Mr Obama, this is not the time to cut HIV/Aids funds

By Njoroge Kinuthia

Last week, President Barack Obama proposed a cut in the amount of money Kenya gets from the US to battle HIV/Aids. It is projected that this will lead to a drop of up to 44 per cent in State Department’s global health account for Kenya. The move comes hot on the heels of similarly depressing news from the Global Fund which announced during it’s tenth anniversary that it would not accept new grant requests until 2014 due to a serious financial shortfall.

Still dire

US Global Aids coordinator, Eric Goosby, argues that Kenya is a "mature programme" and the funding adjustment (read cutback) will "match its capacity to absorb funds through new mechanisms".

Whatever that means, the situation on the ground is still dire. According to Aids organisations, 400,000 people are currently on antiretroviral treatment. Another 500,000 are yet to access the life-saving drugs. Thousands of HIV/Aids projects still need funds to run. The truth is Kenya needs more funds to boost its war against Aids. Funding cutbacks will only unravel the gains we have made so farSuspicious

Suspense accounts

On Wednesday February 15, Gachiengo Gitau visited K-Rep Bank, Kenyatta Avenue Branch and deposited cash. After a few minutes, he felt it was necessary to make a second but much smaller deposit. After depositing, he enquired about the balance in his account.

Gitau was very puzzled to learn that the second smaller deposit was reflected in the balance slip but the ‘first bigger one’ wasn’t.

He demanded to know what had happened to his money. The teller informed him that credits worth over Sh50,000 must first remain in a ‘suspense account’ until the next day.

Gitau, who doesn’t understand much about the intricacies of banking, wonders why this should be the case.

What would have happened had he made an impromptu decision to withdraw all his savings from the same cashier the same day? "Would I have been told they won’t release the cash as it was in a suspense account?" he asks K-Rep and adds: "Isn’t it odd that banks find it necessary to twiddle around with technicalities, just as we assume new innovations in information technology should make them more efficient?"

Free parking space in Westlands

Hell is slowly unfolding right in the heart of the city, according to Mr Hesbon Odhiambo, and is catching the City Fathers in their usual snooze mode. The resident of Westlands claims Mahiga Mairu Avenue off Waiyaki Way has become the epitome of chaos with vehicles parked haphazardly, some smack in the middle of the road.

On one spot, ‘bona fide road users’ are only allowed to use one side of the road as the other is usually taken up by parked cars, causing endless snarl-ups. Other cars, he says, are happily parked on pavements meant for pedestrians.

"The state of affairs got so bad that residents have volunteered and erected ‘Gigiri-style’ metal barriers in an attempt to control the rogue parking of cars on pavements."

Live band

Oil tankers have also found free parking spaces along the inside lanes of the intersection of Mahiga Mairu Avenue and Waiyaki Way. To add to the agony of the residents a restaurant-cum-pub hosts a live band every weekend to disturb the peace of the residents further. "Where is the city council amidst all these mess?" Well, PointBlank has no definite answer to this question, Mr Odhiambo.

Man bares fangs over ‘lost’ snakes

Mr Gerald Macharia is reading mischief in Kenya Wildlife Services’ decision to deprive him of his beloved snakes. He claims KWS invaded his snake park at Bachma Gate along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway and forcibly took away ‘abandoned’ snakes that he and others have been taking care of.

"They used the pretext that the reptiles were starving, which is untrue," says Macharia. He claims KWS handed his reptiles to an eco-tourism investor in South Coast who does not even have a permit to rear snakes. Is KWS engaging in double-standards, Dr Julius Kipng’etich?

DON’T YOU FORGET

End long-standing silence over outstanding gratuity

We have carried several reminders here concerning the unpaid gratuity payment for a staffer in the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, but all that we have got is deafening silence for an answer. The employee, who was first employed on contract under the National Aids/STI Control Programme in 2006 was hired on permanent terms in 2008. She sent PointBlank a letter stating that she was entitled to a gratuity of 31 per cent of her annual basic salary at the end of the contract. But despite numerous visits to various ministry offices, she never got her dues.

To make matters worse, she says colleagues under other health programmes don’t appear to have the same problem. So, Permanent Secretary Mark Bor, what is the way forward for this long-suffering staffer?