Author: NLM Correspondent

BY Albert Mwazighe For a long time now, our country has experienced the same old cycle of people who, after going to school, start the tedious journey of looking for a job in their field of study. I hold the view that there is no problem with gaining an education; the elephant in the room is the lack of job opportunities for skilled youth! As an about-to-graduate youth, I reflect on the bad year-in-out reality with a heaviness of heart. How can the government, through its Council for Higher Education (CHE), continue to allow the teaching of obsolete courses which…

By TNLM Writer Often, operational investment decisions are the result, at least in part, of the ability to fill needed skill sets from accessible talent pools. As more countries enter the global competition for talent, innovative policies for resolving this tension have emerged, including preferential visa regimes and quota procedures. One region that has tended to lag is Africa. While the free movement of labour is a principle enshrined in certain sub-regional agreements, often it is either not ratified or effectively implemented, while in other parts of Africa obstacles to mobility, even of talented Africans, are prohibitive, time consuming or…

Uganda doubles down on hot social media tax After a brief review period, Ugandan regulators have decided to double down on both the decision to charge citizens a daily levy for access to social media, and the controversial reasoning behind it. Since July 1, Ugandans have been paying 200 Uganda shillings ($0.05) a day to use social media. Whoever didn’t pay was blocked from accessing sites and apps; to get round the blockade, many people have been using virtual private networks rather than pay the social media tax. As a result of a recent meeting between Museveni and MPs, the tax is…

By David Onjili In 2013, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) launched The Growth Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS), to provide more long-term finance options to Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs). This was in recognition to a survey by FSD Kenya and the World Bank which noted that only 23.4% of SMEs had access to credit from banks, a situation made worse with the introduction of the interest capping rates in September 2016. Through GEMS, SMEs that had been in operation for more than one year without necessarily being profitable could still be listed in the bourse. By September 2013, GEMS had…

“Laws”, wrote the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, “are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.” In the law’s bestiary, there are few greater insects than the state. There is a school of thought that holds that the state is not only the greatest insect but also the most poisonous one. The state of the doctrine has been described as “profoundly unclear”, while Professor Nelson calls the doctrine “fuzzy at best”. Seidman describes the doctrine as living a “secret life”. The doctrine does not come to the public on its own; like a…

By Bernard Boy The drums of war could, subtly, be nigh in the Rift Valley, well ahead of the 2022 succession polls. This, at least, according to authoritative sentiments of respected political leaders well versed with the region’s ethno-political dynamics and history, in the wake of the fresh intricacies of the Mau Complex evictions that have since, once again, assumed a political dimension. Sample this. The scene is Sagoo, Narok South, on June 24, 2018, where Deputy President William Ruto orders the eviction of those living beyond the tea buffer zone created in 2015 by the Jubilee administration. This affects…

By Emeka-Mayaka Gekara It is a rare spectacle. It is the kind of thing you would not imagine in the House of Commons, US senate or even the Kenyan Parliament. The fighters, as they call themselves, attend the South African Parliament adorned in red hats, overalls, berets, domestic workers’ uniforms and head wrappings, otherwise known as doeks. This is in stark contrast with their competitors who dress in crisp suits or flowing dresses. The choice of dressing by the members of the Economic Freedom Fighters is calculated to reflect the much-criticised idealism that they embrace. They have packaged themselves as…

BY Alfred Mosoti When the winds of change wept cross Africa in early 1990s, many Kenyans allied to the then opposition believed the new system would finally emancipate them from post-independence tyrants, thereby bringing a paradigm shift in governance. Their hopes were further elevated when Section 2A of the old constitution was repealed transforming the country into a multi-party state, and enabling opposition parties – Ford-Kenya, Ford-Asili, Democratic Party (DP) and others) – to compete with the then ruling party Kanu, in the 1992 General election and subsequent polls. After Kanu won, the opposition assumed a watchdog role, putting the…

BY Kenyatta Otieno The Jubilee Coalition can be likened to a duck – tranquil above the water even as its webbed feet furiously row beneath the surface. Built on the premise of avoiding a repeat of the 2008 post-election clashes, it has lived up to its mandate, but only just. UhuRuto won the 2013 elections in an aura of bromance and cordiality. Unlike the 2008 National Accord-created coalition government between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki that was plagued by squabbles, Jubilee’s has been peaceful. Uhuru Kenyatta even handed over power temporarily to William Ruto to skirt around the legal provision…

By Yasin Arkan Mzee, It is not your fault. You did not fail to lead. You had no thought. You did not fail to protect. You had no dominion. You are not a child of two worlds; colonialism and post-colonialism, pre-World War II and post-World War II. You are child of no world. You are silent because you are lost. How can you become what you do not know? Who knows what a Kikuyu was? Was like? So that you could be Kikuyu? What does interring 1.5 million members of a primitive agrarian tribe do to its memory? It sears…