By Njoroge Kinuthia
Could you be an unwitting member of Ford-People?
Mr Elmi Adow Mohamed is in deep shock. He just discovered that he is a member (No: FP603670) of Ford-People from Wajir County. What surprises him is that he has never applied to be a member of any political party. Adow notes that to register him as a member of Ford-People without his knowledge is to defraud him of his constitutional and democratic rights.
“Who might have given my personal details to this party? I suspect Safaricom’s M-Pesa. Can they investigate this?”
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Adow is not alone. It appears many more Kenyans have become unwitting members of political parties, some which they have never even heard about. Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s Facebook page has several complaints from angry voters who suddenly discovered that they were members of this or that political party.
You could also be a member of a political party without your knowledge. All you need to do to confirm whether you belong to one is to visit the IEBC website www.iiec.or.ke/rpp and type in your ID card/passport number.
Soldier pleads for allowances
A military officer is concerned about the Department of Defence’s loud silence over pending mileage allowances for over 1,000 major, captains and warrants officers.
Mileage allowances for the officers, claims the officer who has requested anonymity, have been pending for the last five years despite the fact that the Pay and Review Board had passed a resolution for the allowances amounting to Sh157 million to be paid out.
Majors, captains and warrant officers used to get Sh9,400 monthly house-to-office transport allowance.
The officer is also complaining that since the allowances were withdrawn officers living in satellite towns around Nairobi have been forced to dig deeper into their pockets to get totheir respective places of work as DoD hasn’t provided them with alternative means of transport.
The officer is now appealing to the Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, President Mwai Kibaki and the Chief of Defence Forces General Julius Karangi to intervene and facilitate payment of the pending allowances.
‘Unpayable’ loan worries KCB client
KCB has got one very disappointed customer in Edwin M of Bomet. Edwin says his problems started late last year when he borrowed Sh8,000 from the bank using his credit card (No. 52*1931****36485).
Since then, Edwin claims he has been servicing an “endless” loan. To add to his woes, he claims the bank has also frozen his account.
“When I called customer care, they told me I had to settle a debt amounting to Sh17,900. I paid the amount in March. But still KCB wouldn’t let me go, they added an extra Sh5,000 (wherever this came from?).”
Currently, he says, the balance, according to Card Centre stands at Sh7,000.
Further, Edwin says the bank keeps on infuriating him with with its contradicting statements as “the figures that appear on e-statements are different from the account balance”.
way forward
“The bank’s call centre says that I have cleared the debt and my account should be unfrozen but the card centre, who claim they are the ‘administration’, tell me to pay up or else put my name under the credit reference bureau.” Edwin (Mobile 0722498305) now wants KCB to give him the way forward.
Old politicians who never age
What happened to the presidential aspirant by the name Kinga Kamenchu who once cried before TV cameras during an interview? Mr Gachiengo Gitau would to establish her whereabouts because he believes she is the only genuine ‘youth’ in the line up to State House. “Every time I see people who have smashed the first half century of their lives purporting to be youths, I think ‘LIVE’ fraud is being committed on camera, right there!” Perhaps its time the ‘half-century-old politicians’ stopped leaning on their aged ‘youth’ and harped on the wisdom usually associated with white hair.
DON’T YOU FORGET
Did Olkejuado County Council finally wake up?
Some residents of Ongata Rongai wrote to PointBlank on March 26, claiming that Olkejuado County Council was in deep slumber and had neglected the area. For almost one year now, they said, motorists have had difficulties driving on the busy Magadi Road due to huge potholes, especially on the section around Ongata Rongai town.
The residents also alleged that in its slumber, the council had forgotten to construct culverts at the junctions of Magadi-Sololo and Magadi-Mage roads in Laiser Hill that they said serve schools, churches and a growing population. The residents also asked the council to do something about traffic jams in the town especially in the mornings and evenings and weekends. Did the council wake up from the purported deep slumber?
