One must have a heart of stone not to be moved by the suffering that hundreds of thousands of ailing Kenyans — particularly the poor and the elderly — are having to endure due to failure by the new health system to ensure they get timely treatment. The whole point of changing, reforming or tweaking with public programmes, such as the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), is to make provision of health services seamless. What has happened, instead, is that Kenyans in dire need of urgent health services have been subjected to regrettable pain because the Government appears to be…
Author: Mbugua Ng’ang’a
Whereas the Government — through its disciplined services — enjoys the legal monopoly to unleash violence, and whereas it has a duty to compel compliance using these instruments of violence, it has no justification whatsoever to unleash mindless violence against its citizens. The officers authorised by law to carry — and deploy — arms derive the legitimacy to be called disciplined services from a mindful and measured application of these instruments. When they deviate from this established norm, they lose that legitimacy and ought to be called rogues. Sadly, that is the space that the police service finds itself in.…
The ‘Murima’ region has literally and figuratively become the rocky mountain of Kenyan politics, and at the epicentre of it is Deputy President Rigathy Gachagua, the self-style “truthful men” who finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place. The first strand of this rocky relationship between the Mountain and the Centre started soon after the 2022 election, when the Deputy President asked newly elected Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja to allocate four County Executive seats to “shareholders” from the Mt Kenya region. Mr Sakaja gave him none, instead opting to reward allies of Mr Raila Odinga, whose ODM party…
Schools are, by their nature, expected to be safe spaces where children can learn without having to worry about their safety or other mundane problems of life, such as hunger. But when school dormitories become halls of death, the heart of every parent shudders, because the worst nightmare for a parent is receiving a call from their child’s school only to be told that the child is no more. As a country, we have invested a great deal of money in conducting inquiries into how we can make schools safer and how we can mitigate disasters such as fires. We…
It is distressing that 3,056 Kenyans died in road crashes between January 1 and August 27, a worrying increase from the 2,910 fatalities reported over the same period last year. There are no prizes for guessing that this unfortunate toll will continue to grow for as long as road users continue to obey traffic rules in the breach. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway, which is turned into a scene from hell every weekend as motorists break all the rules imaginable, beginning with overlaps that create up to five lanes one way. This, for me, is…
Driving around Kenya, one is accosted, in every county, by the large number of public institutions that are going to seed because the national government and counties have failed to budget for repairs and maintenance, particularly of buildings and installations. A case in point is the Kipchoge Keino Stadium in Uasin Gishu, which is not only abandoned with the work less than half done but which has probably earned its place as Kenya’s top monument of shame. Uasin Gishu prides itself as “the home of champions”. Its athletes have made Kenya proud by their sterling achievements on the global stage.…
Proceedings against embattled Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza, which have been going on at the Senate Monday and Tuesday, have raised important questions about what infringements ought to be considered impeachable. This will be important going forward because there is a risk of watering down impeachment proceedings to the point where they are treated as an extension of grassroots political duels. The governor is facing three accusations; revoking the appointment of an officer identified as CPA Virginia Kawira Miriti, failing to appoint chairpersons for various boards, including the revenue board, and dismissing four officials, namely John Ntoiti, Paul Mwaki, Kenneth Kimathi…
Banks will no longer enjoy discretion to raise interest on loans, the Supreme Court has ruled, effectively taming the appetite of lenders who raise the cost of credit every time the Central Bank of Kenya reviews is Base Lending Rate. In a ruling that will come as a relief for borrowers, who have had to endure arbitrary increases in loan rates, the Supreme Court said no bank can raise rates without the approval of the National Treasury. The Nairobi Business Monthly had in its March edition questioned why banks increase loan rates on old loans every time CBK reviews its…
The Law Society of Kenya suffered a setback when the High Court sitting in Nairobi on Thursday, June 27, ruled that the deployment of Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers to help police quell violent protests was “necessary”. On Tuesday night, Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale published a Special Gazette notice announcing that KDF soldiers would be deployed the following day “in support of the National Police Service in response to the security emergency caused by the ongoing violent protests in various part of the Republic of Kenya resulting in destruction and breaching of criticial infrastructure.” Since the law requires Parliamentary…
The hiring of 46,000 intern teachers on permanent and pensionable terms is set to be suspended indefinitely because the budget for their employment was contained in the Finance Bill, 2024, which has now been rejected. A source at the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has told the Nairobi Law Monthly that unless the intern teachers are hired by Friday, June 28, then their contracts will automatically expire when the current financial year ends on Sunday, June 30. The teachers, who handle Junior Secondary School (JSS) Grades Seven and Eight in 32,469 public primary schools, were to be hired as soon as…