The flippant manner in which Kenya addresses her national issues is worrying. The focus of the politicians and the media is skewed towards theatre more than it is to logic and purpose. If someone visited Kenya during Labour Day they would think that the most important issue facing our country is the waist lines of politicians versus those of unionists.
People being short and round is a critical manner worthy of hours of debate and analysis in a nation which has cholera in its capital city, hunger in at least two counties and can’t seem to agree on its development agenda.
No focus
Our collective eyes are like those of the hairdressers the Pope asked to stop gossiping. We are always looking for the next big story and the next big joke. We can’t stay focused on issues and we refuse to debate in any meaningful way the issues that affect our bread and butter. Instead, we would rather find out how many wives one unionist can keep. Since I can’t stop the reggae of rumours let me attempt to give you quality gossip, and maybe as a nation we can start vetting the quality of our rumours:
While we remained focused on the side shows, in the main arena, Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu presented accounts to the Senate with budget lines reading State House and South Sudan. I guess he is such a successful governor that he decided to lend a hand to National Government and to our brothers in Sudan.
What do you make of it that even the Deputy President William Ruto asked Waititu not to defend his own budget lines with the assurance that the national government will defend him.
While our heads are turned to how secretary generals were not allowed to speak at funerals, by people who themselves speak at funerals, we forgot to check up on the war against corruption. Where some people facing attempted murder charges for fertiliser with mercury have been in limbo for over a year now. The limbo being that they were charged without the results of the tests by Kebs being made available.
And when Kebs was asked to retest the fertiliser they claimed that they had destroyed the 100kgs of fertiliser they had sampled. Meanwhile, businesses and farmers are paying the highest price for fertiliser anywhere in the world. In a country that is struggling to be food secure we can’t sell fertiliser with the same ideology with which we sell Gucci shoes.
Wild rumours
As if that is not enough, rumour has it that Kebs is being used by cartels to shut out competition in two ways. The cartel, mind you, receives 100 per cent of the government subsidy on fertiliser so it has guaranteed profit and a guaranteed market for its inferior yet more expensive fertiliser. In fact, the pre subsidised price for fertiliser in Kenya is the highest in the world.
The first act of the cartel when faced with cheaper and better fertiliser was to have Kebs pretend there was too much mercury in the competitors fertiliser.
How do I know they pretended? Because 2,000 tonnes of the fertiliser was already used last year. That means that most of our maize and wheat already is tainted. Therefore you and I should be dead shortly.
It is also quite telling that Kebs stopped the supply of the fertiliser but did not bother to remove the produce of the fertiliser from the market. Second; the cartel again using Kebs, decided that they will change the standard to fit only the fertiliser that they import from somewhere in the Saudi Peninsula.
In this way they ensured both the farmer and the eater will be slaves to them. For your reference the standard in Kenya is 15PPM for cadmium in DAP fertiliser and its 400 PPM in Canada. I guess we will never suffer from cadmium related diseases but we will also never be food secure, cheap food will remain a dream.
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Sea of bad news
In a sea of bad news it is important that I also give you some good news. According to Charles Hinga, the Housing PS, we have received billions of dollars in investments to build affordable houses — part of the Big 4. His target is 500,000 houses and he has the money to do it.
The money we are giving out of our salaries will be secured by fund managers and independent of the corrupt systems we were used to at NHC. His plan is not just to give the poorest of us houses, but also to give affordable and fixed mortgages to us who don’t want to be sheltered in government housing.
He swears that the sweeping changes in the housing sector will benefit us all because rents in Nairobi will finally fall to reasonable levels, so even if you don’t get a government house you will definitely pay less rent, for just 1.5 per cent of your salary per month.
What is better is that the 1.5 per cent is a saving held in trust by fund managers and he guarantees you will get it back with interest. What is more is that the doors, windows, nails among other building materials are being sourced locally. That means that our fundis have more than two million doors to make. There has never been a better time to be a Jua Kali artisan.
Mr Bichachi is a communication consultant. [email protected]
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