Palaver

On Monday, doctors and nurses suspended their call to strike action to take a 30-day breather. Teachers howled all the way to the bank and will definitely make a visible impact in their immediate communities’ economic fortunes, right from the taxi drivers to the local butcher, kiosk owner, entertainment joints and hardware stores. But this week is the turn of the ferry workers in Mombasa. Since industrial action is here to stay, why don’t we get more organised? How about Minister for Labour John Kiyonga Munyes publish a sector-by-sector rota about who can go on strike, and when. Ambushing Kenyans every Monday morning is hardly the way to go.

 

And staying with matters of labour, there is talk of serious mobility of certain “workers” to the grain and tea growing areas seeing as the annual bonus and produce has been paid out. Even the ones who were demonstrating along the streets of Thika last week might not be there now as they have “migrated” in search of greener pasture. Brace yourselves for a sharp increase in “domestic disputes” as wazee squander family fortunes on these highly mobile workforce.

 

Outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is retiring from being head of the Church of England at age 62. But the man wants to go and teach at Cambridge University from this Christmas and a new leader must be identified soon for the world’s 80 million Anglicans. However, Archbishop Williams is under no illusion that the job is a simple one especially the new liberal talk flying around and says his successor would need the “constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros”. Even his counterpart who heads the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, is sympathetic saying: “They all get hammered, you know, the Archbishops of Canterbury...Everybody’s saying it’s an impossible job.” Could this be the job awaiting Uganda-born John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu, who holds the second most senior post in the CoE?

 

And finally...

Forget the merits or demerits of who will be Nairobi’s first governor. More immediate is why not a single street light is working along Jogoo Road. Now imagine getting a puncture on that stretch at night. Palaver shudders.

 

 editorial@standardmedia co.ke