Point Blank

BY NJOROGE KINUTHIA

It’s only fair that the State pays for this mobile mess  

September 30 is approaching fast. Come that date, the Communication Commission of Kenya says it will have no option but to make some people go mteja. In simple language, all counterfeit mobile phones will be switched off. Which is a good thing as we have repeatedly been told that  criminals, including  Al Shabaab   use fake handsets to avoid being detected.

But the move will  be painful, very painful for owners of fakes handsets, majority of them people. Any sane person knows that these people are blameless over the fakes they cling to like their second lives. The Government is to blame—100 per cent.

genuine

It is the Government that regulates importation of goods. It is the Government that has the power to tell between genuine and fake through bodies such as the Anti-Counterfeit Agency, Kenya Bureau of Standards, Kenya Revenue Authority and CCK. That’s why PointBlank believes the State owes 3 million Kenyans with fake handsets, new genuine ones before September 30th. And pray, why are thousands of fake handsets still in shops across the country?

 

CCN sidesteps smelly heaps of garbage

Mr Patrick Thuita is very disgusted by the mounting heaps of garbage, along Juja Road. The garbage, he says, is being dumped with reckless abandon by mikokoteni pushers, sometimes in broad daylight, and the City Council of Nairobi “pretends neither to have seen or heard about the evil”. “The murk has attracted hordes of street men who pretend to be scavenging but are more keen on mugging passers-by”. 

At one dumping point near Mamba petrol station, the garbage has blocked part of the road exposing pedestrians to the danger of being hit by speeding matatus. “Given that the council askaris have not arrested the offenders so far, do we assume that dumping of garbage by the roadside is legal? If not let the Town Clerk state when the offenders will be arrested and prosecuted for their despicable deeds,” he says.

The Municipal Council of Nakuru is also on snooze mode, according to Benson Gachuhi. Shop owners along Gusii Road have put slippery floor tiles on their verandahs. This, he notes, is very dangerous and can cause serious falls and injuries. But the council appears mesmerised by the glitter of the tiles.

 

Dead woman ‘buried’ in KNH morgue

It was a hard decision to make, but the family of 80-year old Beatrice Kamee has resolved that the body of her first born, Florence Syokau, should rest in peace forever at the Kenyatta National Hospital Mortuary.

But the late Syokau’s sister, Prisillah Mukami, who has been visiting KNH pleading with the administration to release the  body hasn’t given up yet and is now pleading with KNH Chief Executive Officer Richard Lesiyampe to intervene.

Kamee’s body is being held by the hospital over a Sh150,000 bill. She succumbed to breast cancer on July 14 and had been in and out of hospital for over one year. As fate would have  it, her brother, Aaron Munyao who has been suffering from chest problems for past three years also passed on at a Maragwa hospital on Wednesday last week.  He will be buried at Manaja village in  Machakos.

MERCY

“Our family is poor. This is simply unberable. We have spent everything on them (the deceased). I request the director to have mercy on us and waive the bill”.

Can you have mercy on this poor, desperate family Mr Lesiyampe? Mukami can be contacted on 0715714523.

 

How Safaricom can make safaris safer

Eldoret resident Kisaka Wamoto was saddened by the recent shooting to death, by suspected Al Shabaab militia, of a Safaricom driver in Mandera. The armed militia ambushed a Safaricom vehicle as it was heading to Mandera from Arabia and sprayed it with bullets. The Safaricom team was rushing to repair a mast.

Following the incident, Wamoto has what he thinks is sound advice to help  Safaricom avert such incidents. The firm, he admonishes, should avoid ferrying staff at night by road in insecure areas such as Mandera.  Using police choppers, he says, would be safer and faster.

 

 

DON’T YOU FORGET

Is Mr Wario’s case water under the bridge?    

On April 3, Mr Halake Wario Nguyo, a former Ministry of Water employee (P/No. 53442), wrote to PointBlank (Fired for being abducted by militia) complaining that he was a frustrated man after a decade-old search for justice. A guard with the ministry, Wario was sacked in 1991 after he was accused of desertion. Then he was based in Moyale and claims to have missed work after he was abducted by an Ethiopian militia and held hostage in the neighbouring country for years. After he was set free, he returned to his duty station only to find that he had been sacked. At one point, he sued the Government but was prevailed upon to withdraw the case so that his dues could be settled. He has never been never paid. Will the 54-year-old ever get justice Water minister Charity Ngilu?