http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/m/?articleID=2000109710&story_title=Why-easing-the-wage-bill-burden-should-be-collective-responsibility

NO SIR , YOU CAN KEEP THE DOLLARS , MR OBAMA . xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx America is the undisputed embodiment of all that is evil . It so abounds on its land that the authorities wish to export it to Africa , their preferred traditional dumping ground . From DDT , orchestrated civil strife , forced regime changes , substandard merchandise to nuclear waste , Africa is the answer to their problems and experiments . Today , a person no less than the president of America , wants us to either embrace gayism or kiss their dollars goodbye . Kudos to the presidents of Nigeria , Mali , Zimbabwe and Uganda for upholding the principals of morality and refusing to base their values on the strength and allure of the dollar . God created man in his own image and gave us a set of rules to follow . Sodomy and lesbianism are anathema . Blind acceptance of corrupted Western values has so eroded our version of morality we have been transported back in time to the era of zinjanthropus . If the birds of the air and animals of the wild get attracted to the opposite sex , why shouldnt man ? All the precious things in the world , silver, gold , gas and diamonds are hidden deep down under , not easy to find. Wonders of nature are found in the deep seas away from prying eyes . Our precious hearts and brains are all hidden in tough places , out of sight . The human body is much more precious , it is Gods temple , why make it cheap by decadently exposing it for all and sundry to ogle ? Those that look at president Musevenis action after signing the anti gay and pornography bills abstractly will miss the essence and accuse him of infringement on individual freedoms . Let us contextualise the issue and in the place of that anonymous half naked woman on the streets , put either your mom , wife , daughter or sister . Will your perception remain the same ? Gods wrath for mankinds disobedience and insolence is manifest in the biblical accounts of the tower of Babel , Noah and the ark , Sodom and Gomorah and the time Jesus got so worked up he literally threw merchants trading out of a church . The Arab world , steeped in Sharia laws , has higher moral standards than anybody else and America would not dare try their simplistic approach to morality there . What we should be asking ourselves is , does it pain to be decent ?

RULE OF LAW MUST REIGN SUPREME ........................................... Our political dispensation allows disrespect for the rule of law to become the norm rather than the exception . Within the three arms of government , disdain for each other in the discharge of duties is the order of the day . While castigating the Governors open defiance to summons to appear before the Senate , the presidents contention that even he is accountable to the national parliament rings hollow . Amidst all the corruption highlighted , has he ever demonstrated that ? There have been a number of public appointments by the president that openly breached the law . Rarely has he retracted . In direct breach of article 227 of the kenya constitution , without tendering , China road and bridge company was awarded the contract to build a standard gauge railway line at an exorbitant cost compared to a similar undertaking in Ethiopia . Challenged by some legislators , the president did not mince words in saying the project would go on , like it or not . This does not conform to the principal of accountability whose first rule is willing submission to the oversight authority . The president once publicly hit out at parliamentary committees for summoning his cabinet secretaries , hardly respect for the legislature . Similarly , some of the summons amounted to the legislature attempting to micro manage the executive . The president has constantly lambasted the judiciary for overturning some of his decisions in sacking the small fish in corruption cases . At some point , parliament attempted to muscle in on the judiciary on matters internal by summoning members of the judicial service commission to appear before it in relation to the sacking of the former chief registrar of the judiciary and the allegations she made . While not holding brief for the judiciary , the courts are justified in granting injunctions . As an arbitrar in disputes , courts rely on injunctions to maintain the status quo at the point of inflamation untill a case is heard to its logical conclusion . Without these injuctions , courts will appear to favour one side . My point of departure with the judiciary is when injunctions are granted to allow known criminals evade justice . All said and done , we must acknowledge the supremacy of the rule of law . Any form of disobedience to it , led by the executive and legislature , is a recipe for anarchy . Ultimately , all differences of opinion , be they political , social or economic , are resolved by the courts . Where the law is not clear it is the courts that will give an interpretation on the way forward . The courts proper interpretation of the constitution will give clear boundaries within which each arm of government can operate .

SCRAP THE SENATE , IT IS SUPERFLUOUS . xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx If today somebody proposed to amend the new constitution it will generate intense heat and suspicion . It took us over twenty years of infighting to get a new constitution , by which time each of the belligerents had an agenda they wanted accommodated . Consequently , what we ended up with was a compromise document that appeased individuals , groups , minorities and the civil society . The euphoria that abounded during the referrundum made many people happy except for the spirited attempts by oppositionists to have the document rejected. Even in their objections , the oppositionists appeared subjective and tended to stir emotions by singling out obscure legislation on the emotive land issue , same sex marriages and abortion . The ensuing acrimonious debate and propagation of falsehoods suggested that nobody had read the document comprehensively and exhaustively . Leaders selectively read sections that could advance their causes and preached their version of the gospel to an obliging public . Only now are the grey areas emerging and the document might not stand the test of scrutiny . The application of the two thirds rule in public appointments proved to be a vexer. The principal of separation of powers between the three arms of government has led to public altercations . The standoff between them is threatening devolution . The relevancy of the senate is now in question . An intended motion by hon Jeremiah Kioni to scrap the senate sometimes back was meritorious . We need not hide behind inhibitive catchy phrases like " upholding the constitution " , "oversighting " and "accountability " to avoid effecting some minor changes . Through clauses 95 , 255 to 257, the same constitution many want upheld is amenable to amendments which serve to make it better. We all know error is to human and we cannot omit to correct an anomaly just because the constitution is`new'. Failure or refusal to amend the previous one landed us into many problems . However , we cannot ignore the stipulation in the constitution that enjoins county governments , the National assembly , senate and the citizenry in any amendments . If within the confines of the law the threshold for amendment is met , so be it . Meeting this threshold first required that we have the senate and county governments in place . Nevertheless , the political structure outlined in the new constitution actually renders the senate superfluous . It simply duplicates work and burdens the taxpayer unnecessarily . With a central government to oversee things , county governments to harness and manage local resources and a representative parliament in place , why do we need an appendage that is the senate ? A senate is not necessary if its work is to represent the divergent interests of individual counties and more often than not , fight Governors . Having a national parliament and a Senate assembly is simply splitting hairs and as things stand now , MPs dont have enough work to do . Isnt it possible to set up two houses within parliament without resorting to elected senators ? Depending on experience and seniority we can still have an upper and lower house of parliament . We can borrow a leaf from the judiciary where , from among the judges , there are those selected to exercise superior authority over others as in the high court , court of appeal and the supreme court . From their own pronouncements , Senators are on ego trips . They have personalised pertinent issues as to rob them of substance and what they are propagating is war for supremacy . It irks them to hear Governors called excellency , fly national flags on their cars , have motorcades and control county finances as they , Senators , move around unnoticed . Parliaments ganging up with the Senate to challenge the judiciary is a recipe for chaos .

HELP !! WHERE IS THE CHURCH NOW THAT ACTIVISTS ARE RETIRING ? ; ........................................ We all saw the police cars , they did not appear over used . The ambulances and the fire engines are there too . In this years CECAFA challenge cup , we witnessed the Machakos stadium , though muddy , host a match . The Machakos recreational park is a reality . The roads in the once dusty town are being recarpeted afresh to the delight of residents . We thought all was well and applauded loudly . And then the auditor generals report comes in and spoils the party for everybody except one Mr Muthama , who must be grinning from ear to ear . Is it humanly possible to prepare soup , get the ingredients in the right proportions without tasting ? Who among the vociferous Senators is clean that we should allow him to throw the first stone at Dr Mutua and the other governors , for that matter ? Is impeachment and witch hunting the magical solutions to embedded corruption ? In this country , corruption is a virtue . The half hearted approach to fighting it will never win the war . Why not just legalise corruption alongside gayism and lesbianism ? Now , as a good friend of mine observed , everybody with the title Governor is under siege , starting with the central bank governor and the county governors , who is going to be next in the cross hairs? Someone help me here . From president to county reps , has anyone , in the one year jubilee has been in leadership , been allowed to execute their mandate in peace ? Have the judges and magistrates been allowed time to practise their trade in peace ? Before we know it , five years will be over with nothing but mindless squabbles to show for it . The cycle of regrets and recriminations will kick in for the uptenth time . For every step forward , this great nation will have made two backwards . It is about time the church stepped in and restored some sanity in this lunatic asylum called Kenya . It has been standing on the fringes for far much too long that it is loosing relevance . An institution once reverred is watching helplessly as politicians strangle development at every turn . Politicians have all proved to be lunatics , enjoying an exhilirating ride on the lunatic express that leads to nowhere . They are lost within themselves , oblivious of the surroundings . Funny , the activists are now 'retiring' , leaving the church to be the sole peoples watchman .

GOOD STUFF FROM PROF MAKAU MUTUA . ...................................... http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/m/story.php?id=2000104711&pageNo=1

GOVERNOR WAMBORAS IMPEACHMENT WILL OPEN A PANDORAS BOX ........................................... For having impeached Embu governor mr Wambora , Kenyan senators must be feeling very proud of themselves . They have been earnestly seeking relevance and finally the impeachment gives them a footing . In the supremacy wars , they have cowed governors and left the national parliaments ego bruised . At this nascent stage of devolution when everybody is groping in the dark , it suffices to just make lots of scary noises to put people in line . Going a step further to remove a first line governor from office will open a pandoras box and the precedent set is a dangerous one . The Lancaster house constitution might be on its way back . Without fear of contradiction , am categorical that not a single governor is innocent of the charges levied against mr Wambora . Do we sack them all ? While the senate was deliberating on mr Wamboras fate , a visiting Columbia university professor , mr Mohammed Mamdani was giving a lecture on the fact that courts cannot dare overturn a presidential election for fear of upsetting the system. This is something we all know but are timid to acknowledge . There is a parallel between the presidency and governorship . Governors are the lesser president in their respective counties and there should be unwritten laws , in judicial parlance , that protect them except in very extreme cases like blatant abuse of office and mental health . Breaching the public finance and procurement acts , not theft , was the basis for sacking mr Wambora . Procurement in this country has never been above board . Processes involving tendering have been the most corrupt , the lastest being the standard gauge railway line tender and the primary schools laptop project . How many people have been brought to book over them ? Or perhaps these are special cases , the untouchables alongside Triton , Goldenburg and Anglo leasing ? The thresholds for the presidency and governorship are at par . Allowing quarrelsome members of county assemblies who , for decades have rivaled deranged football holigans in throwing chairs and all manner of missiles at each other as a result of mental handicaps to impeach governors is exposing devolution and governors to open blackmail . A good number of the MCA's are semi-literate , highly sentimental and ideologically challenged . Their intellectual depth is seriously wanting . Governors will now have to switch to survival mode by dancing to the tune of the MCA's . These fellows should never have been given powers to initiate the impeachment of governors . I must congratulate senators Gideon Moi and Lenny Kivuti for seeing beyond their noses and refusing to be part of the myopic lynch mob . Now that senator Dr Bonny Khalwales professional training has taken over , perhaps he should come to the aid of the president , his deputy , embattled governors , clueless senators and befuddled MCA's by sacking them all to alleviate the financial burden of treating ulcers and high blood pressure triggered by the mere act of holding office. With everybody , including foreign envoys , Bensouda and the opposition taking a poke at the president and his deputy , they all must be having very high blood pressure and more ulcers than are good for their health . The good doctor should watch where he is going lest he trips somewhere along the line .