The Ministry of Health should be challenged to reconsider its recent directive that the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) can only foot bed charges for patients seeking health services in faith-based hospitals. For families with terminally ill patients, this intervention is too little too late considering that they are required to pay one-year premiums before seeking admission in such hospitals. Whereas the quality of palliative care is generally satisfactory in faith-based hospitals, the cost remains relatively high due to the direct and indirect costs of securing the services. The upshot of this is that families will end up paying a…
Author: Mbugua Ng’ang’a
A day after The Nairobi Law Monthly published a commentary challenging Football Kenya Federation (FKF) to address the challenges facing the sport, new allegations have emerged linking national team goalkeeper Patrick Matasi to a match fixing. In a leaked video released on Thursday, March 27, a man’s voice is heard instructing Matasi to ensure that he concedes a goal within the first half of a game. The voice is believed to be that of a match-fixing agent, who is heard promising the goalkeeper money from a third party on condition that he ensures a goal is scored. Matasi, whose face…
President William Ruto has effectively fired Mr Justin Muturi from the Cabinet just days ahead of his anticipated tour of the Mt Kenya region. Mr Muturi was the Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Human Capital Development and Social Programmes. The President has nominated Mr Geoffrey Kiringa Ruku, currently the Member of Parliament for Mbeere North to replace Mr Muturi. Mr Ruku is a DP legislator, meaning that the pre-election Memorandum of Understanding between the President’s UDA party and the Democratic Party still holds. Mr Muturi was the leader of DP until his appointment to the Cabinet. In other far-reaching changes…
Whereas there are those who have argued that football fans without tickets for last weekend’s Kenya versus Gabon game did well to storm the Nyayo National Stadium, I wish to advance the view that the reprehensible means did not justify the end. Football, like all civilized activities, demands order, rule of law and predictability. As such, it was wrong for goons to breach one of the gates of the stadium and illegally access areas reserved for paying fans. This makes nonsense of the idea of ticketing. It beats logic for a law-abiding citizen to spend time and money acquiring a…
Edward Kisiang’ani’s removal as Permanent Secretary for Broadcasting and Telecommunications on Thursday, March 20, marked a major turning point in the relationship between the government and the media. During his two-year stint, he muddied the waters so much that there is now no love lost between government and media. This at a time when the government has come under unrelenting criticism on social media, in large part because operatives like Kisiang’ani consider legacy media to be the cause of the government’s migraines, which have been worsening by the day, largely because of its intransigence. True, the relationship between the two…
June 27, 2021 would have passed as just another fun-filled and dusty day in the bundus of Hell’s Gate, Naivasha, where the Safari Rally championship was taking place. The then Sports minister, Amina Mohammed, had invited Lisa Christoffersen to enjoy the last leg of that year’s World Rally Championship (WRC) Kenya tour. Together with their friends and family, they were cheering on the roaring vehicles which were zooming towards the finishing ramp when Lisa noted a peculiar trend: There were no women drivers taking part in the rally! “I am only seeing ladies standing on the sidelines as cheerleaders,” she…
The drums of war have in the recent past thrust Goma, the capital of the North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, into the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Although this is a region that has a vibrant economic tempo, it has been rocked by armed conflict, with the most recent development being the entry into the city of M23 forces who ousted the military from the region. When the pulsating sounds of cultural and economic drums replace the roar of gunfire, Goma, a port city, comes alive as a thriving border town that is not only…
Politics, just like economics, is one of the key factors that determine the sharing of national resources. The only difference between the two is that in countries with elective politics, such as Kenya, the populace has a direct say in who controls political levers. These, in turn, determine the economic policies, and by extension fortunes, of the people and the country. When citizens cast their ballots, they are in effect delegating their power and authority to political players and mandating them to take actions that will have implications on the economy. When, for instance, Azimio One Kenya Coalition went to…
Every man is mortal. Wafula Wanyonyi Chebukati was a man, and he died aged 63 in a Nairobi hospital on the night of February 20, about a day after social media had killed him. Though he had left the office of chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in January 2023, he breathed his last without laying eyes on his successor, no thanks to the long drawn process to select the next set of commissioners. In a country where people in the public limelight are viewed through politically tinted lenses, it is no surprise that Chebukati was long…
Although the role of immigration in the creation of the African-American demographic has never been truly appreciated, it is now important to revisit it given the emerging trend of “reverse migration” engineered by the Trump administration. Although the initial waves of movement of people of colour from Africa to the US was involuntary to the extent that it was driven by the vicissitudes of slavery, the need for labour that drove this wave persisted even after emancipation, when a monetary value was assigned to the labour of African Americans under capitalism. Over the years, America – styling itself as the…