Author: NLM Correspondent

By Vipul Shah Kenya has continuously stood out as the place to invest in in sub-Saharan Africa in spite of the challenges that it faces. Investors continue to be bullish about the economy because of Kenya’s importance to the regional economy and its focus on investments around the Big 4 Agenda. As we look forward to the reading of the Kenya Budget 2019/2020, let’s consider the outlook on the Kenyan economy. The macroeconomic environment Kenya’s economy was forecast to grow at 5.9 per cent earlier this year. This has been brought down to 5.8 per cent due to the failed…

By Ndung’u Wainaina Kenya is in the critical situation of trying to consolidate a fragile transitional phase of the country from decades of authoritarianism, macabre violence and promulgation of new constitutional order that established devolved system of governance. It is necessary that we take concrete steps to address comprehensively the deep-seated state fragility, long-standing social political and economic grievances, and re-evaluate the roles and functions of nascent Constitutional social and political institutions that form the basis of securing the political and social stability of the country in long run. Kenya is yet to find her long-term solid fundamentals for sustainable inclusive economic growth…

By Shadrack Muyesu The average Nairobian earns a paltry Sh10,000 per month. A third of this amount goes to house rent, transport takes a quarter of what remains and food, fees and related expenses squeeze into the rest. Clearly, it isn’t enough. To survive therefore, he juggles creditors – borrowing from one to pay off the other, spreading the risk between mama mboga, the kiosk fellow, the bank and mobile lenders. And when he has gone full circle, he simply vanishes. It’s a terrible way to live life. With no insurance and nothing in terms of savings and investment, a…

By NLM Writer As soon as the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo revealed the names of six Kenyans who he believed bore the greatest responsibility for the 2007/2008 post-election violence, he also inadvertently set the country on a full-blown campaign mode. For Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, who were the prominent names in the list of six, it would be a campaign to save themselves from the jaws of the beast. And so, as the 2013 elections approached, the two, who had formed a coalition, looked for something that would divert public attention from…

By Antony Mutunga Around the world, governments are concerned about the increasing threat that financial crime has on economic growth. Many companies and people are affected by the trillion-dollar industry which is as old as the concept of money. Sadly, the perception that most people have is that financial crime has no real victim or cost. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Financial crime, which lacks a universally accepted definition, can be described as any act or attempted act whereby an external or internal agent illegally manipulates, defrauds, appropriates or circumvents legislation against an individual, institution or government. It…

By Kevin Motaroki Performing artist and scholar Salome Mshai once argued, “We need to be wary of the tendency to consider our education system solely as a factory churning out human resources, and begin to think about how we must use it to prepare the next generation to participate fully in all aspects of life.” Her summary of what ails Kenya’s education system is as relevant today as it was after independence. Ever since the founding president Jomo Kenyatta declared “poverty, ignorance and disease” as the greatest threats to our nationhood, the overriding objective of successive governments has been to…

By Shadrack Muyesu Sometime in 2004, Parliament amended the law to accord itself defining powers in the constitutional review process. Vide the Constitution of Kenya Review (Amendment) Act, 2004, it established that it had power to alter a draft constitution emerging from a consultative process before it was subjected to a referendum. The matter went to the High Court, which ruled in Parliament’s favour. In ‘Onyango & 12 others v Attorney General & 2 others miscellaneous civil application no 677 of 2005’, Justice (s) Joseph Nyamu, Roselyne Wendoh and Anyara Emukule found that, acting in its representative capacity, Parliament had…

By Fuad Abdirahman In Kenya, talk of revolution has always been on people’s lips, but the one unanswered question remains whether citizens can ever get fed up enough to revolt against their – in the words of various proponents of the idea – corrupt, uncaring, despotic government. So far what we have witnessed are trend online fashioned along the lines of a tired populace that will one day rise against its oppressor. Before the now-famous handshake happened in March 2018, the conversation on resistance against the current regime was momentous, with opposition chief Raila Odinga declaring himself as the people’s…

By David Onjili It is not an ideal world. If it were, James Aggrey Orengo would not just be or have been president; according to some observers, he’d also be the undisputed kingpin of the Luo nation. Politics, admittedly, is a contest and in Kenya it defies the laws of human nature and hierarchy. In the midst of the enduring anomaly that is our brand of politics, the second-term senator has had to adjust to be content with being one of the leading minds of opposition politics, parliament and the corridors of justice. His constituents consider him a gift to…

By Fuad Abdirahman In times gone by, particularly between the 1960s to the late ‘90s, university students were a thorn in the flesh for the state, giving autocratic regimes sleepless nights on account of their radical “subversive” activities. This is how units like the dreaded Special Branch – now more or less the National Intelligence Services – were born. Its members were – sometimes recruited students themselves – were deployed to lecture halls to spy for government. It is university students who championed the cause for multi-party democracy and agitated for change when no one else could stand up to…