A depressing story was published in the media on Wednesday. It was about a casual worker who wants to bury his hand, which was dismembered in a workplace accident in 2008.
Unfortunately, he cannot do so because he cannot raise Sh500,000 demanded by a mortuary, which has been preserving it.
Interestingly, the man is said to have been awarded Sh1.4 million as compensation for the lost hand by a court. But it appears he does not have money to pay mortuary charges because he has paid his lawyer Sh900,000, and used the rest to defray his medical bills.
Incapacity
PointBlank has no idea what percentage of a claim advocates should get. But something does not add up: Is it in order for an advocate to earn more than the person being compensated, in this case a man who has suffered permanent incapacity?
We beseech the chairman of the Law Society of Kenya Eric Mutua to educate us, his ‘unlearned’ friends, on the math involved in paying lawyers and whether justice was, indeed, delivered to this man.
Saudi Arabia: Haven or hell on earth?
It appears there will never be consensus on whether Kenya should stop exporting housemaids to Saudi Arabia. Here are some of our online readers’ reactions on a story (Why Saudi Arabia should look for slaves elsewhere) that we published on Tuesday.
Chairman: You always look at the negative side of Saudi Arabia and close your eyes on the good things. There are 40,000 Kenyans working there. There must be some problems, but when you come to the ratio, many of them benefit.
Kxodo: We need a documentary on the modern slaves who flock the Arabian peninsula from Kenya.
Doctor: Fix the problems at the embassy and the agents. Leave Saudi Arabia alone. The ratio of those mistreated to the ones who enjoy working here is 1 to 100.
Ahmed: I have been working in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. There are good and bad people all over the world. We should stop demonising others.
Nahashon Nyashinyangwivi: It’s good they’ve suspended the recruitment. It’s a pity they (employers) do not realise that they are themselves enslaved in their selfish inhumanity.
Did ‘airtime’ vanish into thin air?
Jenipher W cannot comprehend this. On June 27 at 9am, she bought mobile airtime worth Sh50 through Safaricom’s M-Pesa. Surprisingly, however, she received a message from Safaricom reading: “Recharge was successful. Balance, Sh45.”
“Just where did my Sh5 go? I have never bought airtime on credit or subscribed to any deductions?” she says.
