Orina Nyamwamu: "Bung'e la Watakavitu"

[Onyango Oloo]

NEEDED: THE TRANSFORMATION OF PARLIAMENT TO AN ENGINE OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND PROGRESS

Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu

Parliamentary democracy is crucial for the progress of any nation. If it works, countries tend to make sustainable progress in overcoming poverty and achieving economic development. Our parliamentary democracy is ill and needs major surgery.

The self-aggrandizement that Kenyan MPs have made the hall mark of the eighth and ninth parliament is hurting our nation in many ways.

First it has made more Kenyans poorer and government generally incompetent in its planning and formulating of Kenya's development strategy.

Secondly it has led to the stagnation of social change and reforms since all you need to do to stay in power is to bribe MPs with hefty pay packages and dolling out CDF monies for their control in the constituencies, government no longer is worried about its dismal performance.

Kenya will surely collapse under the weight of its own structural and leadership incompetence.


Three steps are needed to make parliament an institution for social change and progress. These are structural, systemic and administrative reforms.

Administrative reforms here include dealing with the salaries and allowances of MPs to rationalize and justify the pay. Kenya’s parliament, the laziest on the continent is famous for the fact that as her MPs work less, they tend to earn more! The salaries and allowances of MPs should be pegged to the salary of the
lowest earning Kenyan worker. If the lowest earning Kenyan earns Kshs. 5,000, a Parliamentarian should earn say fifty times the salary of the lowest earning Kenya which is about Kshs. 250,000.

This will demand that every time MPs deserve a pay hike, they must plan to increase the salaries of the lowest earning Kenyans to the extent that the economy can afford.

The second act to rationalize the pay is to peg MPs pay on the rate of economic growth. If the economy grows at the rate of 4%, the salaries of Mps should be increased by the same percentage. But this should be after every two years. But
if the economic growth is negative like in 2001-2002 when the economic growth was negative 2%, the salaries of MPs should be reduced by 2% in that year.

The reasoning here is clear. MPs will know that if they pass policies that encourage economic growth and social welfare they will benefit in the process.

The current methodology of paying MPs is based on voodoo. If these two bases of calculating MPs salaries are passed as law, of course after careful dialogue among the people of Kenya who are the employers, the country will realistically make the house responsible and serious.

The structural and system reforms include the need for a new constitution. A new constitution should demand that every MP is elected with at least 51% of the voters of their constituencies.

The first-past-the-post Westminster system of electing the President and MPs has fueled sheer ethnic discrimination and clan strife in the constituencies and the country. In the current set up, Parliament is a house for individual gratification and the pursuance of partisan interests most of the time organized around party 'leaders' and quasi-autonomous ethnic
loyalties.

The need therefore for a new constitution is both urgent and fundamental. Unfortunately as we suspect, the current MPs across the board have not shown the commitment to have a new and just constitution in place soon.

The new constitution must aim at transforming political parties into truly democratic organizations that will see MPs who understand the business of legislation and the realization of national goals through policy elected to parliament. The Political Parties Bill currently under discussion is therefore a
move in the right direction but its greatly insufficient.

In the end analysis Kenyans must come to terms with the fact that MPs do not necessarily represent the interests of their constituents but the interests of the MPs as individuals or as a carte blanche group. Parliament is a social category and not necessarily a house of representatives. In the words of Marx, the State, and MPs are part, is a committee of the ruling class. This has never been as true as is in Kenya today. Kenyans must urgently plan to save themselves from MPs and the State since it is clear that no amount of lamentation will do.

[aeichener]

Glad to see you back, dear!

People were worried ... so was I.

Welcome in your own room now :-).

Alexander, relieved

[Deleted]

ya dearest Oloo,

glad to see you back!

take it easy

kk

[pharlap]

I was begining to miss some real content. Been a while, welcome back OO. Didn't know pwople were worried.....i thought OO was busy organising the talks he had posted about sometime back.

[kamalet]

Wacheni this sucking business.... Bw. Oloo needs to put food on his table and jukwaa is a voluntary enterprise!!!

Back to the topic!

Kenyans are justified in complaining about the present drain by its elected representatives. The main reason being that for all the money they get, they have nothing to show in the form of legislative results apart from the usual bickering.

Personally, I would be even happier if our MPs were paid more if they were producing results from that House, but being the optimist that I am, I look at the brighter side of it. If the pay was little and when you take in the expectations of Kenyans, we would not be able to attract quality leaders whom we should be sufficiently remunerating. The pay needs to be good and perhaps even better to ensure that no corrupt tendencies creep into the house.

[pharlap]

@kama- I don't suck- i lick* Maybe we feel that jukwaa needs some administrators. Some may also feel that we can talk about more stuff than just politics. That way, i think we would see much more participation. Of course we don;t want the madness that befell all kenyan forums, just to mention one- mashada. I have never before seen unbelievable filth. I am sure that the jukwaa crowd is a much more mature one and capable of handling other issues with care. Anybody feel me? Just a suggestion.

[aeichener]

I don't think OO would ever ban cultural topics, book reviews or what do I know. He had started Jukwaa as a very focussed forum, but focus need not preclude side views now and then. As to other Kenyan net.fora, I'll withhold comment for the moment.

Alexander

[roughrider]

this orina, he of the NCEC and NCA.

he has made some interesting points.

yet he amuses me a bit with his see-sawing; back and forth like a swing at a childrens amusement park.

How is it that the NCEC is one minute (at the behest of some donor purrse srings)undermining BOMAS and the importance of a people driven constitution and the next he seems to call it a 'fundamental' need? In mid 2004 NCEC dismissed BOMAS offhand, or did they not?

wither this inconsistency?

the article is interesting though...

[ndauosa]

Roughrider, I respect your views and ujuzi wa lugha, beside the point. The youthfull M.Ps in our current Parliament do not even make up 6% of the members, i do agree with you that we've not heard anything tangible from them. But you know as well that in a house where money rules the debate apart from the numbers, How many time do we hear of bills being shot down, after money and that comes with the vote has been floated.
Most of the M.Ps you are taking about are in one way or another puppets of their God fathers who have enabled them to enjoy their present positions and privilages. you can not use this as an excuse to deny the youth a voice, as one sayed they need to be educated, lakini hii bado ni bure kama hatuta ifuata katiba. Not that the present constitution allows corruption to prevail, not that it supports buying of votes and imposing of leaders etc.
And from your earlier post you stated that it's the youth who have messed all alon. Were you serious or just needed to pick an argument.
Lakini tuko pamoja, sivyo?

[mossad]

Thanx for such an interesting topic there Oloo

@ kamale, i do agree with you that MPs should at least earn a decent salary so that they can function well without much worry of being broke.
At the same time, i think a limit should be imposed as to how much they should earn depending on the sterngth of the kenyan economy.
What kenynas MP are earning is not reflective of the kenyans economic strength and ablity to suport such expenditures.
For God's sake, theses mps earn more money in a year than the governor of North Carolina.
Thats just an insult.

Mossad.

[museveni]

I think MPs have been reacting to the dictatorial tendencies that Kibaki's aloofness has brought forth. It is not justified that they keep awarding themselves increments, but all I would ask you, fellow countrymen and women, is to point out solutions rather than symptoms.

To be frank, Kibaki has become an obstacle to Kenya's growth, both politically and socially.

I will be happy when elections are called.

[kamalet]

mossad said:

Thanx for such an interesting topic there Oloo

@ kamale, i do agree with you that MPs should at least earn a decent salary so that they can function well without much worry of being broke.
At the same time, i think a limit should be imposed as to how much they should earn depending on the sterngth of the kenyan economy.
What kenynas MP are earning is not reflective of the kenyans economic strength and ablity to suport such expenditures.
For God's sake, theses mps earn more money in a year than the governor of North Carolina.
Thats just an insult.

Mossad.

As I said, my gripe is that these fellows increase their pay without any retrun in the form of services, i.e. they simply do not work!! If these guys were working and not just passing time politicking, I would be the first defender of their bloated salaries.

But then, we were asking for a parliamentary democracy last November, and now we see the true colours of a parliamentary dictatorship!!!

Museveni,

During the Moi days, it was always easier to blame any problem on either him or Biwott. It would seem this is still chic with you blaming Kibaki for the callousness shown by the MPs!!!

Perhaps a dictatorial Kibaki is all this country needs!

[Onyango Oloo]

Cyprian

Thank you for the thoughts shared on MPs who for me are a pestilence and a plague indeed. However I need not shy away from saying that when we almost cobbled a new constitutional framework at Bomas one other pestilence Rev. Timothy Njoya and your NCEC group went to Ringera's court and scuttled the process. The result is what you lament about today. You led us to this impunity Cyprian and NCEC and I think we need to sometimes remember these things. Having said that let me add other points. Why do I still see civil society want to be seen to associate with MPs in their processes, on this count no one can be more guilty than NCEC. We must start bastardizing MPs,
when we see them we should pelt them with rotten eggs, or leave the venue, or boo etc.That will show that we are not happy with the lot but as long as we all want to be seen to rub shoulders with these goons, in press conferences nothing will change.

NGO CEOs and parliamentarians have a lot in common. Both will be judged very harshly.

Patrick Ochieng

[Onyango Oloo]

Ndugu Ochieng:

you've chosen once again to let loose your venom without any provocation. and you've done so in the guise of responding to a mail that has nothing to do with the issues that make your bile to overflow. and I've chosen to respond to you because you have
invited us to do so.

first, i want to state that whereas I've never associated you with triviality, this is utter balderdash which ruins a good debate at the very beginning. you not only fail to respond to the issues that Cyprian raises but instead resorted to spitting far-fetched lies like a hateful snake.

have you really read the Ringera ruling which you are trying to pour scorn upon? i am certain that you've not read it and quite naturally therefore lack a proper appreciation of its import and contribution to our constitution-making process in particular and the democratization process in general. how else would you accuse Cyprian a litigant in that case when he was not? your venom directed at him are totally misplaced as they are misinformed. I'll be glad to send you a copy of the ruling for your education.

I, Enjoy, Ndungu, Sophia Kidenda, Washington Kalee and 2 others were the litigants. i am immensely glad that i was involved in this case. and whereas people like you who are full of malice and ethnicity will never see any merit in the action, I'm certain that in the fullness of time, others who are more discerning will appreciate that little contribution to both our constitution-making and the growth of democracy in Kenya.

thirdly, i want to urge you to free yourself from the bondage of rabid ethno-nationalism. your comments even when meritorious are ruined by heavy ethnic motives which it appears is so difficult for you to overcome. in the long run, it can only consume you and whatever is the cause you're pursuing--that is if the very
motive is not this ethnonationalism.

fourthly, i don't think that there is any thing to be proud of in cowardice. it is comfortable and safe to hide in the herd and be politically correct, but we can't cause reforms let alone a revolution out of weak-kneed individuals who support causes merely because their ethnic barons have said so. surely we can't be such a generation of political molluscs!

fifth, i am amazed by your incredible naivety in thinking that the Bomas draft failed because of the Ringera ruling. instead of seeing the obvious fact that it's the Wako draft that collapsed due to the failure in the popular test at the referendum--which was one of the key gains from the ruling--you proceed to attempt
misleading us that the Bomas draft would have survived Parliamentary cacophony, calumny, chicanery and anti-people conspiracies!

whereas the CKRC Act provided for an optional tie-breaker national vote on contentious issues but no ratification mechanism for the whole constitution at the end of the exercise, it's the ruling that you deride that gave the people the mandatory right to have the last word on the constitution. how does that undermine the peoples' will?

you cannot even see the contradiction of dismissing parliament and in the same breath laboring the lie that the Bomas draft would have been safe with the same MPs you castigate. the parliament you misinvest your hopes in and which you would rather have passed the draft constitution is the same one that mutilated the Bomas draft and then passed it inspite of bloody protests in the streets in July 2005!

sixth, whereas you appear to be ossifying in your anti-Njoya and
anti-the-other-litigants, more discerning people are increasingly appreciating the value of the ruling and building very well on it. even those who mobilized goons to come to caught to intimidate, harass and harm the litigants have now accepted that the correct way to make the constitution is through a constituents assembly and then subject it to a referendum. it's Kibaki, kiraitu and the whole kith, kin and caboodle in the Mt. Kenya mafia who should be haranguing us for having destroyed their scheme.... not those like you who are supposed to be champions of a
people-driven constitution review process.

finally, for the records, the suggestion that the Bomas draft was a good draft is utter crap. it matters little how many times you tell the lie or how loud you'll do it, the Bomas conference was an illegality and the draft a dilution of the one produced by the Yash Ghai commission. it was a hideous creature of tribal and mercantilist politics driven by narrow, selfish and short-termist agendas by a group that was largely and manifestly unrepresentative, ill-informed and little informed by patriotism as by false pompousness and delusions of grandeur. in short the
conference was made up of a few visionary women and men and a whole legion of Don Quixotes and Johnny Bravos! I'm ready any time to be crucified for these views!!

finally, i think if you reduced your venom a little bit and got rid of your severely limiting political blinkers, your impressive intellect and gift of the pen may shine and benefit humanity. otherwise methinks you strongly qualify as part of what you describe as "pestilence". and don't you forget that you're part of the civil society you're lampooning!!

Kepta Ombati

[Onyango Oloo]

Kepta:

If I ruined a good debate you have even gone further, provided justification for society's total deschooling. What you're responding to is totally alien to me. Kepta might you be responding to a debate I had with you somewhere out of this world? I havent read Ringeras's ruling and will not do so because Kepta and his friends have read it for me. Today you're so rambunctious you even suggest that the Ringera ruling becomes our new "creed" for democracy. What you and your faithful litigants did equals the argument in which young men are adviced to be promiscuous for a while in order to find out that sexual love is most beautiful in a monogamous relationship. You should have let parliament mess with it ndugu, but there is something in your zeal to go to court that will not go away even if you call me a snake, a mollusc, ethno anything you name it, words only you and Michuki are now known for using. I know you cannot from where you stand or sit see that it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you do as "good", "great contribution" etc. Let fullness of time tell that or let others say so. I dont know which ethnic baron you allude to or what ethnic agenda my message had, did you read my brief mail? I am not a politician if that is what makes me a coward I would rather be a coward than garner 25 votes on a Ford People ticket.

Thank you for the tutorial the debate was informative, Ndugu.

Patrick Ochieng

[wanyee]

"The need therefore for a new constitution is both urgent and fundamental. Unfortunately as we suspect, the current MPs across the board have not shown the commitment to have a new and just constitution in place soon...The new constitution must aim at transforming political parties into truly democratic organizations that will see MPs who understand the business of legislation and the realization of national goals through policy elected to parliament. The Political Parties Bill currently under discussion is therefore a move in the right direction but its greatly insufficient. In the end analysis Kenyans must come to terms with the fact that MPs do not necessarily represent the interests of their constituents but the interests of the MPs as individuals or as a carte blanche group. Parliament is a social category and not necessarily a house of representatives. In the words of Marx, the State, and MPs are part, is a committee of the ruling class. This has never been as true as is in Kenya today. Kenyans must urgently plan to save themselves from MPs and the State since it is clear that no amount of lamentation will do".

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Kenyans want new constitution by 2007 - Sunday Times, 7th April 2006.

www.timesnews.co.ke/07may06/nwsstory/news1.html

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NO REFORMS, NO ELECTIONS!