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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 27, 2012 19:03:29 GMT 3
kenyastockholm.com/2012/09/27/sacking-of-striking-doctors-by-prof-anyang-nyongo-is-illegal/Sacking of Striking Doctors by Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o is Illegal The Kenya Red Alliance would like to warn Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o that by sacking the striking workers, he is violating the law. According to the latest news about Doctors who had gone on strike to demand higher wages, better remuneration and better working conditions, they have all been sacked by the Minister for Medical Services, Professor Anyang’ Nyng’o. When sacking the striking workers, Professor Nyong’o also announced that the sacked workers would be replaced by 1,000 medical officers and clinicians, a draconian and irresponsible move that has further demonstrated the government’s willingness to violate the new Constitution which was supposed to transform Kenya into a working democratic country. First, Anyang’ Nynongo’s move is illegal because the new Constitution gives workers the right to go on strike as long as they give a 21 days’ notice about their intended strike action. Before they went on strike two weeks ago, the Doctors followed the Constitution to the letter by giving due notice about the strike. By sacking the Doctors unilaterally, Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o has violated the Constitution with impunity. The current strike action by the Doctors is not the first one. The last time they went on strike, a deal was reached by the government to the effect that the government would address their demands on wage hikes and also hire 200 more Doctors to help alleviate the crisis of shortage of Doctors in Kenya. Nine months after the deal was reached, the government had not moved an inch to act on the deal, prompting Doctors to take a new strike action which has now led to the latest sackings. Apart from the Medical Services Minister violating the Constitution by sacking the Doctors, another serious observation is that the implementation of the Constitution is increasingly being tilted in favour of the rich wealth grabbers in government. In the current impasse, it has become prudent for the government to violate the rights of the Doctors to go on strike for the sake of political survival of the thieving ruling class. Since Doctors downed their tools, the government has found itself in an awkward situation because the strike has paralyzed the health care system, a vital public sector whose inability to function has exposed the uselessness of the government as an institution which ought to be looking into the welfare of the people of Kenya even during periods of crisis. Without a functioning health care as a result of the Doctor’s strike, the existence of a functioning government cannot be experienced especially by sick patients unable to get medical attention because the government is unable to meet the economic demands of the Doctors. The situation was worsened by the Teacher’s strike which had brought the education system to a standstill. Although the Teachers were cheated with another fake deal which saw them return to work, it is just a matter of time before teachers return to the streets. Within the medical profession, it is impossible for paramedical personnel to replace doctors because of huge gaps in training and aptitude. The question that has to be asked is who authorized the Medical Services Minister to sack the striking Doctors and replace them with their juniors who are supposed to be assisting the Doctors in the cause of duty. This is because what is known is that the new Constitution does not empower any Cabinet minister to sack any group of striking workers especially when such workers have followed the law prior to their strike action. So far, there is no Court of law or Constitutional court that has declared the Doctors’ strike illegal so where does a Cabinet minister get powers to act unilaterally on a matter that ought to have been before Parliament for discussion if Kenya had a functional government. Capitalist ruling classes are known to violate the Constitution globally To be precise, Professor Nyongo’s illegal action is further proof that the new Kenyan Constitution is a piece of paper whose implementation depends on the political and strategic interests of the corrupt ruling class. Until the implementation of this Constitution is put on the hands of Kenyan workers, it will continue to be violated by members of the ruling class whenever their interests are threatened. This is how the system works under capitalism. Members of the ruling class can evade arrest when they break the law or steal from public coffers through corruption but when toiling workers follow the Constitution to demand legitimate rights also enshrined in the same Constitution, they face the sack because their actions threaten the survival of the ruling class. The medical officers and clinicians Nyong’o intends to use as scabs to break the Doctors’ strike ought to understand that the strike action of their colleagues is a class action which deserves support, not just from the medics but from all workers in Kenya. For this reason, the medics Nyong’o is lining up to rescue the government should refuse to be used as scabs against legitimate demands of their colleagues who have been rendering medical services under impossible conditions. It is time for the medical personnel and clinicians to show solidarity with their striking colleagues by declining to be used by the government to sabotage the struggle of their colleagues. Just a few months ago, Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o sacked nurses when they went on strike before reinstating them due to the impossibility of replacing them at one go. The 1000 medics listed by Nyong’o need to understand that even though they have been approached to help in the crisis, they will themselves fall victims of the government’s “sacking strategy” if they one day decide to take strike action as a way of struggling for their rights. The conditions in government hospitals in Kenya is so horrible that it is impossible to imagine how Anyang’s medics will be able to operate without themselves opting for strike actions to remedy the situation. But there is more. It is a fact that Doctors cannot be replaced by their juniors and the more critical issue which has to be examined is the question of responsibility if junior officers assigned to conduct the duties of Doctors make mistakes which could lead to loss of lives. Kenyans should not accept the bogus solutions being offered by Nyong’o unless they adopt the position that there is no government in Kenya. Who will take responsibility if lives are lost as a result of the replacement of Doctors by their juniors? Do Kenyans have a government or an irresponsible group of thieves calling themselves government? The Kenya Red Alliance would like to warn Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o that by sacking the striking workers, he is violating the law. The Commission for the Implementation of the New Constitution, the Law Society of Kenya, the Kenya Human Rights Commission, the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU), the Attorney General, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Office of President and, most importantly, the Kenyan Parliament ought to intervene and not only question why a Cabinet Minister has been allowed to violate the new Constitution with impunity but also stop him right on his tracks. Being the Secretary General of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) which is one of the top contenders vying for power in the next elections, Professor Nyongo’s violation of the Constitution is very disturbing. A party vying for power on a platform of change and transformation ought to be on the forefront in defending the new Constitution. Instead, Professor Nyong’o is doing the direct opposite – violating the Constitution – and this raises the question as to what the Professor is capable of doing in an ODM government. The Kenya Red Alliances demands that: the sacking of the striking Doctors be declared illegal; that the medical personnel and clinicians being recruited to act as scabs to defeat the Doctors strike refuse to be used like toilet paper; that top government institutions especially Parliament intervene to stop the violation of the Constitution by the Minister for Medical services and that the demands of the striking Doctors be addressed immediately to end the crisis. The rights of workers to take strike action should not be trampled upon. KRA appeals to all workers in Kenya to unite against the capitalist ruling class by joining the Alliance because this class exists principally to serve the interests of the bosses. Another issue which needs to be understood is that this class will continue to violate the Constitution in their own personal interests. This is what is known with all capitalist ruling classes across the world and Kenya is no exception. Okoth Osewe Secretary General Kenya Red Alliance (KRA) kenyastockholm.com/2012/09/27/sacking-of-striking-doctors-by-prof-anyang-nyongo-is-illegal/
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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 27, 2012 19:06:00 GMT 3
The Star (Nairobi)
Email Print Share
Kenya: Nyong'o Stops Pay for Striking Doctors
Tagged: Business, East Africa, Governance, Health, Kenya, Labour
By Henry Kibira, 25 September 2012
Comment
Here in Nairobi, Medical Services Minister Professor Anyang' Nyong'o scoffed at the threats and vowed to sack and replace all striking medical ... ( Resource: Kenyan Minister to Replace Striking Doctors
The government has stopped salaries for striking doctors.
Medical Services minister Anyang' Nyong'o made the announcement after touring Kenyatta National Hospital's Pediatrician and Maternity wards. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union chairman, Victor Ng'ani, said they will contest the move in a court of law.
He said the move is aimed at intimidating their members to resume work before their demands are met. "The strike is still on, and we will not be intimidated as our demands are genuine. They were agreed on by both parties," Ng'ani said. The doctors' strike has entered week three as patients continue to bear the brunt.
Nyong'o said the ministry took the move because the strike is in contempt of court. "There is need to perform our duties according to the constitutional provisions," he said and told the doctors to return to work. "Some doctors have already heeded call and have already reported back. I call on others to follow suit," Nyongo said.
Doctors downed their tools three weeks ago to petition the government to implement the RTWF and operationalise recommendations that were highlighted by the Musyimi task force, which had been formed to research and give feedback on how the health sector can be improved.
Relevant Links
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Government to Replace Striking Doctors-Nyong'o
Health Minister Faults the Treasury
While commending doctors who who refused to join their colleagues in the strike, Nyong'o said services at KNH are going on. He said the hospital "has never closed its doors, and will not close them." "I wish to express my sincere appreciation to all doctors from KNH and University of Nairobi for their patriotism and dignity of life by choosing not to engage in an illegal strike," he said.
Nyong'o wondered how KMPDU members could defy the court orders, which compelled the two aggrieved parties to engage in dialogue, with the aim of ending the stalemate. He ruled out any possibility of negotiations outside courts, saying the matter has since been forwarded to another level: "I fought so hard for this constitution and will not be party to anybody who defies it, let us address our grievances within the law."
He maintained the strong position that the state has taken on privately sponsored trainee doctors, also referred as registrars, and usurped that there is no budget allocation for their payment. The registrars have been demanding a monthly stipend of sh92,000 from government, which they say was part of the agreement that ended last December's strike.
However the government has been adamant, and insisted that the call was not within its mandate. "They [registrars] are supposed to be facilitated by their sponsors." Nyong'o further clarified that the sh1.9 billion that was released by Treasury last week was part of last year's deal, and was supposed to facilitate the health workers from KNH and their counterparts from the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 27, 2012 19:08:11 GMT 3
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Post by kamalet on Sept 28, 2012 12:51:07 GMT 3
Why do guys like quoting the constitution to support their position and still cannot get it right??
The right to strike is not absolute and in any case had been declared illegal by a court of law.
The threat to sack by Nyong'o is only illegal because he has no power to sack the doctors. That power lies with the employer and in this case the Public Service Commission which also has the power to hire and that also renders the advertisement in the media for new doctors by the minister illegal!
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Post by jakaswanga on Jan 12, 2017 23:18:44 GMT 3
kenyastockholm.com/2012/09/27/sacking-of-striking-doctors-by-prof-anyang-nyongo-is-illegal/Sacking of Striking Doctors by Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o is Illegal The Kenya Red Alliance would like to warn Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o that by sacking the striking workers, he is violating the law. According to the latest news about Doctors who had gone on strike to demand higher wages, better remuneration and better working conditions, they have all been sacked by the Minister for Medical Services, Professor Anyang’ Nyong’o. When sacking the striking workers, Professor Nyong’o also announced that the sacked workers would be replaced by 1,000 medical officers and clinicians, a draconian and irresponsible move that has further demonstrated the government’s willingness to violate the new Constitution which was supposed to transform Kenya into a working democratic country. Okoth Osewe Secretary General Kenya Red Alliance (KRA) kenyastockholm.com/2012/09/27/sacking-of-striking-doctors-by-prof-anyang-nyongo-is-illegal/ But the more things change, the more some stay the same. FF, it is now 2016 and there is another doctors strike, clocking on 40+ days. For Posterity we record. 1. Nobody mentions the bone of contention, the 2013 CBA which the governmen, the ministry of health, reneged on registering at the industrial court, there to make it operative! It is a dangerous amnesia. There are horrible ways nations pay the bill for denying reality, selectively using facts, and then plain stupidity! This thing called right to strike, we deleted it? or we ammended it to say: exercise your right to strike, we exercise our privillege not to pay for the duration of the strike!? There is a chasm there wide enough to swallow the future of a nation! 2 2. |
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Post by jakaswanga on Jan 12, 2017 23:40:01 GMT 3
2. www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/01/12/video-court-orders-doctors-officials-to-call-off-strike-or-face-one_c1486383 This Peter Munya fancies himself presidential material! see how he wants to resolve a fundamental crisis! The Nairobi star tried a civic education class. May be goats like Peter Munya can refresh their minds if any. What did this Kobia say when Mpigs ran away with it!? What we do is institute a commission to study the health sector and come up with a comprehensive reform package. May be Magoha can team up with Kaimenyi for an input whose result would be as epoch changing as the NHS of Britain when it was instituted after the war. ---For the NHS, which even the Thatcherite storm could not shake, the truth is the authors went to work, the labour called thought and think, to produce the best health system for THE PEOPLE of Britain. I was thinking it isn't that difficult in 2017 in Kenya to do the same. I was thinking Magoha and Kaimenyi can do that mental labour in one week. If they can't, or require more working days, then they should put in a sack of cement and thrown of a boat! |
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Post by jakaswanga on Jan 29, 2017 23:28:40 GMT 3
WHEN DOES A CBA EXIST?
I am amazed professor Githu Muigai, the attorney general of Kenya, has chosen to hide the bright insights his intellectual calling dictate in this case, Not to mention his OFFICIAL paygrade. But on second thoughts, I ponder the contention of the later historian William Ochieng' Jamajimbo Usenge. In a public lecture, the arrogant professor declared it was just as well many so-called professors were more seen than heard, since they were just empty debes who would make a lot of noise. --Now, here is a problem, and I should be happy I don't heAR professors, neither like Githu the AG, nor PLO the law school head!
CBA? What is the sh!it of it? First, Hellene Wasilwa the Judge.
Okay, what is the other side of the coin? Perhaps the law makes an ass of itself? Or may be it is just the Judge who fails the bar?
Meseems there are technical, legal issues here which professors at law need must rise to, and the AG, mandatorily so. But again, there is that Jamajimbo grin.
Mark Bor is a fantom! Or may be Hellene should stop being a bimbo and do some homework background!
NB: why have the doctors been sleeping since 2013? it is also criminal negligence on their part, that Wasilwa can utter such rubbish!
Now we are here, just as the bankers have declared interest caps ridiculous, so too have the private health entrepreneurs, through Rotich, declared the doctors absurd!
CBA? Some Solomon must come up with a definition. The nation is lost.
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Post by kamalet on Feb 3, 2017 19:16:11 GMT 3
WHEN DOES A CBA EXIST?I am amazed professor Githu Muigai, the attorney general of Kenya, has chosen to hide the bright insights his intellectual calling dictate in this case, Not to mention his OFFICIAL paygrade. But on second thoughts, I ponder the contention of the later historian William Ochieng' Jamajimbo Usenge. In a public lecture, the arrogant professor declared it was just as well many so-called professors were more seen than heard, since they were just empty debes who would make a lot of noise. --Now, here is a problem, and I should be happy I don't heAR professors, neither like Githu the AG, nor PLO the law school head! CBA? What is the sh!it of it? First, Hellene Wasilwa the Judge. Okay, what is the other side of the coin? Perhaps the law makes an ass of itself? Or may be it is just the Judge who fails the bar? Meseems there are technical, legal issues here which professors at law need must rise to, and the AG, mandatorily so. But again, there is that Jamajimbo grin. Mark Bor is a fantom! Or may be Hellene should stop being a bimbo and do some homework background! NB: why have the doctors been sleeping since 2013? it is also criminal negligence on their part, that Wasilwa can utter such rubbish! Now we are here, just as the bankers have declared interest caps ridiculous, so too have the private health entrepreneurs, through Rotich, declared the doctors absurd! CBA? Some Solomon must come up with a definition. The nation is lost. [/i][/quote] It is all very simple about this animal called the CBA. It is not even worth the paper and ink as it cannot be used for anything. The document was negotiated and 'agreed' with parties that had no capacity to sign the document - it could have been signed by my grandson and that would not even make it worse. The simple point is that the CBA had to be signed by the employer of doctors and this is the various county service boards as mandated by the constitution and the law. The doctors do not want to go that route as the governors will want to negotiate individually based on their capacity to retain doctors and a general agreement could favour some and not others. So it is unlikely that there will be any movement on this. But the doctors must squarely blame themselves for their arrogance and aloofness when the katiba was being discussed as they could have fought not to have their services devolved. Sossion - he with little between is ears - actually did better as he ensured teachers were not subjects of the county governments and that could explain why education from primary level was never devolved (me thinks it should have been as in Nairobi it seems to work!!). So the not so clever doctors should swallow their pride, accept they have lost this one and then use the document as the basis of their negotiation with their employers - the county governments. |
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Feb 13, 2017 20:50:02 GMT 3
Soon after the doctors met HE Uhuru Kenyatta in Mombasa and walked back on their word to him, I argued elsewhere that our doctors were not sincere with the industrial action and that they were reaping big from Kenyans' miseries. Well, COTU's Francis Atwoli has had a first hand one-on-one engagement with the doctors and the government in a bid to resolve the matter. He indicted the doctors for insincerity and outright betrayal of citizens and everyone else involved. The doctors were/are not in this for me and you, but for themselves.
~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by jakaswanga on Feb 14, 2017 21:59:10 GMT 3
Mkuu, It is important to recognise a long-running crisis. The current doctors' strike counts as an instalment within the ongoing crisis in the health sector in Kenya. Former Minister Nyong'o was here before ex cabinet secretary Ngilu and now, Maillu. The jailing of the Unionists by that Wasilwa woman is an escalation. In the wider world of labour relations in Kenya, the doctors' strike is just but an aspect. There is actually a situation of general labour unrest in the republic, a plague --if one considers the number of strikes in the past year. Concurrently with the doctor's strike are a few others like the University teachers. The answer to this crisis in labour relations is obvious: a historical compromise. Such an endeavour, such a social contract involves organised labour, organised capital (e.g federation of Kenya employers from both the public and private sector), the government and opposition of the day, ie parliamentary bipartisanship. This is not just your run-of-the-mill Kenyan MOU's which every Tom Dick and Harry come to power can develop an amnesia on; nay, neither is this a verbal CBA agreement which, a year later, one party never heard of! But because we are in a political crisis, obvious and sensible, long-term and effective solutions are no-go areas. This inability to do the obvious sensible thing, is what in higher studies is called the crisis of underdevelopment. For instance, everybody knows hunger has a solution. But, cyclically, The PORK is a food-aid beggar, whining a SAIDIA MASKINI at the so-called international partners. And this week with drought a national disaster declared, H.E Uhuru Kenyatta suit. JKUAT, UoN, Kabete, Moi and Egerton university produce enough technically proficient engineers, agronomists, irrigationists, weathermen and whatever agriculturally-skills you have, but to harness this brain-power into a weapon which transforms the arid areas of Kenya into lands of honey and milk like the Israelis have done with their deserts, is a project not on the cards. That is a manifestation of the crisis of underdevelopment. Just like jailing Union leader doctors who are the lead negotiating partners toward a solution to the health crisis. It is, as if a in special case of Murphy's law, we insist on the worst possible options! Now, returning to the medical sector, what can I say? With the Union leaders jailed, it is more like 1950's Kenya. You know those Kaggia, Kubai and the rest days when labour activity was a front for many a social ailment. And in that narrative, Justices like Judge Hellen Wasilwa is some colonial apparatchik charged with the keeping the organising natives in their place --the cells. But these are the 20-somethings, and that was the new constitution. Obviously it is tattered before it can even grow into use. It creates desperate need for a new think. Soon after the doctors met HE Uhuru Kenyatta in Mombasa and walked back on their word to him, I argued elsewhere that our doctors were not sincere with the industrial action and that they were reaping big from Kenyans' miseries. Well, COTU's Francis Atwoli has had a first hand one-on-one engagement with the doctors and the government in a bid to resolve the matter. He indicted the doctors for insincerity and outright betrayal of citizens and everyone else involved. The doctors were/are not in this for me and you, but for themselves. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ |
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Mar 7, 2017 19:20:20 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Mar 8, 2017 21:26:33 GMT 3
THE DOCTORS STRIKE 2016/2017
Anyang' Nyong'o may permit himself a self-indulgent grin of I told you so! Never has the ideological bankruptcy of a ruling bureaucracy been so transparent as when the preeminent brain in political science in that society, the progressive emeritus scholar magnificus Peter AA, in his capacity as the minister of Health, sought to end a labour dispute by the sacking of all medical doctors.
That, a few years later mentally challenged village nincompoops like PS Muraguri, or clueless parachutniks like CS Maillu, or lazy-minded confused spoilt brats like Uhuru Kenyatta, or mindless and opulent thievery apologists of governors like Peter Munya and Jack Ranguma, proudly declare to do what the great professor Nyong'o proposed, can therefore not be blamed on them.
You can't blame an idiot for doing exactly what a genius would do! That is the way I think it! The evil genius to be hanged, if one, is Peter Anyang' Nyong'o.
But the real issue, post-colonial issue is this: the social order of acute inequalaity, and state organizational form accompanying it, in the background of the unfolding socio-economic crisis, requires absolute control of labour, absolute vertical relations. In fact not just labour, but other independent organs of thought and organization must be brought to heel. This is why the press too had to be curbed, smartphone hacking software installed to spy on everybody, shoot to kill orders issued. In that fascistic mental framework, state impunity, independent workers unions are anathema. This is why the state moved so ruthlessly to break up KNUT and KUPPET.
But of course some of us teachers are chang'aa drinking village men who even go into debt for a day's sukuma wiki meal. This means even Kayamkonos and bodaboda have a higher pride than some of us. They can never ask for ksh.50 veges on credit. But it means when the government want to break our unions and steal our KNUT building in Nairobi they way they thought they could, they run into the fury of Erinyis, with the historical memory of a struggle which goes all the way to the darkest days of colonialism. ---while traffic policemen can transact 1m bonus in two weeks, ffew teachers, even thieving headmasters, can touch that scale!
Doctors on the other hand have a PRESTIGIOUS and POMPOUS sense of self and profession. Deluded in the comfort zone, Devolution caught them unawares; they have to learn the hard and ruthless lessons of squaring up to a corrupt and immoral totalitarianism.
Who wants to ban a doctor's union in 2017 Africa if not a totalitarian mindset, like Zuma's government at Mariakana mines!? ---So we treat our own doctors like Kayamkonos and then want to import Indian, Cuban, Qatari doctors to treat them like Lords?
Okay, there is no known immunity to stupidity. But a thought, this 2010 constitution which delivered us from KANU dictatorship, what is it really worth!? I never believed this second liberation sh!t myself. When people like my governor Ranguma who can neither organise hyacinth clearance nor garbage off the city precincts, have to decided the future of Kenyan doctors after their grueling study!?
. then do I think, this is thrilling historical stuff, but a living national nightmare.
Reverting the devolved function to the ministry of health!?
Isn't that, diggin deep while in a hole--- the ministry whose headquarters we have reason to call MAFYA HOUSE!?
And then the celebrated Maatiang'i --did he come from the health docket and leave a time bomb behind?---- has recussed himself from the University lecturer's strike!
Hehe! A bubble that burst! Lets see what bursts next.
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Post by jakaswanga on Mar 22, 2017 21:26:46 GMT 3
OURU, GET RID OF MURAGURI
This is an election year, and remember why Kaimenyi was eventually axed from the education docket. His misplaced arrogance had killed any semblance of a working relationship with stakeholders in the sector. Of course Muraguri may delude himself he bought insurance cover by roping in close relatives of his excellency the president to profit from the recent mega scam he lorded over at Mafya House, but in an election year, there is just so much rotten toads an incumbent can afford in his inner coat tails. Nicholas Muraguri is such a toad.
But who are his backers? I think for that, we have to study the political economy of the Kenyan health sector. It is a prospective fat killing for insurers and other smart predators of the emerging markets. Muraguri is being used, and if the president and family are planning to be huge investors in the privatised health sector of Kenya, the president has to choose between the long-term financial interests of his family, and, on the other hand, his re-election in the light of his oath of office to defend the public interest. –---Not that I think the president of Kenya would be possessed of the import of 'public interest', oath or no oath!
Here is a mild take from the Daily Nation.
We are learning signatures by those in government mean nothing. Bor signed the CBA of 2013. Doctors woke up to find there was no document, and if there was it was toilet paper! And so Oluga and co went to jail for trying to retrieve the toilet paper from the sewer of state!
Now we read one, Cleopas Mailu, signed a return to work formula which undertook no penalties on the strikers. But here we are with our Muraguri –--NO PAY FOR STRIKE DAYS!
I have just fished out a ksh.1000 note. It has a portrait of the first president of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. Below a line reading FOR THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS (of CBK) is long, colourful signature.
I am studying that signature! It is a government signature. What is it worth, I ask myself? The official value is written on it of course, but, who wants to bet that is really what is worth!?
There is just something about the signature of a Kenyan bureaucrat on anything which plays one for a fool should one believe it at face value! No!?
Watch the rate of inflation and see what the note will buy next month!
The MOU about the representative value of money which the treasury can't keep, is my greatest worry!
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Post by jakaswanga on Apr 6, 2017 20:28:40 GMT 3
Once upon a time, THERE WAS ANOTHER DOCTORS' STRIKE You know what they say about history and repetitions! And I am game. Kenyatta time now! The repercussions of Professor Nyong'o's moment of madness when he was minister of Health, continues to reverberate! ---or was it his moment of ideological candour, when in a flash of administrative temper, his ANTI-WORKERS subconscious emerged in its true reactionary face. May be his wits stolen away by what is popularly dubbed the corruption of power, he sacked the doctors on strike and vowed how easily they could be  replaced by others from abroad or the neighbours! Well, you know 'heart and brain surgeons' like Magoha and Kaimenyi, we don't produce them conveyor belt roll-outs like we do other professions --economists, accountants, teachers, lawyers, historians, politicians, you name it! Nor can we, as Miguna Miguna is wont to say of the peculiarities of the Kenyan anti-meritocratic system which recycles crooks into politicians, easily METAMORPHOSE lesser others into skilled docs! Hopefully Medicine is still a restricted profession; the clients (aka patients) have the deepest phobia for fakes and incompetents, rightly so. (May be this phobia is the reason why those Kenyans with money always go abroad!? They don't trust locals, like white settlers of old who could never let themselves be touched by a black doctor, even a visiting American one! Similarly our elites are somehow convinced Greats like Urologist Magoha and Periodontologist Kaimenyi only train ----again Miguna's scorching critique of Luo politicians comes in handy---- specialists in mediocrity!) Even to fix a broken leg Mwai Kibaki had to go to England, just like Bomet Ruto to South Africa to fix a broken nose! May be John Michuki (like the late Nyeri govenor of yesterday) couldn't believe he was dying until he heard it from doctors abroad! Real middle fingers at our Chiromo school by the elite! But that was an aside. The point I want to make is this: this taking for granted of Kenyan workers by the cream of the land, even highly skilled workers like medics, is now again being exemplified by non other than the Amherst graduate of an unknown thesis. Indulging his temper once again, His Excellency THREATENED DOCTORS, that, if they exercise their constitutional right to work stoppage to press for the release of their wrongfully confiscated salaries respective the recently ended strike, he would exercise the import of the Anyang' Nyong'o template. That is have them de-registered from the medical board. That means they then can no longer practice medicine in Kenya. Disbarred at his excellency's leisure! www.nation.co.ke/news/Uhuru-pay-doctors/1056-3878750-13a712az/index.html He swore! Common, I think the DN is being sensational. Over ther at KNUT& KUPPET, I do not remember any legal advisor nor consultant cautioning us, that STRIKE ACTIONS are at the leisure of His Excellency the POTUS! There is a protocol yes, but it involves consultation with Unionised members and stake holders, plus a rational expose or equivocation of labour stoppage as a LAST RESORT. If the president wants to ban strikes before the 2010 Constitution is wholy mutilated like the Lancaster one at his father' hands, he must first declare a state of emergency or some other administratively construed POWER-GRAB. AG Professor Githu Muigai please, stop your Seneca act and stay the kid away from Neroistic fantasies of divinity! NGAI! What should we do with the rogue professor Cicero Anyang' Nyong'o who seems to have wrongly influenced our impressionable Amherst alumni? No wonder Kenyan culture produced a KARMA MOMENT for Nyong'o. During the Joho-Obado fracas in Migori, there is a very unflattering picture of the gubernatorial aspirant, fallen and cowering under the tables. May be he was later attended by one of the doctors he threatened to sack when power corrupted his senses. NB: This Kenyan disdain, total institutional and ideological hostility toward organised workers in the defence of their rights (remember Judge Hellene Wasilwa at Dr. Oluga and his team of Union negotiators?) is historically explicable if we cut down to the chase. And that is exactly what I will attempt next, quick time allowing. |
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Post by jakaswanga on Apr 8, 2017 11:02:50 GMT 3
WHY KENYAN OFFICIALDOM IS SO HOSTILE TO ORGANISED LABOUR
Organised labour has been at the forefront of the struggle for Kenya's independence, and much has been said, documented and taught, for instance, the INTERTERRITORIAL RAILWAY strike of 1959-1960 in East Africa.
Organised labour remains the most lethal opposant of the neo-colonial infrastructure, just like it was against the classical colonial regime. For the essence of both regimes is exploitation; neither is expropriation done on tribal basis, much as we pathologically obsess with ethnicity in Kenya.
1934: Eliud Mathu and James Gichuru formed KATU, Kenya African teachers union. It has been a long march to KNUT!
THE REVOLUTIONARY BOURGEOISIE GIVE A CALLING CARD
Classically said, the most fearsome product of the historical bourgeoisie revolution is the proletariat. At its most conscious, this worker-class is suppose to be the grave digger of capitalism, otherwise it stays a sleeping elephant. A sleeping giant necessitates a lot of action on the part of its opponents to keep it comatose and tamed. To this purpose, modern capitalism in the motherlands has been an exercise in the management of worker's anger. This exercise, political pacification, has a parallel to be drawn with the tokens witnessed in the colonial enterprise. These took the form of mild concessions to the natives to assuage their anger. More often than not were they bribes directed at the native elites, but these steps merely whetted a mass appetite for independence, and own home rule at large.
It will be instructive to remember that Kenya's dynamite star politician TJ Mboya, was, from 1953 when it was founded, the secretary general of KENYA FEDERATION OF LABOUR until 1957. And Daniel Arap Moi started in trade unionism too, as a Rift Valley teachers representative, and LEGICO member. With Operation Jock Scott ( 20 October1952) sweeping established KAU leaders to detention and the rest into clandestine Mau Mau operations, youngsters like Tom Mboya became prominent, and it is important to repeat, that it was LABOUR ACTIVISM which held the torch, and the consciousness which gave them national pre-eminence as they rose in esteem and Wanjiku's heart.
Behold! It was Daniel Arap Moi who in 1957 moved a motion in the legico to have the government help raise a NATIONAL teachers Union! There were teachers Unions in the colony at large of course, but they were independent and regionalised and 'fiefdomised' ---Nyanza (NATU), Coast (CATU), Central (KTA), Rift-Valley (RATA). Fully devolved as it were!
The history of the anti-colonial struggle is manifestly the history of Trade Unionism --Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia, Markan Singh, Chege Kibachia, Tom Mboya, James Gichuru, Eliud Mathu.
At around 1950, after much jostling, Trade Unionists and their militance enter a cooperation pact with political agitators within KAU. It was a volatile Union which reverberates to this day; at its heart, the radicalism of workers whose consciousness tend toward uncompromising positions with reaction, and, on the other hand, the petit bourgeoisie politicians with much trust in the benevolence of the Motherland and the guardianship from Power. In KAU, the umbrella organisation of African Nationalism, the 1947-England-returnee Jomo Kenyatta who had assumed leadership (after James Gichuru stood down for him) showed a bias toward the so-called 'EDUCATED WING'. These included JD Otiende, Walter F. Odede, James Gichuru, Francis Khamisi, Bernard Ohanga and Tom Mbotela. The radical wing, essentially a bastion of trade unionists from the street already flirting with Dedan Kimathi's unflinching militance (armed option), ventured names like Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia, Achieng' Oneko, Paul Ngei, and Stanley Mathenge.
Maina wa Kinyatti details these chapters with rigour. Assa Okoth too I think.
These divergent tendencies are still discernible in Kenya today. In fact they play out with vigour, But it will be noticeable, that within POLITICAL INCUMBENTS, and office boys both sides of the JUBILEE-NASA paper-line, former unionists are next to non existence, neither are current unionists in consultancy. It is called the marginalisation of labour in government. It is in part a legacy of Tom Mboya's devious innovation soon after he became Labour Minister in the reactionary Kenyatta-KANU dispensation. This reaction would soon see a split in KANU two years later when radicals like who else buT BILDAD KAGGIA and Jaramogi bolted to launch KPU (KAPU).
Remember today the governors have told boy Muigai he can pay the doctors from his pocket if he wants, they have better things to spend their budget on rather than idler strikers! One properly and legally constituted employer may be good idea for docs!? No?
NB: 1962 Saw a wave of strikes with Tom Mboya as minister for Labour. Brilliant man he was, he masterminded the DISPUTE RESOLUTION MACHINERY known as the Kenya Industrial Relations Charter. It was wide and comprehensive and involved and consulted all stakeholders, a classic tripartite affair involving Unions, Employers and Government. But of course it was doomed, and he must have known it, perceptive fellow who he was, because he sat in cabinet with people who openly wanted UNIONS BANNED and the workers, fully under totalitarian control of the One party and divine employer/investor, left to busy themselves solely with task of building the nation aka DEVELOPMENT! Strikes would be a form of dissent called TREASON!
(Gladiators must do and die in the arena, and not dare question why they must kill themselves for the amusement and profit of the nobility!)
Now you see where hotly temperamental Judges like Hellen Wasilwa come from when they send Unionists to detention? And when Kenyatta II broths in public, growling hotter than a b!tch in cubs, swearing to tear the medical degrees of striking doctors, you catch the historical currents sweeping under his high seat?
---MORE ON KENYAN LABOUR TO FOLLOW AT FOOTNOTES.
But first: THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
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Post by jakaswanga on Apr 8, 2017 14:57:41 GMT 3
cont: ---MORE ON KENYAN LABOUR TO FOLLOW AT FOOTNOTES. But first: THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTDonald Trump's nativism (or white nationalism) is, partly, I think, an attempt to neutralise the unity of all American dispossessed, the so-called 90-percenters. Donald is a divide and rule majoritarian identity politician no less than Clinton: that is the Hilary part with her focus groups or secretive (ADA) algorithms. Too, Neo-Liberalism's global battlecry of the CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS, is another ruse to supplant the fundamental issue in the global village of Capital. It obfuscates, confuses and channels popular Western (read WHITE worker discontent) disenfranchisement elsewhere --at The Evil Muslims for instance. Meanwhile, as this bogeyman politics occupies public discourse under terrorism and the rest, a scorch-earth regime of ANTI-WORKERS measures (dubbed 'reforms') are rammed through these states. The former 'labour aristocrats' richly fattened by spoils from the colonies and neo-colonies, now find themselves precariously dangling just a foothold above the abyss of unemployment or odd jobs. The old certainties of WHITE PRIVILEGE have melted, the once life-tenure jobs are outsourced to cheap-labour China for instance, or computerised for better profit and efficiency. In the absence of vision, that is an existential crisis. Time for gun-ship diplomacy abroad to inform who is still the top gorrila. Then Left or right, what wing the elected government is, matters not, the policy is the same. It is all neo-liberal orthodoxy. We see that in Tradeu's Canada, Republicans or Democrats in the US, or within the EU --especially Greece, poor little Greece. Then there is France. A bit like a headless chicken now. Yes France!O France! The ferocious push-back on workers' rights under the cloak of REFORM by the professed SOCIALIST François Hollande is a testtube case. Hollande and co, i.e Parti Socialiste, were elected on a popular platform of rejectionism, denouncing the stranded Nicolas Sarkozy 'reforms' as ordered by Brussels, but no sooner were the 'Socialists' installed than they used the special powers of the imperial French presidency to betray their electoral pledges. It became the slow death of Hollande's presidency, and more or less the death-knell on his PS. The destruction of the socialist party (PS) seems to have been the historical role of the banker Emmanuel Macron who Hollande had hired into his cabinet as the 'modernising man'. Macron, the French Tony Blair so-called, is now an 'independent' with a kind of Berlusconi-like FORZA ITALIA movement behind him. It is called France Marche and has the establishment's backing against the Front National (FN) threat. FN? that is the party of Madame Le Pen. Hollande himself has suffered the ignominy of being the most unpopular public figure since Marie Antoinette  was reported feeding cakes to the hogs while the mob starved! He wont defend his treachery by seeking re-election. WIDOWED, THE WHITE WORKING CLASS WEIGHS HER OPTIONS, FASCISM? With the white working class so betrayed by their traditional labour parties, the fascists and right wing extremists have emerged into the vacuum, and aint they scaring the establishment!? Indeed, so much so that the extreme right has forced the artificially cultivated paper-thin differences between right-of-centre and left-of-centre to melt. Thus spooked, these 'symbions' who made business pretending fundamental differences now form a pact, and put forth an official joint electoral block, usually called the SANITARY CORDON or QUARANTINE. This FIREWALL is to keep the 'barbarian right' away. It reminds of how post-war Italian politics used to work to keep the Communists at bay, Washington calling the shots. Anyway, today in France we have seen the DEFECTION of Prime Minister Manuel Valls. He is, after chickening out of the party nominations for Hollande's replacement, no longer backing his party's official candidate in the presidential election, but neither is he resigning from the premiership of France immediately, a position he holds by virtue of his party's sanction, i.e. support. It is all the stink and sink of the fifth republic I suppose. When you next walk into the French Cultural centre in Nairobi, hold your nose in the air if you can catch the sickly waft from Paris! WORKERS AND CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL TRADE DEALS The case of TPP and T-TIP Then there is this other one between European Union and North America. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership How come the European Trade Unions were sidelined while some of the 'enlightened' countries of the EU, like Germany France and Holland, had Labour Parties in their coalition governments? --- In fact the long-serving Chairman of the Eurogroup, the powerful college of Eurozone Finance Ministers, has been a Dutch Labour Politician! Could it be even the Eurozone Trade Unions themselves, like the major American ones who all supported Hilary Clinton against Bernie Sanders, are just journeymen on the neo-liberal gravy-train? that their membership so dwindled they are no longer representative of labour as a consciousness nor class? (The end of their history?) Too little too late. This is what I call the ferocious push-back on workers rights in the international context. It forms the global ideological climate within which SATELLITES like Kenya take their cue, or, in this case, quisling Professors like Nyong'o fire striking doctors and hireling-local-nyaparas like Uhuru Kenyatta swear ---by the last grey hair on the green cant of a red goat----- to do them same to the same! Birds of the same feather operate similarly, dogs of the same home instinctively recognise the same whistle, and twins speak with one voice on the same subject! Omera Anyang' Nyong'o, Omera Ouru, both of you, we hear, studied political science and economics. And in power you want to resolve a DOCTOR'S LABOUR UNREST with mass sacking! As my fisherman father would say: you gentlemen have taken your heads and inserted them deep inside your rectums, and now you are talking through your arzholes! The words don't just smell, they smell a distinct odour. And their meaning is putrefaction.  Nyong's loss of temper with the doctors, Uhuru's tantrums of swearing at the doctors, are thus informed and covered.  That was the cutting down to the chase, recognising the global, historical context and situating the forces at work at ones local within that. Now let us pretend we do not know all that and revert to our lazy default, we are sovereign.   These are the sackers of doctors? Hmm, absolute power corrupts absolutely. But there is also Karma, when the high fall. Lucky Nyong'o fell beside his sword. And lucky Muigai had a narrow escape from cold cells. Sackers can also get sacked of course. FOOTNOTES: WORKERS ACTIVISM AND KENYA'S TRUE HISTORY |
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Post by jakaswanga on Apr 11, 2017 22:51:21 GMT 3
FROM WHERE, CULTURALLY SPEAKING, LADY JUSTICE HELLEN WASILWA'S PUT-DOWN OF UNIONISTS? Judge Hellen Wasilwa's much publicised and scandalised outburst provided me with an occasion for some quintessential cultural bemusement, at first. Hell hath no fury, you know, like a Lady Justice whose vibrator ran out of batteries just a shade before the explosion. Such a climactic momentum interruptus is of course worse than the hitherto worst case poetic scenario, a woman scorned. A dirty thought is a devil's gem, and a devil's gem if you strike a Faustian bargain, can vouch in for half your soul. The colonial racist state, like the planaria worm of the legendary fruit-fly in the laboratory, is a relatively simple political economic and social genotype. That makes it a god-send teaching device, a genial aid for decoding reality. In this case the raw reality of simple capitalist exploitation using racial hierarchy. It is a basic model yes, but one knows a skyscraper when one sees the foundations. Studying the ruins of ones past, one can develop a fairly consummate idea of where current mistakes (of the same mode) may lead. Perhaps one can even consequently warn the youth to embrace, like the samurai or gladiators were once instilled to embrace their horrid deaths, their true calling. By the time the first anniversary of independence is celebrated with the declaration of the republic in 1964, the veil of disguise riding the euphoria of black rule ----often aptly characterised as black skins white masks, has so muddied the water so much so that the horror at the bottom of the pond is obfuscated. The (post-colonial) situation is complex, confusing and no longer black and white. It has been repeatedly demonstrated by critical thinking and adequately by factual analysis, that the structures of expropriation and exploitation remained intact; that the state remained unreformed in its anti people core, and the new black elite wielding her, were in deed more committed to enriching themselves at the expense of the ideals of the liberation slogans they mouthed. Judge Hellen's hysteric seizureHer hysterical scream at the young Unionist Doctors arraigned before her bench, kept echoing in my sleep. Amongst other profanities she yelled: 'YOU ARE STINKING OF SEWAGE!' Some like yours truly will know doctors can smell of worse, duty calling. I used to date a forensic pathologist who spent her days digging up not so fresh and not so dried up mass graves, full of roaches. She hated my morbid jokes. As she scrubbed herself for hours at the sordid day's end, I would grin with, 'don't over do it, love, some of us former soldiers find in a faint odour of rotting corpses a pheromone. A bit more pungent then it is positively an aphrodisiac!'After she nearly blinded me with a syringe to the eye, I learnt never to chide a woman for smelling of rot, any rot, even natural menstrual odour. So when Judge Hellen Wasilwa declared the doctors ---- several of them female, were stinking of sewage in her court, I knew I would let the episode roll around in my mind until it achieved some full cultural meaning. When your high culture expresses such pure hate without shame, you take notice. to fathom why, why the meltdown? It was an act of pure hatred. But because it wasn't a personal matter, it had to be in the ideological realm. These people essentially were strangers to her. Stewing in racial hatred premised on prejudice, a Nazi German needed not know a Jew personally to hate any with all his heart. This is also true of all bigots, be they white supremacists against blacks, cut men against uncut Luos, or Hutus against Tutsis. Nor could the intensity of the emotions the lady Judge brought to bear --it was a whole meltdown really in that court, be at the behest of puppet-masters running her behind the scenes. To appease such masters, she just had to adorn on the mask of a cold, indifferent bureaucratic machine, an apparatchik running a death-row without emotion. Like this  That is assuming the Lady Justice is so mentally challenged she never heard of the PONTIUS PILATE TEMPLATE. This is one of the greatest instances of LEGAL SOLOMONISM in antiquity. When the miscreant Jesus was brought to him to kill, the Roman knave sidestepped the web of intrigue. He washed his hands clean of the matter! But Wasilwa overdid the attack-dog bit: SHE IS A PATHOLOGY! After this 'international' context in which labour is on the defensive vis-a-vis Capital in its neoliberal, global triumphalism, I now feel free to wax at large and indulge similar Kenyan passions at depth. Let us therefore talk Hellen Wasilwa, some heart to heart deep! She is a pathology. By now you have heard of her! I spent time on the intro. However, there is another detail connected to her show. Listening to the hullabaloo after she sent the Union doctors to court, you may not have discerned the octaves of COTU's Francis Atwoli nor TUC-ke's Wilson Sossion (more widely known as KNUT boss!). How come during such a deep crisis the twin Big Union Guns were so nondescript? Could it be because they are a bubble within an aristocratic labour class whose parochial (class) woes couldn''t be further from the majority of struggling Kenyans? Where did it all go wrong for Kenya's trade Unions? I suspect we have to dive to Tom Mboya in his transformation from a Union and political activist to a mercurial unipolar state bureaucrat. In his ideological limitations and architectural framework of the post-colonial theatre in which Unionism would unfold, we could find the wrong turn! whic birthed these kinds of COTUS! Hellen Wasilwa's unlady Justice like tantrum, is a deep, long trip wire from the past! |
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IFMIS payment system. The county did not say when it expected to release the money, however, saying the decision had not been reached.
agitated judge accused the doctors of "adamantly refusing" to end the strike.
in June 27, 2013 by then Health Permanent Secretary Mark Bor, doctors are yet to have the document made legal. 
chaos and putting the sector in a permanent crisis. Since the expose of a monumental financial scam last year, where Health ministry is suspected to have lost Sh5 billion through fraud, Dr Muraguri has been uncooperative. Therefore, the bellicose tendencies he is now exhibiting are not surprising. 
the return-to-work deal, and at whose doorstep the buck stops, must overturn this directive. We need peace in the health sector. The deal must be honoured, with the doctors getting paid as was agreed.