By Jerry Okungu
May 15, 2013
Nairobi, Kenya
Kenya is like no other
country in the world.
Everything that happens in
this country is uniquely Kenyan. What we do cannot be replicated anywhere else.
It is only in Kenya where
parliament passes laws but a few months later, disowns those laws. At best the
law makers make laws for other Kenyans as long as such laws do not affect their
lives.
It is only in Kenya where
the constitution sets up a Commission to regulate salaries and remuneration for
state officers and public servants and parliament goes ahead to endorse that
constitutional clause through a piece of
legislation but immediately the Commission
reduces MPs’ salaries along with other state officers, MPs rise up in arms to
disband that Commission.
It is only in Kenya where
when voters oppose MPs’ unrealistic and untenable salaries, MPs turn around and
insult the electorate. And like one voter correctly put it, Kenyan MPs are like
daring robbers who walk in into your house to tell you that they have come to
rob you in the full glare of your wife and children knowing that you can do
nothing to stop them. Their contempt for the electorate knows no bounds.
After Kenyans talked and
talked opposing MPs’ clamor for higher salaries to be retained at pre 2013
levels, they realized that their honorable MPs had switched off and were bent
on disbanding the Salaries Remuneration Commission so that they could fix their
salaries at will.
The citizens then organized a protest of the
unusual kind on Tuesday this week. It was on Tuesday morning that the citizens
of Kenya invaded and occupied the precincts of parliament for several hours.
And they did it in style. They brought a lorry load of pigs and piglets
together with filthy stuff that pigs normally feed on.
They emptied these pigs
and their delicacies in front of parliament as they waved placards calling MPs
all sorts of names. One placard talked of Parliament as a service institution
and not a business center that MPs were turning it into.
And the protesters did not
stop there. They gave each pig a name and engraved with blood the names of
leading MPs at the forefront of clamor for more pay such that as the pigs
ravaged their meal in front of the august house, TV cameras beamed the images across
the world.
However, when MPs resumed
their sitting in the afternoon, very few of them referred to the embarrassing
event of the morning other than the Leader of the Majority who complained that
being equated to a pig was unfair. He would have preferred to be compared to a
cow or a camel. The point he missed was
that, the imagery of a pig was supposed to send a message home that their greed
had reached the level of pigs- the most despised animal class in human history.
As the citizens were
taking to task the MPs on their wayward ways, a group of sixteen Kenyans who
had been vetted by a parliamentary Appointments Committee were waiting to be
confirmed or rejected by the whole house that same afternoon.
The three day vetting that
was broadcast live to the whole nation was as controversial as the list itself.
However, because it was a public hearing, the public was given a chance to
assess the suitability of each candidate. When it was over, Kenyans had made up
their minds about which candidates were qualified and which ones were not.
Among the candidates, seven of them had integrity issues while one candidate
was fantastic on paper but was a disaster in oral communication. She showed
total lack of understanding of issues affecting the East African Community
Affairs, Tourism and Trade yet, this was the docket for which she was nominated.
When the Committee Report
was tabled on the floor of the house, the very lady that had been rejected by
the House Appointments Committee became the subject of a ridiculous debate.
Women MPs rallied behind her on account of gender. MPs from her ethnic
community and region joined in the fray. And finally the government majority
backed her nomination simply because she had been nominated by the President
and Deputy President of the majority party.
As the debate progressed;
issues of integrity, competence and suitability were tossed through the window.
The nominees were all approved by parliament despite their faults.
The handling of the first
group of nominees proved one thing; that this vetting of nominees is more of a
rubber stamp than anything else. If it was a serious process, at least three of
the nominees would not have gone through.
One other thing; the
Speaker of the National Assembly lacked control of the debate. He allowed hecklers to drown the arguments advanced by voices of reason that were not
many in the house especially in a situation where the majority leader repeatedly
confessed that he was a proud sycophant
of a sitting president as opposed to minority MPs who were sycophants of
those who lost presidential elections.
With the salaries of MPs
still unresolved, Kenyans should brace themselves for more drama from the Civil
Society led citizenry street demonstrations.
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