As we mark the first aniversary after the promulgation of our new constitution the rule of law must prevail

Its is exactly one year after the promulgation of our new Constitution.  The National Charter has ushered in unprecedented change in our society within a very short span of time.  It has given Kenya a face lift.Only our genius and resilience as a country made it possible for us to adopt a new Constitution in peace-time after the experience of the 2007/2008 violence.  For me, the new Covenant is a guarantee that the Kenyan people shall henceforth resolve any potential conflict through the rule of law.

Those who have watched Kenya keenly have witnessed the onset of fundamental changes in the last twelve months.  New institutions have been established through which we shall deepen our democracy.  The Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution is a new body whose central function is to monitor, facilitate and oversee the development of legislation and administrative procedures required to implement the Constitution.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the National Commission on Gender and Development were merged to serve as one commission charged with the task of safeguarding human rights and equality concerns.We established the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee of Parliament whose key mandate is to co-ordinate with the Attorney General, the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution and relevant parliamentary committees to ensure the timely introduction and passage of the legislation required by the Constitution.

Once the Constitution was adopted at the referendum last year, all designated State officers took a fresh oath to defend and act in accordance with the Constitution.

Fellow Kenyans, we established a new Judicial Service Commission which has briskly embarked on renewing Kenya’s judiciary.  It has so far recommended for my appointment the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice, Supreme Court Judges, and Judges of the High Court.  We are on the road to reforming our judiciary. A new Chief Justice and his Deputy are now firmly in place to offer leadership to our independent judicial branch.The Interim Independent Boundaries Commission was retired by the Constitution.  We are in the process of recruiting members of the Independent Electoral ad Boundaries Commission.  This is the Commission on whose shoulders the responsibility of managing the 2012 general elections will fall.

The Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Board has been nominated and is awaiting final approval by the National Assembly.  This Board will bear monumental responsibility because it must professionally and fairly vet all serving judges and magistrates.Other institutions that have been established include the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, and the Commission for Revenue Authority.  The former commission will henceforth determine the emoluments and other benefits which accrue to public and state officers.  The latter will develop recommendations to Parliament regarding the division of the national budget between national and county levels .The process of recruiting a new Attorney-General, Controller of Budget and Auditor-General are firmly in place.

The opportunity of our new Constitution has presented another opportunity.  We are also renewing the ordinary laws of Kenya.  Indeed we are refurbishing our legal system.  Few countries in the world ever get the rare opportunity to fundamentally renew their legal system.Many institutions that have collaborated to achieve the passage of the laws needed to implement the constitution.  These institutions are specialist Task Forces; line ministries; the Kenya Law Reform Commission; The Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution; the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee of the National Assembly; the Attorney General’s office; Cabinet; and the National Assembly.  As Kenyans we owe a great debt to these institutions.  Their exemplary work has passed the message that no stone should be left unturned in our endeavor to implement our constitution.

Fellow Kenyans, a few challenges have presented themselves in the task of implementing our constitution.  We have not kept one or two deadlines in terms of appointment of officials due to unforeseen circumstances.  However we overcame the initial teething problems and are now endeavoring to strictly observe the schedule in our constitutional implementation process.Once in a while differences of opinion among the multiple actors charged with the implementation of the constitution will arise.  These must be resolved amicably.  Together we must focus on what is best for Kenya.  Harmony is absolutely an imperative as we entrench our new constitution through legislative and other measures.

There are Bills that must be developed and passed within the time frame of one and a half years, two years, three years, four years and five years after the promulgation of the Constitution.  We must embark on finalizing the next round of legislations.  Time is still of the essence.  There are other important Bills expected to be passed by the Constitution for which no deadline exists.  We must also work on these.The Constitution requires that we put in place all the new commissions that it has established.  This is an urgent matter that the government is addressing.Its good to emphasize that as the judiciary is renewed through the vetting process, the rules of natural justice should be strictly adhered to.  Kenya needs a corrupt free and professional judiciary as well as a judiciary that is confident in the discharge of its duties.

I sense change all around in Kenya. We are living in exciting times.  Those who come after us will envy us.  They will see that we were brave to embrace change.  I am clear in mind that implementing the Constitution is the other side of the coin of implementing Vision 2030.  I also know my dream of transforming Kenya into a working nation will be realized as we implement our new Constitution and Vision 2030.The enduring inheritance that we shall bequeath to the youth of our society is the new Constitution.  I say so because the new Constitution has totally transformed the socio-economic and political landscape of our country for the better.Kenyans now enjoy one of the most robust Bills Of Rights in the world.  The county governments will potentially percolate investment and general development to the grassroots.  Separation of powers is truly entrenched within the fabric of our governmental system.

Land and other national resources will be protected more efficaciously.  Leadership will be squarely brought under constitutional spotlight.  Kenyans can be citizens of the world.  A new senate will supplement the current national assembly.  The executive will be outside of Parliament.  Cabinet and Principal Secretaries will be professionals who give all their working time to government departments.  The President will be chosen by a majority of Kenyans.The Supreme Court will be the guardian of our Constitution. National security organs will be subjected to civilian oversight.  Public finance will be exposed to strict accountability.  The Constitution establishes national principles and values that describe our country’s vision. We must embrace these.

I am proud to be a Kenyan during this momentous period of our growth as a country.   We preferred the route of change based on a national consensus.  Many Kenyans have also been part of debating the new laws that we are making to implement our Constitution.  I salute you all.  This is a demonstration of commendable civic duty.I challenge Kenyans that we henceforth follow the Constitution we have made for ourselves regardless of our station in life.  We must become a country ruled by law.

The lessons of USA dwindling economic fortunes

Thomas Friedman's editorial, published in the New York Times last week, offers some very vital lessons for political regimes worldwide on the importance of unity in the face of national crises.  Headlined “Win Together or Lose Together”, the piece pricks the conscience of the squabbling politicians in the US in the wake of dwindling economic fortunes, following the downgrading of the superpower’s creditworthiness.Friedman’s piece, I opine, is the one of the most powerful editorial pieces so far written anywhere in the 21st century, for it contains vital lessons about national crises, political unity and the national interest for all nations, particularly Kenya.

Regarding America’s current economic crisis, Mr Friedman,  author of the famous book The World is Flat, cautions: “Something this big and complex cannot be accomplished by one party alone. It will require the kind of collective action usually reserved for national emergencies. The sooner we pull together the better”.The far-reaching implications of the downgrading of the US economy’s creditworthiness a week ago are mind-boggling. They constitute a latent global crisis. The verdict was passed by the global sovereign debt ratings firm known as Standard & Poor’s. The firm cited the US budget deficit, the biggest in human history, and the internal political climate as the main reasons for the low economic status.The downgrade was met with massive criticism and assorted cries of pain from the Obama administration. The US still has an AAA rating from other global sovereign debt ratings agencies. But the fear remains that one or two of them could follow Standard & Poor’s unprecedented lead. The United States is the world’s biggest economy at a GDP of US$15.003 trillion (at July 29, 2011, according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate).And yet America came within an inch of defaulting on its debt a week ago. It is also the single largest debtor on this planet and in history, for purely political adversarial reasons. Only the 27 combined economies of the European Union generate a bigger GDP, calculated by the IMF at US$16,228.23 trillion in 2010.

The EU’s biggest economy is Germany, at US$2.4 trillion, followed by France, at US$1.9 trillion, and the United Kingdom, at US$1.6 trillion. Africa’s combined GDP is only equal to the UK, at US$1.6 trillion, although this continent of a billion people has a potential greater than that by far. According to the latest (2009-10) IMF figures, the richest three African countries by GDP generation are South Africa (US$ 357.259 billion), Egypt (US$ 218.466 billion) and Nigeria (US$ 216.803billion).Thinking about billions is hard enough for the vast majority of ordinary folk. But trillions are simply out of this world. For instance, an hour has 60 seconds, but you are not a billion seconds old until you are 32 years old, which means the vast majority of Kenyans now alive are not yet one billion seconds old.

This also means that famous old-timers like Nelson Mandela, who is 93, Charles Njonjo, who is 91, and President Kibaki, who is a comparative youngster at 80, are not yet three billion seconds old. But a trillion simply boggles the mind.  If America had defaulted on its debt, the world economy would have been  in a truly terrible mess. And yet it almost happened, largely due to the age-old political rivalry between the Democratic Party, which is now in power, and the Republican Party.

The size of the US debt is simply staggering. As of August 3, 2011,  the gross was $14.34 trillion, of which $9.78 trillion was held by the public and $4.56 trillion was in intra-governmental holdings. Wikipedia defines the US government debt as “… the money borrowed by the federal government of the United States at any one time through the issue of securities by the Treasury and other federal government agencies”.

The US public debt “… is securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by the Federal Reserve System and state and local governments. This is the net public debt”. A week ago the Republican Party almost pushed the US into defaulting on its debt repayment pledges, a move that would have had catastrophic economic and social consequences across the planet. The single biggest holder of US debt is China, with more than US$2 trillion.

Part of the Republican Party’s intransigence on the matter was driven by what can only be called tribalism writ large. Some Republicans have never forgiven themselves for the fact that the party lost the 2008 presidential election and that the majority of Americans elected the first African-American, Barack Obama, as president.The racists inside the Republican Party were completely reconciled to the idea of the US defaulting on its vast debt and throwing the world into a tailspin of crises. And all this only to make the puny, petty, petulant and repugnant point that it happened under the watch of a black President.  Mr Friedman’s call for united bipartisan political responsibility at a time of national crisis is instructive for its level-headed definition of the problem:

“Our slow decline is a product of two inter-related problems. First, we’ve let our five basic pillars of growth erode since the end of the Cold War – education, infrastructure, immigration of high-IQ innovators and entrepreneurs, rules to incentivise risk-taking and start-ups, and government-funded research to spur science and technology”.

This, indeed, is the tenor and language of Vision 2030, Kenya’s own national economic and development blueprint and road map towards a middle-level economy.  America’s current economic crisis and Friedman’s timely caution are enough reasons why Kenya must ring-fence the Vision 2030 and all its flagship projects against petty political squabbles!

UK riots and the underlying issues

As I write this blog I am reminded of the fact that,there is no perfect society and that in every society regardless of economic robustness there are underlying issues. I am on record in this very blog saying that UK and USA could be the next battlefronts after the Arab world. But what is really happening in London? Are we really cognizant of what is happening? This is how I argue my case;

London  is in a state of shock and surprise,nobody envisaged what is happening now .However, those in tune with the economic situation in the UK and the  government spending cuts will tell you this was a time bomb. It was only a matter of time before all hell broke lose.While the riots are quite scary and have even escalated to mugging, they’re some who say there’s a sense of excitement about what’s going on in England. The scenes are similar to almost what happened in the Arab world and similar to Kenya's 2007/2008 post election violence. The queen's country, England is beginning to resemble Greece, Tunisia, and other countries that have witnessed recent uprisings due to the state of the economy.Now, if I  correctly recall, the uprising in Tunisia was sparked off by a young man setting himself a blaze because he was being arrested for selling vegetables by the roadside; his alternate means for employment as he couldn't find work.

Although the riots in London were set off by an apparent gunfire exchange between the police and a young man, it was just a trigger that the rioting youth needed to vent out their frustrations that stem from the economic conditions and the lack of jobs.

Scenes from London

The MP for Tottenham (where the riots first broke out) David Lammy described the looters as mindless youth. Many of the politicians who have spoken on television and radio have condemned the riots and termed it as opportunistic criminal behaviour.  This clearly shows that the leaders in UK have knocked themselves off the pedestal.It pretentious and hypocritical , as a government, on the one hand to support youth protests in other countries calling them uprisings while terming riots in its country as gang crime. Is it that this government fails to see a similarity to Tunisia or Egypt in terms of a ruling class that is making the prospects of the lower class much dimmer?

The youth in UK have no jobs, government spending cuts to the public sector have seen many lose their jobs, and the recent university fee increase now leaves these young people with no hope of getting higher education.

Some would argue that there are youth, who also have no jobs but have not taken to the streets.

Former London mayor Ken Livingston said that this is the first time since World War II where young people in this country are in a situation where they have no hope of finding work, buying a house and even getting an education.

However, this is a percentage of the youth who have no hope at all and perhaps feel like they have nothing to lose. But instead of the leaders just dismissing the protesters as criminals maybe they need to first listen to their grievances.