Author: NLM Correspondent

By Antony Mutunga According to the World Bank, in 2017 the manufacturing sector accounted for 16 percent of the global GDP. Good news, right? Not so much for Africa. Manufacturing is considered the weakest link in Africa’s ongoing integration into the global economy. According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the contribution of the sector to the continent’s gross domestic product has actually declined from 12 percent in 1980 to 10 percent in 2017. Even though Africa is full of the raw materials that make other economies thrive, a large quantity is never manufactured or refined on the…

By Shadrack Muyesu On January 22, 2019, the President assented to a miscellaneous law which inter alia sought to amend the Registration of Persons Act, CAP 107 of 1947. The amendments were to allow the State powers to collect personal information for purposes of creating a National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS). In its words, NIIMS is a central master population register that will be the “authentic single source of truth on a person’s identity.” Everyone from the age of six, including those living broad, was to be registered. In order to constitute the NIIMS database, the Government ordered Kenyans…

Detectives are investigating why a company associated with a senior Jubilee Party official was given part of Sh58 billion Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) insurance contract. The detectives have asked for documents related to Tender Number KPC/PU/001-OT/16 for the cover of Line V, additional PS10 Tanks, and the Kisumu Oil Jetty which was awarded to CIC Insurance Company running from 1st June 2016 to 30th June 2019. Investigations have established that after the awarding the tender to CIC Insurance, Sedgwick Insurance Brokers, the brokerage firm twice requested Kenya Pipeline Company to allow African Merchant Assurance Company Limited (AMACO) Insurance take over…

By NLM Writer A Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officer leading a probe into the irregular purchase by Kenya Pipeline (KPC) of a parcel of land was transferred a week after interrogating the sister-in-law to Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet. This is the second time in a year the detective has been transferred while at the critical stage of investigations into several KPC fraud cases in which the IG’s sister-in-law is a suspect. The detective identified as Police Constable Patrick Shiundu, formerly of the Flying Squad, had been transferred to Turkana as he was finalising investigations into Sh647 million pay-out for…

By Joel Okwemba While noting that the Kenya/Somalia dispute and its decision thereof rests with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the diplomatic decisions to the solution rest in the leaderships of both countries. Noteworthy is that the legal processes are actions of the last resort if any other pacific means of settlements of dispute by the parties involved is untenable. As a final resort to pacific settlement of the dispute, Kenya invited Somalia to enter into “provisional arrangements of a practical nature” pending the agreement on maritime boundary on May 25, 2016. This, however, did not mature into a…

By Abdiqani Ismail The debate about minimum qualification for admission to teachers training college has resurfaced following a Kenya National Qualifications Authority directive that seeks to lower the entry requirement for the college. The directive was opposed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) on grounds that it would lower the quality of teaching, where the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Ambassador Amina Mohamed, had cited the constitutional provision on affirmative action – which she justified with the idea that students perform well when accorded the environment to thrive. According to Mohamed, students from marginalized regions lack such opportunities; consequently, the lower…

By Dr Willy Mutunga Elections are an important pillar of our democracy. The right to vote must not be taken lightly. The duty to protect that vote is also an important democratic imperative. There is an emerging, and a rapidly entrenching notion, that electors or voters no longer decide who their leader are – whether in party primaries or the general election itself – and that leaders are decided either by party barons, manipulated electoral management agency, or by the courts. In Africa, there is a widening chasm between voting and counting – an irony of literacy where peasants (most…

Aden Duale’s most famous quote is “Hii pesa si ya mama yako bwana,” for which he almost came to blows with former Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto. This was back when he was “noisy”, and ruled the roost of public opinion. In a way, he was the “total man.” It would now seem that the man who made a career out of “responding to Raila Odinga” is suddenly nowhere to be seen, particularly after the March 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Odinga. His about turn was spectacular after the historic handshake. In his own words, “Raila Odinga is a…

By Calvine Oredi Kenya faces corruption as one of its major challenges and ending it has proved elusive with un-ending judicial circuses. As some sort of un-emphasized tool, protecting whistle-blowers becomes a sure way of nailing corruption cartels, to ensure their safety from the corruption kingpins. For the war on corruption to be eradicated, deliberate attempts must be made to protect whistle blowers willing to expose mega corruption scandals. Because of the serious threats and dreadful consequences emanating from the perpetrators, fear of whistle blowing has resulted in many corruption scandals going un-reported, in what would be otherwise straightforward accounts…

NLM Writer Officials of the Kenya Judicial Staff Association have filed a preliminary objection seeking to stop have a case in which a member wants to stop monthly remittances from members. KJSA wants the court to stop the case going into full hearing on grounds that the freezing order sought by the petitioner will cripple its activities to the detriment of members. In the objection heard by Justice Hillary Chemitei of Kitale High Court on February 6 2019, the officials also submit that the court lacks the jurisdiction to hear and determine the application. The association also wants the court…