By Kevin Motaroki When in 2013 then minister for Trade Moses Wetangula declared operational the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 2012, consumers breathed a collective sigh of relief. At last, there was a way of dealing with businesses – companies and individuals – that breached the doctrines of fair trade. The Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek), an independent, multi-sectoral lobby group, expressed optimism that the law would deliver a fair, just and safe marketplace for all Kenyan and regional consumers in all sectors of the economy. “We are glad the law is now active because it was the last hurdle in…
Author: NLM writer
By Michael Duncan Kenya is among African countries that will gain from a $9.3 million (Sh900 million) project by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that is meant to provide technical support in statistics. The project is financed by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). It will be run across 44 countries in Africa and Middle East, based on the outcomes of the first phase of a similar project that the Washington-based institution has been conducting between 2010 and 2015. “DFID has been a very reliable partner to the IMF in statistical capacity building, and shares our vision on…
By Michael Duncan A report by Germany-based Frankfurt School shows that Kenya and South Africa were leading on the continent in terms of investment in renewable energy last year. The countries were named by the institution which also serves as the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) centre for climate and sustainable energy finance in a survey that examined global investments in renewable energy. Both Kenya and South Africa crossed the one billion mark in investments committed to generation of cheap and reliable energy during the period, according to the report. The global trends in renewable energy investment 2015 report also names…
By Newton Arori “Gender inequality worldwide leads to discrimination, social injustice, sub-optimal economic progress due to a serious neglect of a large part of society’s human resources, and to deficient democracies…The fewer women in a society participate in formal decision-making, the less likely it is that the decisions made are working in favour of more gender equality. The representation of women in formal decision-making positions is, therefore, an important factor to improve gender equality” – Dzodzi Tsikata, ‘Affirmative Action and the Prospects for Gender Equality in Ghanaian Politics’ Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (2009) The country is at the moment engaged in…
Beverline Ongaro The right to liberty is a rule of which its deprivation is the exception. It is a well-established principle in law that where a person is being deprived of liberty, it should not be arbitrary, unlawful and illegal. The facilities holding such persons should be humane, of dignity and observe their fundamental freedoms and rights. Kenya is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which guarantee the right to liberty in Article 9(1) and Article 6, respectively. Further, Section 72 of the repealed…
By Kanaiza Akibaya and Ibrahim Alubala The enactment of the Marriage Act on May 20 last year heralded a new epoch in the management of marital relations in Kenya. Granted, this was a culmination of a near-elusive search for a legislative framework that would bring all the marriage law systems under the rubric of a single consistent and coherent legislation. It is critical to note that the search of this legislation had dodged the country for close to fifty years – the first attempt was made in 1967 when the new government established a commission to make recommendations for a…
By Professor John Haberson Kenya’s current imbroglio with Somalia and its own Somali communities calls attention very dramatically to a huge gap on democratisation in sub-Saharan Africa and other world regions that, astonishingly, has appeared to go all but unrecognised for, perhaps, at least half a century. The literature on contemporary democratisation does not address the question of how democracy should be practised and measured when a country is facing threats to its internal security and stability emanating from a neighbouring country. This yawning chasm in the literature is remarkable for many reasons. Everyone recognises that a balance must be…
Editor’s note Every once in a while, our leaders do something so random and out of the ordinary, and seemingly noble, as to persuade Kenyans that they are not as selfish as “media loves to brand them”. But, soon enough, exhausted by their charades, they reveal who they truly are. Take the instance of Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter who, after his election, branded himself as “a man of the people”, one unafraid of taking on figures as powerful as the President and his deputy. A few short months later, Keter was caught on camera insulting police officers and Kenya…
By Phoebe Nadupoi Rebecca Ng’ang’a, a lecturer of communication at Daystar University, at whose feet I was privileged to sit, identifies one of the challenges inhibiting development in Africa as “prescribing individualised solutions for corporate problems”. In other words, because you are able to find an alternative, you do so and move on but the problem in the larger community, where the majority has no means, persists. For example, you have a water problem because the relevant authority is not ensuring continuous supply and so you buy a water-tank to ensure you have supply even when the taps run dry.…
By Kenyatta Otieno Contemporary wisdom defines a country as a group of people who share two major brands – beer and an airline. Kenya as a country is blessed with Tusker as a beer brand and Kenya Airways not only as a national carrier but Africa’s pride. However, Kenya is known in the whole world as a sporting nation and a nation endowed with a beautiful environment full of wildlife. That aside, as the ICC cases for the four Kenyans began in The Hague, the word “sovereignty” was frequently peddled around, both as defence and endorsement of their immunity against…
