Reject excuses in enforcing party laws - Letters

As political parties rush to meet the April 30 deadline, registrar Lucy Ndung’u has repeatedly warned that parties that fail to comply with the new laws will be deregistered.

As envisaged in the Political Parties Act and Election Act, party officials are required to apply for fresh registration of their parties and submit authenticated documents including the constitution and membership register.

Only five parties so far have compliance certificates. The registrar has admitted that the parties have numerous challenges, but said there will be no shortcut. The Constitution must be followed in letter and spirit.

The key challenges listed are: double registration and failure to meet gender rule, persons with disability and marginalised groups. Notably, major political parties are the most affected.

While submitting the documents, ODM admitted anomaly in double registration prompting secretary general to ask the registrar to investigate claims that some 10,000 people have registered twice.

The fate of Kanu hangs in the balance as the party is yet to submit its documents. Besides, the other major parties, including the PNU Alliance, have submitted their papers and they are yet to get certificates.

Requirements

How come the major parties are yet to comply? First, the leaders boast and claim their parties enjoy national outlook.

One of the requirements is for a party to have 1,000 members from the at least 24 of 47 counties. Why has it become an uphill task to recruit members?

Why would a person who believes in party vision and ideals register twice? How do they expect to be entrusted with leadership if they deal with brokers who trade with all the parties?

The parties, which submit bogus membership list must be denied registration.

Nyong’o’s assertion that ODM is facing the problem of double registration should not be entertained. He must know one of the characteristics of a major party is to have genuine members.

For now it’s only a matter of time before the wheat and chuff are separated. Kenyans will soon know how many parties exist and make an informed choice on which to support in the polls.

Joseph Mutua, Nairobi

For all the commendable work done in rehabilitating adilapidated infrastructure, the Kibaki administration stands accused of presiding over the decline of political parties as serious institutions for the promotion of democracy.

In the last decade, there has been an unprecedented growth of political parties that can only pass for briefcase outfits. They do not have a national out look.

Once formidable political parties are now in their deathbed thanks to Kibaki’s penchant for ‘poaching’ individuals from other parties into government without consulting the sponsoring parties. This has resulted inindiscipline and rebelliousness against party leadership and policies.

Parties have also been weakened by coalition pacts and arrangements that often border on illegality done for short time gain and have often endedalienating the people for lack of consultation.

Democracy is in danger when a country lacks credible and strong ideological political organisations as vehicles through which policy is formed and implemented by government for the people.

Lets take this opportunity to build credible parties.

Onyiego Felix, Nairobi

Next regime must stop endless strikes

The next regime after the coming polls must put in place feasible and viable strategies that ensure that the perpetual workers strikes is a thing of the past.

Kenya, like any other country, has had its share of workers’ unrest over poor working conditions mostly because the country lacks a concrete framework that addresses the needs of workers in the public sector.

Whereas even developed countries experience such strikes, they are easily quelled and a quick return-to-work formula reached upon to ensure that such occurrences do not interfere with service delivery.

The onus, therefore, falls on the incoming regime to devise workable solutions that will cure this disease that has seen services paralysed for days in the public sector.

Rashid Ahmed, Mombasa

President Kibaki’s successor must be an individual whose policy on labour relation is clearly outlined to ensure that the constant workers strikes in the country are a thing of the past.

The ideal next president must have a proven track record in his/her previous engagements to guarantee that his/she has the requisite ability to handle such unrests.

The country’s hopes of achieving Vision 2030 remain marred by these constant workers unrest that end up in wastage of numerous man-hours and constantly loss of revenue for the country.

The next president must lead by example and devise prudent measures that will ensure that these occurrences do not happen again.

Marcus Kipng’etich, Eldoret

Strikes have been rampant in the recent times and this is not so good for a growing economy like Kenya’s. We have experienced strikes that have had adverse effects on people especially the health workers’ that saw loss of innocent lives.

Lately, the Kenya Airports Authority has also been on the news for sacking threats issued to striking workers. It is sad that whenever grievances are raised no one seems to take them seriously only to wait for the strike to take off to issue sack threats.

This not a good trend given that organizations’ management ignore employees’ issues like salary increments even when it is obvious that these organisations are making abnormal profits.

Others grade their employees poorly leading to low salary even when some employees have presented good credentials.

We can’t have a striking nation each day that passes by and it is a high time that companies and organisations lay down strategies geared towards improving workers’ welfare so that they can work in an environment that will enable them meet their obligations well.

This is a working nation and we should all be proud to work in our country.

Motari David, Nairobi

Abolish outdated degree courses

There have been efforts to develop curriculum in primary and secondary schools to prepare students to be self-reliant. In recent months, the Government and other stakeholders have sought ways of improving the education system.

But nothing tangible has been achieved in our local universities apart from the introduction of the controversial parallel degree programs and high fees.

When Willian Ruto was Higher Education minister, he advocated for double intake of students in public universities to stem admission backlog.

He also proposed that some courses be expunged from university curriculum because they were irrelevant.

The Government need to review university curriculum and either abolish some courses or incorporate them into other disciplines.

As Uganda President Yoweri Museni suggested recently while at the Great Lakes University, a course like Conflict Studies should be incorporated into other mainstream courses because it is multi-disciplinary.

Zakayo Iworete Amayi, Masinde Muliro University

Are CID incompetent or cover up masters?

The police yet again came out empty handed on their investigations on the controversial dossier allegedly authored by some UK officials alleging President Kibaki would be charged over the post-election violence.

This is not the first major failing involving our sleuths on high profile investigations. Is there a dearth of top-notch investigators or is there is always a hidden hand that covertly ensures cover-up is effected? It is sad that the tax payer can be saddled with hefty budgets of a CID department, NIS and regular police investigators who are more often than not in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Like that nasty matter of the Turkana herdsboy being shamelessly beaten to pulp by seemingly deranged General Service Unit officers. By the way what constitutes ‘general’ in the work description of GSU? Probably general violence!

Gachiengo Gitau, Nairobi

It is now evident that the entire police force needs urgent reforms as part of implementing the Constitution and preparation for the General Election.

Police officers should be trained on new crimes like cyber crime. Crime at present is no longer a prerogative of the unemployed. It is sophisticated.

Officers should be enlightened of the rights of a suspect in line with the Bill of rights.

What happened to the post of Inspector General? This top officer in the force was to be appointed in February. We need answers from Internal Security Ministry why reforms stalled.

Aseri W Dickson, Kakamega