KENYA SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA)

 

Narc’s unfulfilled Election promises

 

1. Wage increament for teachers:

During the dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi, the 240,000 teachers waged repeated strikes and won a 150% pay rise. By the time the last elections came about, Moi had not delivered. During their election campaigns, Narc promised voters that the Coalition would pay teachers in January 2003 (immediately after coming to power). To date, Narc has not fulfilled this promise. Instead, Narc pushed the implementation of the pay rise to July 2003. When time came, Narc spread the implementation of the deal over a period of five years, time when the Coalition will be out of power. Professor George Saitoti, Minister of Education, told the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) that the government was broke and could not pay the teachers immediately.

 

2. 500,000 Jobs per year (2.5 million in five years)

Narc promised Kenyans 500,000 jobs a year after coming to power. This amounts to 2.5 million jobs come the next elections scheduled for 2007. After 100 days in power, Kibaki said in his speech that the government had created 7,000 jobs. There was no proof to support the president’s claim. Even if Kibaki was to be taken seriously, 7,000 jobs in 100 days could still have amounted to approximately 30,000 jobs per year, a far cry from half a million Narc promised. When pressure mounted on Narc to explain where the jobs were in October 2003, Vice president Moody called a Press conference and said that the government had already created half a million jobs. Once again, there was no proof. Today, many Kenyans who voted for change agree that they were cheated by the Coalition because there are no jobs. The latest (May 2004) is that 14 million able bodied Kenyans are unemployed while Kibaki has publicly declared that the government is broke. This means that the government will be unable to invest in any projects that may create jobs thereby putting to a permanent end any hopes that jobs will ever be created by this government. In the meantime, 750,000 Kenyans are entering the job market every year. The crisis of unemployment will therefore continue to deepen in Kenya. Already, the youth believe that there is no need of going to school as University graduates are going without work.

 

3. A new Constitution in 100 days

A major election plank during the Narc campaigns was the delivery of a new Constitution 100 days after coming to power. This meant that a new constitution was supposed to be in place in March 2003. After spending Ksh 4 billion on the Constitutional Review Conference at Bomas 1, Bomas 2 and Bomas 3 there is still no constitution 500 days (May 2004) after Narc came to power. The government has been saying that there may be no Constitution until October 2004. The review process is stuck because the Coalition is wrangling among itself. Voters have now agreed that they were cheated.

 

4. An end to corruption in Kenya

Narc promised to end corruption in the government once it came to power. Mr. John Githongo, an ally of President Kibaki, was appointed to deal with corruption in the country. In May 2004, Githongo admitted that corruption was a major problem in the government as one corruption scandal after another kept popping up in the public domain. The media has been awash with dirty cases of corruption scandals where Cabinet Ministers have also been involved. For example, the Vice President Mr. Moody Awori has been named in a Ksh 2.5 billion scandal involving supply of passport printing equipment. Anyang Nyongo, Minister of Planning, has been involved in a scandal involving the tendering of cranes at the port city of Mombasa. Karisa Maitha, a Cabinet Minister, is said to be one of the most corrupt people in Kenya. In fact, the name of Kibaki himself has been mentioned at the Commission of inquiry investigating the Goldenberg scandal in which the tax payer lost Ksh 68 billion through fake gold exporting scheme that was masterminded by Kamlesh Pattni during the Moi dictatorship. Members of the anti-corruption Authority (KACA) who were to catch the thieves have themselves been involved in corruption thereby underling the extent to which corruption has seeped into the system. The failure of Narc to end corruption confirms the Socialist analysis that corruption is part of the capitalist system and can only be ended with an overthrow of the system.

 

Corrupt judges who were exposed in the Ringera report have been re-appointed by Kibaki to head strategic positions in the government, a move that was criticised by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). Other Judges who were exposed in the report for having traded justice were left to slip into retirement without being brought to face justice in courts. In the Ringera report, Kenyans were told that the government had video evidence implicating the Judges in corruption scandals but they were never arrested. Even video tapes that were seized in the offices of Kamlesh Pattni (the master mind of the Goldenberg scam) implicating top politicians in the former and current governments have not been made public as had been promised by the Narc. Instead, Ambassador Francis Muthaura, Head of the Civil service, issued a gag order to civil servants against leaking any information about corruption especially to the media. This has brought into question the government’s election pledge of transparency and accountability.

 

5. Return of billions of Shillings in foreign bank accounts

During campaigns, Narc told Kenyan voters that once it cames to power, it would ensure that money that had been looted by the former regime and which was stuffed in foreign bank accounts would be recovered. According to estimates, Kenya lost Ksh 300 billion through corruption during the Moi dictatorship, money that was stuffed in foreign bank accounts. One of the major looters of the economy was former Dictator Moi whom Africa Confidential says, had US $3 billion in foreign bank accounts by the time his KANU party was defeated. To date, not a single coin has been recovered by Narc. What has happened is that the government has been spewing a lot of propaganda that it is in the process of recovering the money but so far, nothing concrete has come up. Instead, the government has announced that former Dictator Moi does not owe the country any money. In making the announcement, the former Dictator was given a clean bill of health on the question of corruption.  

 

6. Bringing to book corrupt officers from former government.

As election campaigns became hot, Narc promised that when it took power, anybody found to have been involved in corruption would be made accountable. This promise is one of the most violated among all promises that was made by Narc. Former Dictator Moi, who basically brought the Kenyan economy to its knees during his iron-fisted reign, has not been arrested to face any charges. Instead, he has been accorded a comfortable retirement package, complete with body guards, an office, a million monthly pension and other goodies. Moi’s former right hand men who were synonymous with corruption like Mr. Nicholas Biwott, is a sitting MPs and there is  no plan to arrest him to face any charges. This is despite the fact that the Goldenberg commission has revealed that firms connected to Biwott owes the tax payer Ksh 25 billion in loans. Professor George Saitoti, former Vice President in Moi’s regime, is known to have been one of the most corrupt politicians in Moi’s Kenya. Instead of being arrested or being put under investigation to give information about his role in looting the Kenyan economy, Saitoti was appointed Minister of Education where he has been frustrating teachers and lecturers demanding that their starvation wages be increased. Other thieves in the Moi regime who should have been arrested to be interrogated on how they constructed sky scrapers in Nairobi using their salaries have been left to melt away with their stolen booty. To date, (May 2003), there is no indication that anybody will be brought to justice as a result of involvement in corruption in the past. The big problem Kenyans are beginning to absorb is new corruption by the present regime. Shouldn’t there be a Socialist opposition to raise these issues in Parliament?

 

7. Ending tribalism in Kenya  

During its election campaigns, Narc promised to put to an end one of the worst enemies of the Kenyan people – Tribalism. In the former regime, tribalism was so entrenched that the ruling elite was drawn entirely from Moi’s Kalenjin ethnic group. This group later became known as the “Kalenjin ruling class” while a wider circle of the group that absorbed Moi’s sub tribes became known as the “KANU Mafia”. After seizing power, Kibaki meticulously appointed members of his Kikuyu ethnic group to key positions in the government, leaving out all other tribes in Kenya. Although a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Kibaki’s NAK Alliance and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that formed Narc stipulated that power be shared on a 50-50 basis, the MoU was neatly set aside by Kibaki after election. As Kenyans waited, Kibaki began to surround himself with members of his Kikuyu tribe, a tendency that led to the perception that the new President had built a Mafia group around him called the “Mount Kenya Mafia”.

 

Today, tribalism lives in Kenya and voters who voted for change understand that there is no difference between Kibaki’s administration and the Moi dictatorship on the question of tribalism. In fact, the ethnic split in the Coalition is responsible for the failure of the government to deliver a new Constitution because the LDP feels short changed and in retaliation, the Party is trying to get Kibaki to address issues in the MoU through the new Constitution. Members from other ethnic groups are being sacked from their positions in the government to be replaced by Kikuyus, the same method Moi used when he took power in 1978. There is no way of ending tribalism in Kenya without introducing class politics in the country. Every member from every tribe belongs to a class, be it the peasants, the lumpen class, the proletariat, the working class, the bourgeoisie class or the ruling class. We believe that the working class should seize power from the ruling class through revolution. The role of KSDA is to help in this process by introducing the right ideas needed in the situation. These ideas are based on Revolutionary socialism.

 

8. Seizing land grabbed in the past to resettle the landless

During campaigns, Narc promised to reposes land that had been grabbed by members of the former regime and to bring the culprits to book. After seizing power, Narc did reposes a few pieces of plots that were grabbed in the urban areas and that is where the story ended. There is not a single landless Kenyan who has been resettled by the former regime. Thousands of acres that were grabbed by big shots in the former regime have not been reposed. Some politicians in Kibaki’s government have themselves grabbed huge pieces of land that the government should reposes but the government is quiet. In fact, the repossession of plots in urban areas and demolition of houses on road bypasses that the government has been using to show that grabbed land is being repossessed is a smokescreen to shield what the government has been unable to do. Huge pieces of land that were grabbed by “white settlers” in the Rift valley have not been repossessed just like former dictator Moi and his former loyalists also grabbed huge chunks of land that will never be repossessed under the Narc government. Instead, hundreds of landless Kenyans who were squatters in their own country are still having the same status. The failure of Narc to resettle the landless is another testimony that there is no way of solving the problem of landlessness without nationalization of land (with or without compensations). It will not be possible for any government to solve the problem of landlessness in Kenya without looking at the Socialist policy of nationalization of land in our country. The solution is there but it requires a Socialist revolution.

 

Published by Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA)
email: harakatips@hotmail.com

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