elsewhere in the District of Nyeri, a nomination to vie for an elective seat on the ticket of a party supportive of him has seemed the sole requirement for any candidate’s election in Kieni.
The current Member of Parliament, Dr. Chris Murungaru, is a pharmacist whose political star rose in the early years of the Kibaki administration but its zenith proved to be at the nadir point of political infamy. Having been re-elected to parliament in a 1998 by-election occasioned by the death of his mentor and staunch Kibaki ally, Munene Kairu, Murungaru remained relatively unknown nationally until he was handed a contentious nomination certificate by the NARC headquarters as its candidate in the run up to the 2002 general election, was re-elected and appointed to the Kibaki cabinet.
Murungaru’s tenure as a cabinet minister lasted less than three controversy ridden years and was crowned by a disgraceful exit after the shake up that followed the Kibaki government’s loss in the November 2005 Referendum on a new constitution. Though nowhere charged and convicted in a court of law for impropriety (a case against him by the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission was thrown out on a technicality), Public Opinion has continued to judge Murungaru harshly with accusations of abuse of office and involvement in corrupt dealings a sentiment that has been heightened by the accusations of former Ethics and Governance Permanent Secretary, John Githongo. It didn’t help matters any wee bit when the UK government cancelled Murungaru’s visa on the grounds, as they claimed, of his involvement in the Anglo Leasing scandal.
Though no longer a member of the Kibaki cabinet now, Murungaru remains fabulously wealthy, a staunch supporter of the president and, with the benefit of incumbency to his advantage, a major player in the coming elections. So how does a youthful political novice like Edwin Macharia expect to win in Kieni and with at least ten other candidates, including Munene Kairu’s widow and the runner up in the last election having declared their candidature?
SECURITY
Edwin Macharia agrees that as far as Kieni goes Murungaru is still a force to reckon with. More than just loads of money, Murungaru as Macharia argues, tends to play dirty politics and is said to have flashed his gun at a polling station in the last election.
That could be the reason why Macharia admits that one of the biggest challenges to his campaign is security- or the lack of it- for both himself and his family. Driven by high unemployment rates among young people, and unscrupulous politicians, Macharia fears insecurity will feature prominently as the campaign heats up.
But even his own experience is telling: his father’s death was as a consequence to violent crime. His father was axed below the knee when a gang of armed thugs raided his Kieni home. He survived the attack but in recovery, blood clots formed leading to his coronary embolism. Macharia also says that in March of this year, a few weeks after the February launch of his campaign a car load of armed thugs pulled up at his mother’s gate. Though they did not harm anyone, only damaging some property, he is quick to worry and make connections to his declaration to run in Kieni.
Now that we put in place a facility to track aspants, we have been working on building the database.
We’ve added details for about 110 aspirants, so now we have details for 426 aspirants from 62 constituences!
We’ll continue to keep you informed whenever we make updates.
As ever, contact us if you have more information to add, or corrections to make or even to give ideas!
Miguna Miguna - aspirant for Nyando constituency.
We’ve been buring the midnight oil to add quite some exciting udates to mzalendo — we have built and are populating a searchable database of parliamentary aspirants.
Why? So you can know them:
We’re still iroing out rough edges but we think it is stable enough for you to use
This link takes you to a listing of all aspirants
Clicking the constituency link will give you a listing of all other aspirants, as well as the incumbent
Clicking the aspirant gives you their details
The public can also leave comments for each aspirant.
Naturally a search facility is available
This takes you to the query page where you can search on:
So far we have about 317 aspirants (yes, three hundred and 17) and that is only from 45 constituencies. We’re still populating the data on a daly basis.
As usual for corrections, additions, suggestions, etc, contact us
More and more aspirants are extending the campaigns to the internet. Our link for today is Antony Kibagendi, aspirant for Kitutu Chache.
Statement issued by Mars Kenya
The Government of Kenya issued IRREVOCABLE PROMISSORY NOTES valued at more than 56.33 BILLION shillings to GHOSTS. As Kenya’s Controller & Auditor General told Parliament in April 2006, these Promissory Notes were given to various parties - including Anglo Leasing and Finance Limited, for goods and services that did not exist, or if they did, were grossly over-priced. The nature of these illegal contracts and the MYSTERIOUS IDENTITY of the contractors mean that Kenyans will NEVER receive these goods and services nor be refunded for the huge price difference. No serious attempt has ever been made by the Government to redress this 56 Billion shilling rip-off. In fact, even now Kenyans are LEGALLY BOUND TO PAY this sum despite the obvious illegality of these transactions.
Irrevocable Promissory Notes are legitimate debt settlement commitments that allow payments to be made in future or in installments on fixed dates. Issued by a government they represent SOVEREIGN PAPER and cannot be cancelled, unless there is verifiable evidence of FRAUD in the contracts for which they are used as settlement. Irrevocable Promissory Notes like other forms of Commercial Paper can be sold to 3rd parties – typically financial institutions or other open market investors, buying at a discount.
By seeking to withhold payment on certain Irrevocable Promissory Notes linked to Anglo-Leasing type contracts, Kenya has already been SUED locally and overseas. One of our Embassy premises in Europe has already been attached over some of these contracts and we can expect many other INTERNATIONAL LAWSUITS.
Almost half of Kenyans live on less than Kshs 68/=, (1 US$) per day. Every MAN, WOMAN OR CHILD living under this poverty line would have received almost Kshs 4,000 per person –if this money had been simply handed to them. Instead more than 17 Million Kenyans are saddled with a debt of Kshs 4,000 per person, for goods and services that none of us will ever receive.
56.33 BILLION shillings can pay for the proposed HEALTH BILL and give EVERY KENYAN access to FREE MEDICAL CARE for a year. 56.33 BILLION shillings would have paid for 8 YEARS OF NATIONAL CDF ALLOCATIONS. 56.33 BILLION shillings is 28 TIMES THE YOUTH FUND ALLOCATION.
The Government of Kenya has LIED TO KENYANS MANY TIMES that these contracts were cancelled. The TRUTH is that these contracts have not been cancelled. There is no evidence of cancellation. Further, the Government has contractually bound its citizens to pay this illegitimate debt and the Attorney General has given the Ghost Companies a legal Opinion that binds the Government to honour the Irrevocable Promissory Notes.
Kenyans must now ask the Government and their Members of Parliament, to whom they entrusted the mandate of protecting their assets, this question -WHERE ARE THE PROMISSORY NOTES?
GOVERNMENT and PARLIAMENT must ACCOUNT to the Kenyan people. The following questions are in the Order Paper of Parliament today, Wednesday 2nd MAY 2007, scheduled for the afternoon session.
1. What Is The Status Of The Various Anglo Leasing Type Financing Promissory Notes?
2. What Is Their Value?
3. Have You Paid Any Since the Public Announcement That The Government had Stopped Payments For These Type Of Deals?
In our opinion, should the Minister for Finance be willing to be truthful, he can only respond by addressing the following issues:
• According to the Controller and Auditor General as at April 2006 Audit findings were that
1. Paragraph 5.8 Government was committed to spending a total of 56.33 Billion; the commitments were in the form of Irrevocable Promissory Notes which were given to the credit providers on the day the credit agreements were signed. In layman terms the C&AG is saying that as at the date of his report, the Government did not have the Irrevocable Promissory Notes and they had not been cancelled. If they had been returned or cancelled, nothing would have been easier than the C&AG to put that in his report. This suggests that the former Minister of finance could not have been telling the truth in June 2004 and subsequent Government statements that no money has been lost cannot be true either.
2. Paragraph 5.17 The C&AG as of April 2006 was also saying that the following credit providers to whom the Irrevocable Promissory Notes had been given do not exist and are not bona fide registered business firms
Anglo Leasing & Finance Limited – Liverpool England
Sound Day Corporation – Daventry England
Infotalent Limited – Geneva Switzerland
Midland Finance & Securities Limited – Geneva Switzerland
Apex Finance Corporation – Geneva Switzerland
First Mercentile Securities – Geneva Switzerland
In layman terms the Government had committed itself in writing and had issued sovereign paper committing to pay 56.33 Billion allegedly borrowed from companies that do not exist.
3. What evidence does the Minister have as proof that any of these fictitious companies actually advanced or secured any credit for the Government of Kenya in consideration of the Irrevocable Promissory Notes that they were given?
4. In the final analysis the only means by which the Minister for Finance can answer the question on the status of the Irrevocable Promissory Notes as a representative of a purported borrower is if
- The Irrevocable Promissory Notes have been presented and paid and the Minister can report on who has presented and who he has paid
- The Irrevocable Promissory Notes have been presented and not been paid and the Minister can report on why he has not paid them and who has presented them for payment
- The Minister knows who the alleged credit providers/lenders are and is reporting on what they tell him is the status of the Irrevocable Promissory Notes
- The Irrevocable Promissory Notes have been discounted, (bearing in mind that a lender is under no obligation to inform the borrower when he sells a debt) and therefore the Minister would only report on the status of the Irrevocable Promissory Notes, if he is in contact with the current holders of Kenya’s sovereign debt
- The Irrevocable Promissory Notes have been voluntarily returned and the Minister is reporting on who has voluntarily returned the Irrevocable Promissory Notes. In this case Parliament would still require that the Minister table the evidence of such a return and the formal commitment from whoever returned the Irrevocable Promissory Notes that the Government is Irrevocably and Unconditionally discharged of all legal and financial obligations to the alleged lenders or their successors
- The Minister can lastly report that he does not know the status of the Irrevocable Promissory Notes
5. The Irrevocable Promissory Notes are Legal instruments that are enforceable against the Government of Kenya. This is the opinion of the Attorney General which was given to the lenders as security for the Irrevocable Promissory Notes which are themselves a security for repayment for a series of alleged loans worth 56.33 billion contracted in secret and unlawfully by this Government and its predecessors in breach of the External Loans Act which requires Parliament to be informed as soon as practicable. Even the PWC Contract Document in its terms of reference confirms this position
6. The C&AG in paragraph 5.21 said the Government was in effect funding the so called financiers to finance the procurement of the goods and services due under the contracts while also paying interest and other financing costs. For the C&AG to say this suggests that all Irrevocable Promissory Notes issued by the Government on this contracts were fraudulent.
THE IRREVOCABLE PROMISSORY NOTES ARE STILL OUT THERE. WHERE? WHO HAS THEM? DOES GOVERNMENT KNOW WHO HAS THEM?
Kenyans will now want to know where their Member of Parliament stands on the issue of Irrevocable Promissory Notes and whether the Members of Parliament will stand by, watch, witness and oversee this massive looting of the People of Kenya’s hard earned money.
EVERY SINGLE KENYAN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Call or SMS your Member of Parliament as it is your right and demand that your Member of Parliament protects your interests and ensures that you will not be liable to pay for goods and services that you do not receive. This is a matter of National Importance