|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 11, 2013 15:13:37 GMT 3
Kisumu, Kenya: A contingent of General Service Unit officers is set to arrive in Kisumu next week as political campaigns intensify in the county ahead of the March 4 polls. Security measures have been beefed up and peace campaigns intensified following the mapping out of Kisumu county as one of the major violence hotspots in the country. The County has 35 hotspots. Kisumu East District Officer 1 Solomon Chanzira on Friday said residents should not be scared when they see the officers patrolling the county. Chanzira sad that they are not going to take chances with the security of Kisumu residents and they do not want a repeat of whatever happened in 2008. Speaking at a peace campaign dubbed ‘Sitarusha mawe tena’, the DO 1 said that there were allegations that that the business community of Indian Origin were not restocking their shops for fear of violence. “The nomination exercise was a challenge and we overcame, so shall we overcome the general election,” said Chanzira. In a bid to ensure there is maximum peace during campaigns, March 4 and immediately after the poll results are announced, security personnel and the international community is to monitor 35 spots in the county. The list by Champions of Peace Movement indicates Kisumu Central constituency has the highest number of hotspots followed by Kisumu East. The areas include Kondele, Manyatta, Nyalenda, Kawater, Kachok, Bandani, Jua Kali and Buspark. The movement’s officials Elly Opondo said they mapped 35 areas based on the 2007/2008 post election violence and riots that have been taking place in the county from time to time. It is in Kondele where the junction connecting Kisumu-Kakamega Highway and Manyatta is located and acts as a notorious base for many idlers especially during the day. In Kisumu East, the movement mapped out Nyamasaria, Mamboleo, Kasawili, Chigalali, Koyango market and carwash, adding that violence syndicates are based at Koptit where the road was blocked following the Orange Democratic Movement primaries. Muhoroni constituency has Kibigori, Kopeli, Masogo, Fort Teman and Awasi that were hit in 2007 and ODM primaries. The areas were mapped out due to susceptibility to political manipulation of cane cutters by candidates and accessibility of machetes. It is also because the constituency borders Rift Valley. Kisumu West has Holo, Kisian, Otonglo, Daraja Mbili and Maseno. In Nyakach, inter community tensions has Katito, Pap Onditi and Sondu as the key areas. Nyando-Ahero, Rabuor, Kabongo and Nam Bay, while in the newly created Seme constituency has Kombewa and Kit Mikai. On Friday, Opondo said the areas mapped out also act as stopovers for politicians during campaigns and bases for boda boda (motor cycle) riders. “We are now targeting boda boda riders in peace campaigns because they are influential in all the mapped out areas. They act as pillars of peace in this place,” he said during a meeting with 230 riders in Kisumu. The movement is targeting more than 30,000 riders to be champions of peace and has given them jackets with messaged at the back. www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000076876&pageNo=2&story_title=Kenya-GSU-to-be-deployed-in-Kisumu-next-week
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 11, 2013 14:35:13 GMT 3
ODM’s self-inflicted nomination wounds yet to heal in Nyanza elections.nation.co.ke/news/ODMs-self-inflicted-nomination-wounds-yet-to-heal-in-Nyanza-/-/1631868/1690266/-/ob9ba2/-/index.htmlIn Summary Crowds at rallies defied the Cord presi-dential candidate and heckled his preferred contenders SHARE THIS STORY Tweet 0 inShare That ODM’s self-inflicted wounds in Nyanza are yet to heal came out openly during Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s tour of the region. Crowds at rallies defied the Cord presidential candidate and heckled his preferred candidates for various positions. This is unheard of in a region where support for Mr Odinga is the highest nationally. In Homa Bay, where there were widespread protests against the party’s primaries, police had to intervene to disperse a hostile crowd in a rally attended by the PM. Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang, who got the party’s nod to contest the senate seat against a strong grassroots wave, was heckled off the podium. And in Siaya county where the nominations debacle involved his brother Oburu Oginga, the Prime Minister was told No to his face when he asked that voters elect ODM candidates. Dr Oginga went head to head with youthful William Oduol for the governor’s ticket. Dr Oginga was declared winner amid protests by Oduol and his supporters. In the end, both missed the ticket which went to third-placed Rasanga Amoth. Oduol defected to the National Agenda Party while Dr Oginga will be nominated to Parliament. In Gem, Jakoyo Midiwo, another relative of the PM was given the ticket amid claims that his rival, Mr Elisha Ochieng’, had won. Last week’s was the first visit to the region by Mr Odinga since the disputed nominations. It was meant to pacify ODM supporters and convince them to fall in line behind party candidates. But what came out instead is that whereas Mr Odinga’s presidential vote may be safe, all the other positions are up for grabs. There will be no six-piece voting here. His call for “six-piece” voting pattern attracted open hostility from crowds. Many of the aspirants who felt short-changed in ODM crossed over to Cord affiliate parties including Ford Kenya, Peoples Democratic Party and Wiper Democratic Movement. But Mr Odinga has been pushing for voters in Nyanza to ignore these candidates. It is obvious that this could cause friction even in the post-election period as the allies jostle for influence. Vice President Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka who was campaigning In Western already took issue with what he called a move by the Orange party to sideline other coalition partners in its campaigns. He said “side-lining other parties in the campaigns would cost CORD and its presidential candidate”. In the past elections, Mr Odinga has managed to galvanise the Luo vote in a pattern referred to as three-piece suit, where they voted the president, MP and councillors from the same party. His alliance with Ford Kenya and Wiper has however dimmed the notion that whoever is picked on the Odinga-led political party can as well start operating like a real election winner. Mr Tom Mboya, a political scientist from Maseno University says that the competition of parties within the same alliance is good for democracy as it gives the electorate an option of choosing leaders of their choice. But he says the move by any of the principals to prefer candidates from their own parties would not only breed mistrust but commence the beginning of a protracted power battle. “The electorate must be allowed to choose their own leaders so that the alliance can grow. Free and fair completion among the parties will help the alliance and avoid mistrust and suspicions,” argues Mr Mboya. According to a Nyanza civil society activist Mr Collins Okoth, whereas the PM will have his presidential vote intact, it will be no surprise to get candidates elected on parties other than ODM. “The electorate is wiser and more informed and they have seen it in other parts of the country that electing a good leader irrespective of the party is very productive.” But Mr Okoth warns that the effect of ODM’s botched nominations could also eat into the PMs core vote basket. “The nominations were a sham to say the least. In some places they never took place at all. This could attract a lot of apathy as the voters will feel that they are endorsing products of a flawed process,” says Mr Okoth. Majority of the aspirants contesting with the CORD affiliate parties in the counties of Migori, Homa Bay and Siaya were emphatic that it would amount to betrayal for the ODM leaders to turn around and insist on the six piece suit voting pattern. The PM’s close lieutenants that included ministers James Orengo (lands), Dalmas Otieno (Public service), Fred Gumo (Regional Development) and Otieno Kajwang (Immigration) had stirred the storm during the campaign in Nyanza by insisting that the only way for Mr Odinga to be safe if he ascends to the presidency is by voting in ODM candidates. The remarks did not however go down well with majority of the candidates with the CORD affiliate parties that were in attendance. They included an aspirant for the gubernatorial position in Migori County Okoth Obado of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and veteran politician, Oluoch Kanindo who is vying for the senatorial position as an Independent. Most of the candidates on the CORD affiliate parties want the voters to decide who clinches the various seats after they were “rigged” out at nominations. In Homa Bay County, the various groups allied to ODM and those from CORD affiliate parties engaged in a shouting match during a rally at the Homa Bay High School grounds. But according to former Nyakach MP Peter Odoyo, the protests are largely against the shambolic primaries as opposed to a direct protest against Mr Odinga.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 11, 2013 14:13:47 GMT 3
Major BOOST for UHURU as RAILA’s top Coast pointman joins the UHURU/RUTO’s Jubilee alliance Monday February 11, 2013 - Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta’s Presidential bid received a huge boost on Sunday, after a prominent coast leader joined the Jubilee alliance. Sheikh Juma Ngao, who was Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) point man at the Coast region, dumped Prime Minister Raila Odinga saying he had been pressurised by Coast residents to join the Jubilee alliance. Ngao said he left CORD alliance because majority of Muslim and Christian clerics from the Coast are backing the Jubilee alliance. “I have two main reasons for joining Jubilee; first, I felt if we were all in CORD and then Jubilee wins the election, most religious leaders would not be represented in government,” Ngao said. The other reason, he said is because Uhuru needs strong religious leaders to advise him on the implementation of the Constitution and advance the reform agenda. Ngao was accompanied by more than 100 Islamic clerics who also moved to Jubilee alliance saying it is a winning team. They vowed to launch door to door campaigns in Mombasa County, expressing confidence that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta will be the fourth President of Republic of Kenya. This is a major boost for Uhuru’s Presidential bid especially in cementing the swing coastal vote. www.kenyan-post.com/2013/02/major-boost-for-uhuru-as-railas-top.html
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 11, 2013 9:04:56 GMT 3
It is my opinion that Raila should skip today’s Presidential debate or send a lieutenant like Hon Abu Namwamba to stand for him. I take fault with CORD Presidential strategy team lacking foresight and committing the candidate to this worthless exposure. The only serious Presidential contender of Raila’s stature and therefore CORD’s concern is Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta and to a lesser extent Amani’s Musalia Mudavadi. It adds zero value for a Presidential front-runner debating prime with a crowd of political minions for the sake of it. With due respect to PK, Karua and the lot, they stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this election. Empirically they are non- starters with nothing to loose. To them therefore this debate is a God-sent platform & exciting opportunity to heckle, bash & punch above their weights; all for the attention their bids have so far failed to attract on the “political free market”. Back in 2007 count-down to the polls, Kalonzo Musyoka then running distant third insisted on a debate with Raila. ODM out-rightly rebuffed the calls on account that Raila would only debate with main challenger Kibaki, then of PNU. Similar wisdom should have prevailed this time in CORD. I understand the excitement of staging this event but even in USA and the democracies (which I believe we’re trying to shadow) there are benchmarks and thresholds of whom to put where. There were other candidates running alongside Obama and Romney for the Presidency. They were simply accorded scopes of their worth in the race. Narrowing the field would have been easier if both Jubilee and Cord for once got in one accord and insisted to the debate organizers to exclude jokers as a condition for their participation. My point is a true Presidential debate ought to be between/among two or three heavy-weights whom the public ought to interrogate and compare/contrast for the very fact that have realistic chance of assuming the office. Finally I’m also concerned about the moderators of this debate. I find most of our Kenyan journalist to be either shallow (lacking the acumen), biased or timid to rebut politicians and pundits in a manner that brings them to accountability. For example Julie Gichuru (selected for this evening) is one such awesome TV star, I thoroughly adore this lady but she is a tick-box and hollow with respect to political discussions/shows. She shows little mastery of this field. I could be too colored by British standards but that it is my take of the media in my native homeland... Someone like Jeff Koinange (assuming he was not-at large) has impeccable talent for such task but yet too compromised to referee an impartial debate. I hope the moderators will prove me wrong by setting the natural tempo for the debate as opposed a boring academic presentations among the contenders. I feel your pain . Raila is challenged when it comes to articulating issues and giviving a stand on a particular points. Dont worry one thing which will be advantageous to him is the number of participants in the debate thus he would be able to camouflage his weaknesses. He also needs to remember he is more like an incumbent thus he should be ready to answer questions like why could he have solved most of the problems while he was the prime minister , if he goes the route of vitendawilis then he will have backstabbed himself before 40 million viewers .Tonight will be the day the presidency will be won based on the swing voters making up their minds elections.nation.co.ke/news/All-set-for-first-presidential-debate-/-/1631868/1690288/-/12drj4/-/index.htmlRAILA ODINGA The Cord alliance torch-bearer projects himself as the reform candidate, but he has garnered more attention in recent days for his attacks on Uhuru Kenyatta over the sensitive land question. He would probably want to continue an onslaught that would keep his main rival on the defensive, but the format of the debate might not allow for direct confrontation. Mr Odinga is a master hectoring crowds on the campaign soapbox, but a more structured debate might cramp his freewheeling style. Mr Odinga rose in politics grounded in mastery of issues and defined policy platform, but he also has a tendency to shoot from the hip. He might also easily disregard the discipline—hours of preparation and rehearsal—required to ensure a winning performance in debate. That could expose him tonight, especially if he goes off message and brings out the rabble-rouser of the campaign platform rather than the statesman required to steer the ship of state. Mr Odinga might also need a few lessons to stop mumbling and speaking through clenched teeth.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 20:10:29 GMT 3
Is RAILA’s CORD alliance headed for TROUBLE in Western Kenya? www.kenyan-post.com/2013/02/is-railas-cord-alliance-headed-for.htmlSaturday February 9th 2013 - Trouble is brewing within Raila’s CORD alliance as a result of an incident where Wetangula’s Ford Kenya candidate was forcefully evicted from a joint ODM campaign launch in Amagoro, Busia county yesterday. Mrs. Cynthia Mutere, a woman representative on a Ford Kenya ticket was ready to join an ODM team only to be chased away. Ford Kenya party which is also a member of CORD alliance has been appealing to its partners for tolerance and to be treated with respect. It seems there is too much hypocrisy and sabotage within CORD alliance after Planning Minister Wicliffe Oparanya indicated that ODM may not work with other smaller parties within CORD alliance. The event witnessed in Amagaro may be just a pointer towards what Oparanya envisaged. Just recently other smaller parties launched an attack on Muthama’s remarks which sought to undermine small parties within CORD. Mutere blamed ODM officials for her woos but vowed to soldier on despite this act of sabotage. She challenged all member parties within CORD to work as one unit if they have to form the next government.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 20:00:04 GMT 3
ODM’s TROUBLEs in Rift Valley as SALLY KOSGEY campaigns for herself and NOT RAILA Saturday February 9th 2013 - Confusion rocked Raila’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) yet again yesterday when Agriculture Minister Dr. Sally Kosgey differed publicly with her party boss, the Prime Minister Raila Odinga on the “six piece” voting pattern. Addressing a series of rallies in Aldai constituency, the Minister who is also vying for MP in Aldai on an ODM ticket discouraged residents against voting along party lines, a philosophy the Prime Minister holds dear in this coming election and has come out openly advocating for it. The Minister downplayed the idea saying it has no place in 21st Century politics. She urged people to choose individuals with development track records like her who can spur the economy of the constituency to the next level. She asked her people to consider her as a person and not the party she is using. Kosgey credited herself for not only using her CDF more transparently and accountable but also her global connections to spur development projects in Aldai. www.kenyan-post.com/2013/02/odms-troubles-in-rift-valley-as-sally.html
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 19:58:42 GMT 3
Kalonzo denies endorsing Joho Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has denied endorsing the Mombasa County governor candidate Hassan Joho. The VP’s spokesman Kaplich Barsito dismissed reports that Mr Musyoka had supported Mr Joho's candidature for the governor seat saying his comment about him in Malindi was quoted out of context. “The VP was just responding to what Mr Joho had said at the rally but he didn’t endorse him as the Mombasa governor and this should not be used to mean otherwise,” he told Nation on phone. Wiper Democratic Movement (WDM) candidates and supporters reacted sharply after word went round that the VP had endorsed Mr Joho as the preferred governor within the Cord coalition. Several Wiper candidates in Mombasa County expressed disappointment that their party leader could support a different candidate from a partner party. Meanwhile, the Somali community living in Mombasa County is divided on whom to support between Mr Joho and Wiper's Mr Suleiman Shahbal for the governor seat. At a press conference on Saturday, a section of the community protested a planned meeting with Mr Joho saying they had not been involved as elders, youths or women leaders of the county. “We cannot let certain individuals to use our community for selfish interests. That is why we are raising a red flag to protest the meeting with one of those seeking the governor seat," said Mohamed Hassan Dahir, the youth chairman. Land injustices Meanwhile, the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) on Sunday reassured the Coastal residents that the coalition will address the problem of historical land injustices if it forms the next government. While addressing a public rally at Mtwapa grounds, Mr Musyoka said that land was the basis for economic development and a solution should be found to historical land injustices in the area. He said the Constitution will adequately address issue pertaining to land ownership, saying it is only Cord leadership that can be trusted to fully implement the Constitution. Mr Musyoka said the Constitution will bring changes to Kenyans and ensure the rule of law is respected. He said that Cord will ensure that education is free from nursery school to secondary school level as well as affordable university education. Mr Musyoka also said that the coalition will ensure there are enough jobs for the youth in the country. He regretted that tribalism was becoming the stumbling block to a united country and called for concerted efforts in the fight against negative ethnicity. He said Kenyans have the right to live and work in any part of the country without being intimidated. "Let us live as brothers and sisters and discourage any attempts to be divided on grounds of our tribes. There is no Kikuyu, Kamba or Kalenjin as we are all Kenyans," said Mr Musyoka elections.nation.co.ke/news/-/1631868/1689998/-/p850djz/-/index.html
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 18:20:36 GMT 3
Otishotish, Just a question , what has Peter Keneth done to warrant him being elected the Kenyan president come Mar 04 ? I don't if you've ever heard of The Story of Louis Armstrong & The Square White Lady. It refers to the following exchange. Square White Lady: "Mr Armstrong!, Mr. Armstrong!, Sir!"
Mr. Armstrong: "Yes, ma'am".
Square White Lady: "Mr. Armstrong, what exactly is jazz?"
Mr. Armstrong: "Ma'am, if you have to ask, then you don't need to know."Somethings are like that. But see also my short "digital essay" on the subject .... coming later this week. Thanks Otis , I ve asked the same question to a lot of PK supporters and usually they dont have anything to speak about. As you can see above there is nothing you can write home about his candidature. The so called accountability of CDF funds does not hold ground as we have not seen any benefits to talk about.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 18:02:20 GMT 3
Is there any one blogger here in jukwaa who can clearly endorse as an independent and objective? That would be me, and I endorse Peter Kenneth. Otishotish, Just a question , what has Peter Keneth done to warrant him being elected the Kenyan president come Mar 04 ?
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 17:48:08 GMT 3
A very interesting read this: Kisumu Molasses Factory - How Did the Odingas Get It?By Sarah Elderkin, 18 August 2012Credit: The Nairobi StarOn February 16, 1990, the body of Foreign Affairs minister Dr Robert Ouko - who had been missing for four days following a trip with then President Daniel arap Moi to the USA - was found, mutilated and burnt, in a thicket near Got Alila Hill, four kilometres from his Koru home, in Nyanza. Ouko's death was announced to the nation by Moi, who expressed his "profound sorrow". A couple of days earlier, Moi had also announced his "sadness and grave concern" at his minister's unexplained disappearance. He said he had directed that the state machinery be deployed to trace Ouko's whereabouts, and that his "top personnel" were applying "maximum effort" towards this end. It was too late. As he spoke, Ouko was already lying murdered. Seven months later, on October 1, 1990, Moi appointed a commission of inquiry into Ouko's death. This went on very well for months - until the day Scotland Yard detective John Troon, who was investigating the case, named Nicholas Biwott, then MP for Kerio South, as one of his two main suspects. Biwott, at the time, enjoyed a status in the inner circle around Moi that had long rendered him immune from criticism, despite the fact that he was widely disliked and feared. Moi acted swiftly to close down the commission of inquiry before any evidence against Biwott could be heard. Biwott's problems had begun when a witness, director of medical services Prof Joseph Oliech, told the commissioners that the Scotland Yard detectives had asked him whether Ouko had made any enemies because of the stalled molasses plant in Kisumu. The molasses plant, then properly called the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation Ltd, had been inaugurated in 1977 and abandoned five years later, one of the costliest failures in Kenya's industrial history. The original proposal for the plant's establishment had come from Nitin Madhvani, of the influential Madhvani family, investors in Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere, particularly in the sugar industry, of which molasses is a by-product. It was to be a joint venture with the government to produce power alcohol. Despite the fact that the Madhvani group had been involved in a previous joint venture with the government that had failed to get off the ground (the Kenya Fibre Corporation, based in Nanyuki) and had cost the Treasury huge sums, the new company was set up and capitalised at Sh170 million, of which the government, as 51 per cent majority shareholder, contributed Sh86.7 million. In 1977, this was a huge sum of money. The project was initially dealt with by three ministries - the Ministry of Finance under Mwai Kibaki and later under Prof George Saitoti, the Ministry for Commerce and Industry under Eliud Mwamunga, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Dr Munyua Waiyaki. The plant's main planned function was to produce power alcohol, that is, an energy fuel, out of waste from the sugar production process. The Ministry of Energy, under which the project eventually fell, was created by Moi in 1979, and Biwott was given the portfolio in 1983. By 1981, the government had guaranteed Sh600 million in loans for the failing molasses project and was being asked to guarantee another US$24 million. Lenders were pressing for repayment and contractors and suppliers had stopped work for lack of funds. In 1982, government estimates showed the country would lose Sh135 million a year for the next 10 years if the project went ahead. At that point, the plant was all but abandoned, and in 1983 it was placed in receivership. Some people, however, including Ouko, minister for Industry at the time, believed the project was still viable, and Ouko had appealed to the government and been instructed to find investors for the project. He had subsequently brought investors from Italy to see the plant and they had said it was possible to revive it. But a row over the molasses plant had been simmering for some time. Avon Ltd managing director Eric Onyango, giving evidence to the Ouko Commission, said Ouko had told him there were those among his Cabinet colleagues who favoured a different set of investors who would pay them "kickbacks". Competition had become intense. Ouko himself had told other friends who later gave evidence that there were powerful forces in the Cabinet opposed to his determination to expose corruption. Onyango said Ouko had told him that the level of corruption in the Cabinet was "not only alarming but unbelievable". Another witness said he would reveal the names of Ouko's enemies if he were granted police protection. Biwott, informed, under the inquiry's rules, of possible adverse mention of himself, brought in a team of three lawyers. Moi was quick to see that big trouble might be brewing and he promptly announced a new commission of inquiry - into the molasses plant. Attorney General Amos Wako was on hand as usual to deny that there was anything remarkable in this timing, and to say that the two commissions would operate independently. Soon afterwards, the witness who had asked for police protection, James K'Oyoo, who had been a political aide to Ouko, was recalled to the stand. Deputy public prosecutor Bernard Chunga applied for K'Oyoo's evidence to be given in secret, describing it as "possibly alarming", but the witness responded that he would not ask for protection as long as his testimony could be given in public. When he took the stand, K'Oyoo said Ouko had mentioned threats to his life over the molasses plant. A report in the New York Times, meanwhile, said the newspaper had obtained a copy of a US High Court injunction blocking Citibank New York from recovering dollar funds equal to Sh400 million in loans to Biwott's companies. Sh320 million of this was reported as secured by letters of credit in a Swiss bank account owned by Biwott. The New York Times quoted New York officials who warned that high levels of corruption in Kenya could endanger future US aid. A letter from the head of BAK, the Italian group favoured by Ouko regarding the revival of the molasses plant, to a legal firm in Nairobi said Kenya's reputation in international business circles had been marred by corruption, and it cited Turkwel Gorge and Noolturesh (Kajiado-Machakos) water projects. Chillingly, a memorandum from the same group of companies indicated that, in the days immediately before he died, Ouko had been preparing a report on the high-level corruption that was hindering the revival of the molasses plant. The writer of the memorandum said, "I spoke with him last on Saturday, February 10, when ... he told me he was staying in Kisumu to finish his report for HE [President Moi]...." Three days after this conversation about the report Ouko was preparing, Ouko was dead. When Detective John Troon finally took the stand, he told the commissioners he had repeatedly tried to interview Biwott, without success, and also that he had been stopped from proceeding with his investigations, particularly regarding the questioning of senior government officials. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund's quarterly report stated that half the funds deposited in foreign bank accounts owned by Kenyans had been deposited in the past five years alone. On November 18, 1991, Troon named Biwott as one of two principal suspects in Ouko's murder and recommended full investigation of the corruption allegations against him. Troon said he was certain Ouko had been murdered because of his anti-corruption stance. The following day, Moi relieved Biwott of his ministerial post "with immediate effect", then abruptly disbanded the Ouko Commission of inquiry, instead directing the Kenya Police Commissioner to "proceed with due diligence and speed" in investigating Ouko's death. Sceptics abounded, especially as the commissioners themselves had requested an adjournment because of harassment by the Special Branch, including a brutal arrest of Ouko family lawyer George Oraro, "clearly calculated to undermine the continuance of these proceedings", they said. Moi's action was also interesting from another point of view: it came days before Kenya was to meet its increasingly reluctant donors in Paris. The issue of the billions stashed away abroad by corrupt political leaders was expected to feature prominently on the agenda, including the hundreds of millions of shillings held by Biwott in Swiss bank accounts. With Ouko's death, the whole matter of the Kisumu molasses plant was abandoned, and the physical structure of the plant fell into disrepair - a rusting skeleton standing at the edge of the Kisumu-Busia road, a colossal monument to government mismanagement and wasted public funds. It was apparently not until five years later that it was deemed safe to raise once again the issue of the molasses plant - and "all moveable assets" of the plant were advertised for sale on July 10, 1995. Raila Odinga, like Ouko, believed the plant had a future, and he protested officially at the intention to dispose of the assets of the company piecemeal. The sale did not proceed, but on March 8 of the following year, 1996, an advertisement again appeared in the Daily Nation newspaper, this time offering "For sale by public auction: All assets of Kisumu Molasses Factory". The auction was to be conducted at the plant on April 15, 1996. Among the conditions of sale was "(b) "IMPORTANT: First consideration will be taken for offer to purchase the whole plant in total [writer's emphasis]. Thereafter consideration for purchase of large combination of units and finally consideration of single item purchases." The would-be purchaser of the "whole plant or large items" was required to pay 25 per cent of the purchase price by banker's cheque at the fall of the hammer, and the balance within 30 days. The auction did not actually take place until June 3, on which day, Mr Odinga was present. Representing Spectre International Ltd, he bid Sh570 million for the "whole plant". This turned out to be the highest bid and it was accepted by the auctioneers on behalf of the receiver and the plant's debenture holders, Kenya Commerical Bank - but only tentatively.A token deposit was therefore paid, in two cheques totalling Sh2million, with the balance of the 25 per cent to be paid upon official acceptance of the bid by the receiver and debenture holders. M N Kanyi, of auctioneers Panama Rovers, wrote to Mr Odinga the following day and again two days later, on June 6, 1996, confirming that the bid had been accepted. Kanyi returned the two cheques lodged and requested payment of the full 25 per cent, which amounted to Sh142,500,00, not later than June 14, with the balance to be paid by July 15, 1996. The letter of June 6 included, however, a major caveat. While the advertised lot had described "the whole plant in total", Kanyi now stated in his opening paragraph that the Sh570 million purchase price "covers all the assets of the company, which, as stressed prior to the auction, exclude land". The Daily Nation advertisement had made no mention of this and Spectre's board was taken aback by Kanyi's remarks. It was difficult to see how a factory could be purchased sitting on thin air and it had naturally been assumed that the 240 acres of land on which the factory stood was part of the "whole plant in total" advertised for sale. Spectre instructed its lawyers, Lumumba & Ojwang, to write to the auctioneers, which they did on June 7, pointing out that it was clear from correspondence and a previous High Court case (no. 2433 of 1995) relating to the plant that both seller and buyer understood the land to be an integral part of the offer, and that the subsequent exclusion of the land constituted a "drastic turn of events". Said Lumumba & Ojwang, "Our clients have no intention of relocating the plant elsewhere," and they were therefore seeking confirmation that the auction sale included the land . Panama Rovers replied, saying that the Daily Nation advertisement had advised potential purchasers that it was their obligation to "ascertain the state of the assets". While this would appear to refer to the condition of the assets, and not to be a new meaning for the words "whole plant in total" (a double emphasis of the entirety of the goods), Panama asserted that the joint receiver JK Muiruri, of Bellhouse Mwangi Ernst & Young, and the auctioneer had explained before the auction that the lot included plant and machinery but not land. The receiver also wrote to Spectre, emphasising that the land was not part of the sale. On June 13, 1996, Mr Odinga wrote to the receiver saying that discussions about the land had been initiated with the government and "the matter is in the process of being resolved". He asked for an extension of the time within which to pay the deposit. In a congruent letter to Panama from Lumumba & Ojwang, the lawyers noted that Spectre had been given the impression that the land was part of the package. Indeed, a change in the wording of the sale notice from the "all moveable assets" advertised on July 10, 1995, to "all assets of Kisumu Molasses Factory" and the "whole plant in total" on March 8, 1996, was significant and supported this impression, said Lumumba & Ojwang, who again asked for confirmation of the inclusion of the land. The receiver replied to Mr Odinga the following day, June 14, 1996, granting the extension of the time within which the deposit had to be paid, with the price in full to be paid by December 16 that year. Panama replied to Lumumba & Ojwang confirming that the land was not part of the sale and advising that they would enter into no further correspondence on this issue. The situation was apparently deadlocked, and Spectre, apparently in disbelief, wrote once more to the receiver, on July 27, for reconfirmation of the land issue, which was subsequently received in a letter from the receiver of July 29, 1996. The receiver expected the shs.142,500,000 deposit on September 16, 1996. Instead, on that date, Spectre International filed suit against the receiver, stating neglect to confirm prior to the sale that the land was not included, and seeking (a) a declaration that the sale of "all assets" included the land, (b) an injunction restraining the receiver from disposing of any of the assets of the factory and (c) costs. At the hearing of the injunction suit (HCCC 2324 of 1996), counsel for Spectre International Ltd cited the Collins English Dictionary with regard to the meaning of plant, the first meaning being: "The land, buildings and equipment used in carrying on an industrial, business or other undertaking or service." Counsel also cited a report on the "progress, problems and prospects" of the venture, dated April, 1981, 15 years earlier, which had been prepared for the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation Ltd by the law firm of Schnader, Harrizon, Segal & Lewis, of Philadelphia and Washington, USA. In the provisional balance sheet of June 30, 1982, under the heading 'Capital work in progress', appeared the items "Land and site development, buildings, and plant and equipment". Lumumba contended that this reference showed that the land was among the assets of the molasses company. The application was vigorously opposed by lawyer Lee Muthoga. After lengthy legal arguments, Mr Justice AG Ringera, presiding, opined that, because the land had not been expressly itemised as an asset in the Daily Nation advertisement, Spectre had not established a prima facie case. Because Spectre had withheld the deposit pending resolution of the case, Ringera also refused to grant an injunction against the receiver's disposal of the factory's assets. But he granted the interlocutory injunction assigning costs to the receiver, on grounds that the molasses factory was "in its death throes", was being liquidated and was therefore unable to pay any damages. In the absence of the land on which the factory stood, Spectre withdrew from its proposed purchase of the plant. The receiver then wrote to the second-highest bidder, Equip Agencies, which by this time had also decided to steer well clear of this white elephant/hot potato. Presumably most investors would be reluctant to spend huge sums of money on a derelict, non-functioning factory standing on land over which they had no control. And so the molasses plant stood, forlorn and unwanted and deteriorating by the day, for another three years - until the receiver decided to have another go at disposing of this towering government problem. On February 12, 1999, he wrote to those who had been the top four bidders in 1996 to ask them if they were still interested. Spectre wrote back, saying it was still interested but it wanted to confirm the present-day value, as well as the thorny issue of the status of the land. Spectre inspected the site and found the plant buildings in a very poor condition. Time and weather had taken their toll, as had vandals. Now an even greater investment would be required to revive the factory. But Spectre wrote to Bellhouse Mwangi Ernst & Young on February 18, 1999, making an offer of shs. 120 million, 10 per cent to be paid on acceptance and the balance within 120 days. "We are in negotiation with the government over the land issues," said Spectre's letter, "and do not anticipate difficulties in that regard." On June 9, 1999, receiver Muiruri wrote to Spectre accepting its offer of shs.120 million. Spectre had been outbid by shs.15 million by another bidder but successfully argued its case that it planned to develop the factory in accordance with the government's original aims, and not simply to cannibalise the moveable assets, as the other bidder planned. To make things crystal clear, Muiruri noted in his letter that the shs. 120 million was for the "moveable assets and not of shares or of any running business". The land was not mentioned at all but Spectre was already pursuing its own negotiations in this regard. On April 7, 1999, Spectre general manager Israel Agina had written to Moi requesting the allocation for industrial development of the parcel of land on which the molasses factory stood. Agina noted that the land had already formerly been allocated to the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation but that the allocation had not been completed. What he said was true. The land had already been allocated to the molasses plant by the government, which had itself compulsorily acquired the land in 1976 for precisely that purpose. The land was previously communal land, and shs.2 million had been paid to the local community, which had ceded the land at this price only on the promise that the community would benefit from employment at the plant. The community had not otherwise been adequately compensated. The government, having thus acquired the land, had in 1982 issued a letter of allotment to the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation, which had paid the stand premium of shs.2.4 million to the government. All that remained was for the title to be issued, but this had not been done by the time the factory went into receivership in 1983. And as an interesting aside, on October 29, 1983, the Municipality of Kisumu had written to the KCB, the debenture holder for the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation, demanding land rates for the plot, unpaid since 1978. The letter contained the sentence "As you are aware, the Corporation owns 240 acres of land on which it started its operations [writer's emphasis]." In his letter to Moi, Agina said the land remained an obstacle to the conclusion of Spectre's desired purchase of the plant, while the factory's existing assets were deteriorating rapidly. "We hope," said Agina, "to convert the idle facility into a socio-economic complex." That hope became a reality. More than two years after Spectre was offered the company, the sale agreement was finally drawn up mid-2001. In September of that year, government letters of allotment granted a total of 114.8 hectares of land for 99 years for total fees of shs. 3,699,750, which were paid by Spectre International on October 11, 2001. The land was to be used for horticultural, industrial, residential and educational purposes, including the growing of such crops as citrus, tomatoes, onions and cabbages, and for a school and a health clinic. All title certification, registration, search, new register, attestation, inspection, copying, survey, rent, stand premium, stamp duty, land adjudication and other fees were likewise paid by Spectre four days later, on October 15, 2001. The sale agreement was signed. As usual, however, the transfer of title was not effected until nearly two years later. This eventually occurred in 2003 (under the Narc government), by which time Spectre had also paid the commissioner of lands all the rent arrears relating to the land for the years 1982 to 2003. Spectre then set about the huge task of rehabilitating the plant - appraising the work with professional valuers and beginning to seek expert scientific advice on appropriate crop-growing and methods of ethanol production. It also began the search for investment partners. Eventually, Energem would take a 55 per cent controlling share, and the Kisumu Development Trust (with directors the late Joab Omino, former Rarieda MP George Ngure Ondeny and current chairman John Otega) would hold five per cent on behalf of local people, who had come together to raise shs.1.8m towards the project. Spectre would retain the remaining 40 per cent. The rehabilitation project resulted in the commissioning of the plant in 2004. The yeast plant was completed in 2006 and the factory now produces industrial ethanol for blending with liquid (bio-fuels), potable alcohol for beverages and chemical industries, carbon dioxide, and bio and organic fertiliser yeast. At the height of the factory's operations, a daily output of 60,000 litres was achieved, but the current precarious state of the sugar industry has affected this. Nevertheless, the company employs directly more than 500 people and indirectly another 200. At the height of its operations, it remitted an average of Sh1.2 billion to the exchequer every year. It also exports to the Comesa countries. The Kisumu Molasses Factory has partnered with local schools to build laboratories and boreholes, and to provide electricity and clean drinking water. It conducts a free medical camp every three months for the entire Kisumu area, bringing in doctors and buying medication, all of which is provided free of charge to the 6,000-plus local residents treated. It is helping in efforts to control and eradicate water-borne diseases in the area. So, from a derelict, rusting, useless hulk to a fully functioning industry bringing benefits to local residents through employment, education and health, and contributing more than a billion shillings annually to the Treasury, the Kisumu Molasses Plant has been a huge success story. Unfortunately, huge success stories can lead to terrible jealousy, as Ouko's case also so sadly demonstrated. A Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land was appointed by President Mwai Kibaki on July 4, 2003. It presented its report, commonly known as the 'Ndung'u Report', to Kibaki in June 2004. The main part of the report lists many ways in which directors of public corporations with large public land holdings had misused their positions to make these organisations - for which they had a duty of care and a responsibility to the public - fail, so that the assets could be sold off cheaply for private gain. The commission found that such state corporations' land was illegally allocated "in total disregard of the law and public interest". It said no justification for the allocation of such land could be found in any of the records, and that subsequently "the lands so allocated were then sold by the allottees to other state corporations for colossal amounts of money far in excess of the prevailing market value of the land. This way, many individuals were unjustly enriched at great expense of the people of Kenya." The report went on to detail how "the loss of corporation land was triggered by the actions of the Commissioner of Lands", whose office would engage in some "specially designed correspondences" prior to wrongly granting title to individuals or their third part proxies "The corporation management would wake up to a rude fact that their land had been acquired and title issued thereto without their knowledge," said the report, adding that another ploy was the illegal allocation of state corporation land after "irregular surrenders" of that land. "The allottees would sell the land so illegally acquired," said the report, so that "in a space of say three months, a civil servant, a politician, a political operative, etc, would transform from an ordinary Kenyan, financially struggling like many others, into a multi-millionaire. Thanks to the rampant illegal allocation and sale of state corporation land." The report cited Kenya Railways, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Power & Lighting Co Ltd, Kenya Airports Authority and Kenya Industrial Estates as among many state corporations that "lost huge chunks of their land in these circumstances". None of this applied in the case of the Kisumu Molasses Factory. But despite this, the allocation to Spectre International Ltd of land on which the molasses plant stands is also mentioned in the report, which concluded that the "direct allocation of alienated government land to the company by the commissioner of lands was illegal". This conclusion would appear to be in direct contradiction of the facts, as detailed above, which are that: • The land on which the molasses factory stands was acquired compulsorily by the government for the purpose of building the molasses plant. • The land was already allocated to the molasses plant in 1982, though the transfer had been only partly completed by the time the company went into receivership in 1983. • The land was properly allocated a second time, this time to Spectre International, in 2001. • Spectre paid 20 years' rent arrears and all the necessary government fees for the land. • The land has been used for the economic realisation of the original objectives of the government, of the investors and of the local community. • It was government land, and government is not in the business of selling land. Government merely allocates land for industrial and other development. This is a normal procedure and it is precisely the procedure properly followed in the case of the molasses plant. As in no other case investigated by the Ndung'u Commission, the land on which the Kisumu Molasses Plant stands has been used for the purposes stated. A hugely successful company has been established on it, which has been of immense benefit to the country via the returns the plant remits to the Treasury every year, and to the local population through jobs, education and health care. And its success is down to the determination of one man, Raila Odinga. Let no one tell you otherwise, for whoever does so is not telling you the truth. Many have tried to say that Mr Odinga took money for the plant from local people and converted it to his own use. This is totally false and blatant propaganda. The shs.1.8 million raised by the local community is safe, in the form of the five per cent shares in the hands of the Kisumu Development Trust. The contributors will begin to see returns on their investment when the Kisumu Molasses Factory becomes a publicly quoted company on the stock exchange. Before any company can go public, it is required to have made a profit for two consecutive years. Spectre had huge commitments, loans and other expenses to meet in the course of the massive task of reviving the molasses plant. But it eventually it began to be a profitable concern, and it was intended that the company would be listed last year, 2011. Unfortunately, the major shareholder, Energem, then went bankrupt. This led to the need for major restructuring and a search for another strategic partner. This was found, but the sugar industry problems have meant that the plant's output has not yet been steady enough to qualify for stock exchange listing. It is hoped this might happen next year. In the meantime, the silence from anyone whose interests are being safeguarded by the Kisumu Development Trust is deafening. What is more, the company's doors are open to anyone who feels aggrieved, and the fact the Trust chairman John Otega is the company's human resources manager makes this all the easier. All the noise that is heard comes only from those interested in political propaganda. So that is the story, and all receipts, correspondence and certificates of allocation relating to the purchase of the Kisumu Molasses Factory and the land on which it stands are available for inspection. Land remains generally a very interesting and potent matter and, now that we are on the subject, what about all those other issues in the Ndung'u Report, issues that involve billions in public funds lost to this nation, massive issues that absolutely dwarf the Kisumu Molasses Factory - where no issue at all exists? Is anybody going to start talking about those? The writer is a freelance journalist. Deyings please visit this thread where we discussed this pr gimick by Sarah back in August 2012 jukwaa.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=7183&page=14b6kIt is a marathon read, this Sarah. But I am not in church so I am sport. Take a look. Those who have worked for politicians and gotten out sane and early enough, will humorously recall the horrors of the contradictions raised by the various boards on which the game is played simultaneously. Wheeling and dealing in politics is of such a nature, that it is no wonder, that many successful heads of gigantic corporations, making a step into politics anywhere, usually find out they do not have what it takes, and regret the career switch. Politics is the business of millions of everybody, a multinational concern, merely the money-making machine for her shareholders. A simple agenda. Sarah Elderkin, is my favourite journalist in Kenya, even if technically she is no longer into that business. She combines passion, wit, intellect and ratio --that is plausible reasoning, with a flair for the script that annoints the hearts of the literati. And like my brother Omwenga, who is going places and, I am afraid, will soon find altercations on jukwaa beneath his dignity -- (forgive me, O Oyomito)-- Elderkin is not into a 500-words-column just for the sake of it. Like Noam Chomsky on a good day, she is 'readers only'. 'Perusers' be gone! So when Sarah turns her formidable prowess into spin-doctoring, I am in the front line of readers, to learn . Between the lines. I rate her a grandmaster in the arts. You can search the market, you wont be finding a handful in East Afrika, and Elderkin tops Kenya, in my opinion. That she is caucasian is an added bonus. With the best brains of Kenya indistinguishable from every Omollo Kamau and Mutiso, I take full responsibility for that sentence. Tongue very cheeky in cheek. To avoid cisgender Kathure's wrath. See following disclaimer ;D: Emilio Kibaki --AAA brains at economics. Look at his achievements. George Saitoti --nobel class maths of a brain. Look at his achievements. Mutula Kilonzo --highest intellect in law ever since SM Otieno. Look at him. Dr. PLO Lumumba --God kissed his brains. But a total public failure. Amos Wako -another god of brains. A total public failure. Yes, trying to explain systematic, inbuilt failure in public administration in places like ... not necessarily Kenya, has led me to study how the best brains of Afrika work when they achieve power. Unfortunately, only caucasians are ready to pay me for this kind of nonsensical research. So it is a good change, to see a caucasian working at the top of her ability for a Jaluos! Evens the scales a somewhat.=================================================== Sarah [quoteStar] Unfortunately, huge success stories can lead to terrible jealousy, as Ouko’s case also so sadly demonstrated. A Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land was appointed by President Mwai Kibaki on July 4, 2003. It presented its report, commonly known as the ‘Ndung’u Report’, to Kibaki in June 2004.
The main part of the report lists many ways in which directors of public corporations with large public land holdings had misused their positions to make these organisations – for which they had a duty of care and a responsibility to the public – fail, so that the assets could be sold off cheaply for private gain.
The commission found that such state corporations’ land was illegally allocated “in total disregard of the law and public interest”. It said no justification for the allocation of such land could be found in any of the records, and that subsequently “the lands so allocated were then sold by the allottees to other state corporations for colossal amounts of money far in excess of the prevailing market value of the land. This way, many individuals were unjustly enriched at great expense of the people of Kenya.”
The report went on to detail how “the loss of corporation land was triggered by the actions of the Commissioner of Lands”, whose office would engage in some “specially designed correspondences” prior to wrongly granting title to individuals or their third part proxies “The corporation management would wake up to a rude fact that their land had been acquired and title issued thereto without their knowledge,” said the report, adding that another ploy was the illegal allocation of state corporation land after “irregular surrenders” of that land.
“The allottees would sell the land so illegally acquired,” said the report, so that “in a space of say three months, a civil servant, a politician, a political operative, etc, would transform from an ordinary Kenyan, financially struggling like many others, into a multi-millionaire. Thanks to the rampant illegal allocation and sale of state corporation land.”
The report cited Kenya Railways, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Power & Lighting Co Ltd, Kenya Airports Authority and Kenya Industrial Estates as among many state corporations that “lost huge chunks of their land in these circumstances”. None of this applied in the case of the Kisumu Molasses Factory.
But despite this, the allocation to Spectre International Ltd of land on which the molasses plant stands is also mentioned in the report, which concluded that the “direct allocation of alienated government land to the company by the commissioner of lands was illegal”. This conclusion would appear to be in direct contradiction of the facts, as detailed above, which are that:
• The land on which the molasses factory stands was acquired compulsorily by the government for the purpose of building the molasses plant.
• The land was already allocated to the molasses plant in 1982, though the transfer had been only partly completed by the time the company went into receivership in 1983.
• The land was properly allocated a second time, this time to Spectre International, in 2001.
• Spectre paid 20 years’ rent arrears and all the necessary government fees for the land.
• The land has been used for the economic realisation of the original objectives of the government, of the investors and of the local community.
• It was government land, and government is not in the business of selling land. Government merely allocates land for industrial and other development. This is a normal procedure and it is precisely the procedure properly followed in the case of the molasses plant.
As in no other case investigated by the Ndung’u Commission, the land on which the Kisumu Molasses Plant stands has been used for the purposes stated. A hugely successful company has been established on it, which has been of immense benefit to the country via the returns the plant remits to the Treasury every year, and to the local population through jobs, education and health care. And its success is down to the determination of one man, Raila Odinga. Let no one tell you otherwise, for whoever does so is not telling you the truth. [endquote Star]
Sarah ========================================== part 11. Sarah has reached a very important conclusion, made a very important discovery, whose consequences are yet to be overseen. She questions, no, positively indicates, that the Ndung'u commission, it its final report, is in error in having cited the Molasses land-plot as part of the state-tracts illegally alloted to the Who-is-Whos of Kenya, where the public lost large chunks of land through the corrupt dealings facilitated by the office of the commissioner for lands. The den of dens of corruption. That now is a power pack, a sledge-hammer hit. The credibility of the report must now be called into question. Are there other errors? can such a disreputable report, form the basis of a national policy of land reclamations? Is it not so, that those whose lands face confiscation or requisition on the basis of these findings, can now sue for injuction, pending a more credible report. Or a revision of the current version? If Ndung'u was not accurate in Raila's case then, who knows what other errors his carelessness --or is it malice, have let seep into the devastating conclusions? Conclusions which on the intergrity bill, if chapter six is not watered down, will hinder many political careers (with the suspected activistic judiciary in place). I am sure Sarah has calculated and factored in what the attack on the credibility of the Ndung'u report entails in the wider political picture, just like, on the other side, those who attack the alleged [jurisprudential] activism of the new CJ Mutunga, have a game plan in the offing. No hazarding a guess on that.It would have been better, if Sarah categorically stated, soon as the Ndung'u report came out and this was in the report, that Spectre took steps to seek clarification and absolution on that paragraph. But now, the timing of this Elderkin response, and coming in the aftermath of the Miguna book, makes it rank as a damage control exercise. A PR gimmick. I find that sad. PS: these things read like thrillers and I wonder where our financial journalists are. A power alcohol company collapses as bad investment in Kenya, even as elsewhere, Brazil, the industry is becoming bigger than oil! a cabinet minister is murdered by his colleague? Murder by cops, politics, big money, IMF, World Bank, shady international investors. Better than any Godfather story Mario Puzo can dream up! PART 3. It is a statement which brought a grin to my face. If only because of its blow back potential. Sarah writes: ` Moi’s action was also interesting from another point of view: it came days before Kenya was to meet its increasingly reluctant donors in Paris.' --This is in reference to Moi disbanding the Ouko inquiry, and in the same breath, sacking Nicholas Biwott from the ministry of energy, just days before the meeting by donors in Paris with Kenya on the agenda. Sarah is no fool, and her pedigree in journalism too, makes her read between the lines... The manoeuvres, and rules of the game. The Big Game. Therefore, one of the most interesting things in her post, is the total ommission of political history. What shifts were in play, and in which context do they fall? How, by the theory of non random events, were collisions and coalitions re-arranging the members of the poliical class, who too, were involved in real life economic disputes? This is where a strange word enters dholuo lexicon: kopareshon. A word, to write a thesis on. this kopareshon.Raila had, by one version, led the Luo out of 'Wamalwa's' FORD. Another version is, the desperate ideological tendencies could not be contained under one party. This led to the famous NDP with its 21 Luo MPs after the 1997 elections, in which Raila lost the presidency but retained Langata. Sometime later, in a move later to be copied by opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta, the leader of the NDP abandoned the opposition benches and entered a kopareshen with KANU-Moi. This koparesen would see NDP rewarded with 3 ministries in 2001, with, I am not sure who else, but Adhu Awiti at Economic planning, and Raila at Energy. Energy had been Biwott's brief earlier on, the total man, the alleged killer of Ouko, and the primary author of the sabotage of the Mollases plant, which fell under this ministry. It is interesting, therefore, in good roman sense, when Elderkin's super attention to detail, discards these earthquakes on the political scene as of no consequence. If it were I, I would sit back and tap the bridge of my nose. Becase Moi, by my profile, is too wily a political knave and calculator not to be abreast of what goes. So when manager Agina writes in 1999 to him, Moi, on the Molasses land just at about the second auction, and subsequently the lawyers write to the auctioneer, that ' they are negotiating with the government on land issues, and they do not anticipate difficulties in that regard'; and the receiver ( Muiruri and the rest, who had made this land issue a sticking point in the first round of the auction, forcing it all the way to Ringera HCCC 2324 1996) prove very accomodative, the investigative instinct of the old journalist Sarah is definitely misfiring when she does not investigate it further, nor offer a considered opinion. Her keen insight, should not have gone blunt, or perhaps dim is the better word, just as the need arose to shine light into the inner workings of power. The boardroom deals of the governing elite as they pact, which made Marx quip, parliament is the golf-club of the bourgeoisie. Drinking wine preaching water. Cut Moi some slack guys, behind the scenes. Kanyotu, I think he wil be the greatest sealed lips in our history, on the request of Moi, some say at the behest of Biwott who also understood power, had a complete economic ongoing profile of 'all' ( ), and it gave Moi a capacity to play financial chess with deadly effect. Called negotiations. I think the tale of one, Githunguri, is the best anecdote: He had to pay some debt-servicing pronto or loose a giant property. And then no bank in the republic could effect a transaction on any of his accounts within the specified period. A technical fault? a compulsory banks holiday by God? a sudden epidemic of diarhea effecting only bankers? You wonder. Kenya ni nchi ya ajabu, some musicians sing. And they have that smile on their face, you wonder what they are thinking of. Now Ndung'u has to salvage his reputation. Our Sarah, you can not buy her in the market. I just saw Ouru added another caucasian to his defence team. Caucasians, you just can not trust a brother to do a job when you are in deep sh!t, can you??? I will be back.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 17:39:41 GMT 3
No Way Hehehehe. Sorry, I didn't see this... How about this one? So which one should we believe; here read: Kisumu Molasses Factory - How Did the Odingas Get It?By Sarah Elderkin, 18 August 2012Credit: The Nairobi StarOn February 16, 1990, the body of Foreign Affairs minister Dr Robert Ouko - who had been missing for four days following a trip with then President Daniel arap Moi to the USA - was found, mutilated and burnt, in a thicket near Got Alila Hill, four kilometres from his Koru home, in Nyanza. Ouko's death was announced to the nation by Moi, who expressed his "profound sorrow". A couple of days earlier, Moi had also announced his "sadness and grave concern" at his minister's unexplained disappearance. He said he had directed that the state machinery be deployed to trace Ouko's whereabouts, and that his "top personnel" were applying "maximum effort" towards this end. It was too late. As he spoke, Ouko was already lying murdered. Seven months later, on October 1, 1990, Moi appointed a commission of inquiry into Ouko's death. This went on very well for months - until the day Scotland Yard detective John Troon, who was investigating the case, named Nicholas Biwott, then MP for Kerio South, as one of his two main suspects. Biwott, at the time, enjoyed a status in the inner circle around Moi that had long rendered him immune from criticism, despite the fact that he was widely disliked and feared. Moi acted swiftly to close down the commission of inquiry before any evidence against Biwott could be heard. Biwott's problems had begun when a witness, director of medical services Prof Joseph Oliech, told the commissioners that the Scotland Yard detectives had asked him whether Ouko had made any enemies because of the stalled molasses plant in Kisumu. The molasses plant, then properly called the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation Ltd, had been inaugurated in 1977 and abandoned five years later, one of the costliest failures in Kenya's industrial history. The original proposal for the plant's establishment had come from Nitin Madhvani, of the influential Madhvani family, investors in Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere, particularly in the sugar industry, of which molasses is a by-product. It was to be a joint venture with the government to produce power alcohol. Despite the fact that the Madhvani group had been involved in a previous joint venture with the government that had failed to get off the ground (the Kenya Fibre Corporation, based in Nanyuki) and had cost the Treasury huge sums, the new company was set up and capitalised at Sh170 million, of which the government, as 51 per cent majority shareholder, contributed Sh86.7 million. In 1977, this was a huge sum of money. The project was initially dealt with by three ministries - the Ministry of Finance under Mwai Kibaki and later under Prof George Saitoti, the Ministry for Commerce and Industry under Eliud Mwamunga, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Dr Munyua Waiyaki. The plant's main planned function was to produce power alcohol, that is, an energy fuel, out of waste from the sugar production process. The Ministry of Energy, under which the project eventually fell, was created by Moi in 1979, and Biwott was given the portfolio in 1983. By 1981, the government had guaranteed Sh600 million in loans for the failing molasses project and was being asked to guarantee another US$24 million. Lenders were pressing for repayment and contractors and suppliers had stopped work for lack of funds. In 1982, government estimates showed the country would lose Sh135 million a year for the next 10 years if the project went ahead. At that point, the plant was all but abandoned, and in 1983 it was placed in receivership. Some people, however, including Ouko, minister for Industry at the time, believed the project was still viable, and Ouko had appealed to the government and been instructed to find investors for the project. He had subsequently brought investors from Italy to see the plant and they had said it was possible to revive it. But a row over the molasses plant had been simmering for some time. Avon Ltd managing director Eric Onyango, giving evidence to the Ouko Commission, said Ouko had told him there were those among his Cabinet colleagues who favoured a different set of investors who would pay them "kickbacks". Competition had become intense. Ouko himself had told other friends who later gave evidence that there were powerful forces in the Cabinet opposed to his determination to expose corruption. Onyango said Ouko had told him that the level of corruption in the Cabinet was "not only alarming but unbelievable". Another witness said he would reveal the names of Ouko's enemies if he were granted police protection. Biwott, informed, under the inquiry's rules, of possible adverse mention of himself, brought in a team of three lawyers. Moi was quick to see that big trouble might be brewing and he promptly announced a new commission of inquiry - into the molasses plant. Attorney General Amos Wako was on hand as usual to deny that there was anything remarkable in this timing, and to say that the two commissions would operate independently. Soon afterwards, the witness who had asked for police protection, James K'Oyoo, who had been a political aide to Ouko, was recalled to the stand. Deputy public prosecutor Bernard Chunga applied for K'Oyoo's evidence to be given in secret, describing it as "possibly alarming", but the witness responded that he would not ask for protection as long as his testimony could be given in public. When he took the stand, K'Oyoo said Ouko had mentioned threats to his life over the molasses plant. A report in the New York Times, meanwhile, said the newspaper had obtained a copy of a US High Court injunction blocking Citibank New York from recovering dollar funds equal to Sh400 million in loans to Biwott's companies. Sh320 million of this was reported as secured by letters of credit in a Swiss bank account owned by Biwott. The New York Times quoted New York officials who warned that high levels of corruption in Kenya could endanger future US aid. A letter from the head of BAK, the Italian group favoured by Ouko regarding the revival of the molasses plant, to a legal firm in Nairobi said Kenya's reputation in international business circles had been marred by corruption, and it cited Turkwel Gorge and Noolturesh (Kajiado-Machakos) water projects. Chillingly, a memorandum from the same group of companies indicated that, in the days immediately before he died, Ouko had been preparing a report on the high-level corruption that was hindering the revival of the molasses plant. The writer of the memorandum said, "I spoke with him last on Saturday, February 10, when ... he told me he was staying in Kisumu to finish his report for HE [President Moi]...." Three days after this conversation about the report Ouko was preparing, Ouko was dead. When Detective John Troon finally took the stand, he told the commissioners he had repeatedly tried to interview Biwott, without success, and also that he had been stopped from proceeding with his investigations, particularly regarding the questioning of senior government officials. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund's quarterly report stated that half the funds deposited in foreign bank accounts owned by Kenyans had been deposited in the past five years alone. On November 18, 1991, Troon named Biwott as one of two principal suspects in Ouko's murder and recommended full investigation of the corruption allegations against him. Troon said he was certain Ouko had been murdered because of his anti-corruption stance. The following day, Moi relieved Biwott of his ministerial post "with immediate effect", then abruptly disbanded the Ouko Commission of inquiry, instead directing the Kenya Police Commissioner to "proceed with due diligence and speed" in investigating Ouko's death. Sceptics abounded, especially as the commissioners themselves had requested an adjournment because of harassment by the Special Branch, including a brutal arrest of Ouko family lawyer George Oraro, "clearly calculated to undermine the continuance of these proceedings", they said. Moi's action was also interesting from another point of view: it came days before Kenya was to meet its increasingly reluctant donors in Paris. The issue of the billions stashed away abroad by corrupt political leaders was expected to feature prominently on the agenda, including the hundreds of millions of shillings held by Biwott in Swiss bank accounts. With Ouko's death, the whole matter of the Kisumu molasses plant was abandoned, and the physical structure of the plant fell into disrepair - a rusting skeleton standing at the edge of the Kisumu-Busia road, a colossal monument to government mismanagement and wasted public funds. It was apparently not until five years later that it was deemed safe to raise once again the issue of the molasses plant - and "all moveable assets" of the plant were advertised for sale on July 10, 1995. Raila Odinga, like Ouko, believed the plant had a future, and he protested officially at the intention to dispose of the assets of the company piecemeal. The sale did not proceed, but on March 8 of the following year, 1996, an advertisement again appeared in the Daily Nation newspaper, this time offering "For sale by public auction: All assets of Kisumu Molasses Factory". The auction was to be conducted at the plant on April 15, 1996. Among the conditions of sale was "(b) "IMPORTANT: First consideration will be taken for offer to purchase the whole plant in total [writer's emphasis]. Thereafter consideration for purchase of large combination of units and finally consideration of single item purchases." The would-be purchaser of the "whole plant or large items" was required to pay 25 per cent of the purchase price by banker's cheque at the fall of the hammer, and the balance within 30 days. The auction did not actually take place until June 3, on which day, Mr Odinga was present. Representing Spectre International Ltd, he bid Sh570 million for the "whole plant". This turned out to be the highest bid and it was accepted by the auctioneers on behalf of the receiver and the plant's debenture holders, Kenya Commerical Bank - but only tentatively.A token deposit was therefore paid, in two cheques totalling Sh2million, with the balance of the 25 per cent to be paid upon official acceptance of the bid by the receiver and debenture holders. M N Kanyi, of auctioneers Panama Rovers, wrote to Mr Odinga the following day and again two days later, on June 6, 1996, confirming that the bid had been accepted. Kanyi returned the two cheques lodged and requested payment of the full 25 per cent, which amounted to Sh142,500,00, not later than June 14, with the balance to be paid by July 15, 1996. The letter of June 6 included, however, a major caveat. While the advertised lot had described "the whole plant in total", Kanyi now stated in his opening paragraph that the Sh570 million purchase price "covers all the assets of the company, which, as stressed prior to the auction, exclude land". The Daily Nation advertisement had made no mention of this and Spectre's board was taken aback by Kanyi's remarks. It was difficult to see how a factory could be purchased sitting on thin air and it had naturally been assumed that the 240 acres of land on which the factory stood was part of the "whole plant in total" advertised for sale. Spectre instructed its lawyers, Lumumba & Ojwang, to write to the auctioneers, which they did on June 7, pointing out that it was clear from correspondence and a previous High Court case (no. 2433 of 1995) relating to the plant that both seller and buyer understood the land to be an integral part of the offer, and that the subsequent exclusion of the land constituted a "drastic turn of events". Said Lumumba & Ojwang, "Our clients have no intention of relocating the plant elsewhere," and they were therefore seeking confirmation that the auction sale included the land . Panama Rovers replied, saying that the Daily Nation advertisement had advised potential purchasers that it was their obligation to "ascertain the state of the assets". While this would appear to refer to the condition of the assets, and not to be a new meaning for the words "whole plant in total" (a double emphasis of the entirety of the goods), Panama asserted that the joint receiver JK Muiruri, of Bellhouse Mwangi Ernst & Young, and the auctioneer had explained before the auction that the lot included plant and machinery but not land. The receiver also wrote to Spectre, emphasising that the land was not part of the sale. On June 13, 1996, Mr Odinga wrote to the receiver saying that discussions about the land had been initiated with the government and "the matter is in the process of being resolved". He asked for an extension of the time within which to pay the deposit. In a congruent letter to Panama from Lumumba & Ojwang, the lawyers noted that Spectre had been given the impression that the land was part of the package. Indeed, a change in the wording of the sale notice from the "all moveable assets" advertised on July 10, 1995, to "all assets of Kisumu Molasses Factory" and the "whole plant in total" on March 8, 1996, was significant and supported this impression, said Lumumba & Ojwang, who again asked for confirmation of the inclusion of the land. The receiver replied to Mr Odinga the following day, June 14, 1996, granting the extension of the time within which the deposit had to be paid, with the price in full to be paid by December 16 that year. Panama replied to Lumumba & Ojwang confirming that the land was not part of the sale and advising that they would enter into no further correspondence on this issue. The situation was apparently deadlocked, and Spectre, apparently in disbelief, wrote once more to the receiver, on July 27, for reconfirmation of the land issue, which was subsequently received in a letter from the receiver of July 29, 1996. The receiver expected the shs.142,500,000 deposit on September 16, 1996. Instead, on that date, Spectre International filed suit against the receiver, stating neglect to confirm prior to the sale that the land was not included, and seeking (a) a declaration that the sale of "all assets" included the land, (b) an injunction restraining the receiver from disposing of any of the assets of the factory and (c) costs. At the hearing of the injunction suit (HCCC 2324 of 1996), counsel for Spectre International Ltd cited the Collins English Dictionary with regard to the meaning of plant, the first meaning being: "The land, buildings and equipment used in carrying on an industrial, business or other undertaking or service." Counsel also cited a report on the "progress, problems and prospects" of the venture, dated April, 1981, 15 years earlier, which had been prepared for the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation Ltd by the law firm of Schnader, Harrizon, Segal & Lewis, of Philadelphia and Washington, USA. In the provisional balance sheet of June 30, 1982, under the heading 'Capital work in progress', appeared the items "Land and site development, buildings, and plant and equipment". Lumumba contended that this reference showed that the land was among the assets of the molasses company. The application was vigorously opposed by lawyer Lee Muthoga. After lengthy legal arguments, Mr Justice AG Ringera, presiding, opined that, because the land had not been expressly itemised as an asset in the Daily Nation advertisement, Spectre had not established a prima facie case. Because Spectre had withheld the deposit pending resolution of the case, Ringera also refused to grant an injunction against the receiver's disposal of the factory's assets. But he granted the interlocutory injunction assigning costs to the receiver, on grounds that the molasses factory was "in its death throes", was being liquidated and was therefore unable to pay any damages. In the absence of the land on which the factory stood, Spectre withdrew from its proposed purchase of the plant. The receiver then wrote to the second-highest bidder, Equip Agencies, which by this time had also decided to steer well clear of this white elephant/hot potato. Presumably most investors would be reluctant to spend huge sums of money on a derelict, non-functioning factory standing on land over which they had no control. And so the molasses plant stood, forlorn and unwanted and deteriorating by the day, for another three years - until the receiver decided to have another go at disposing of this towering government problem. On February 12, 1999, he wrote to those who had been the top four bidders in 1996 to ask them if they were still interested. Spectre wrote back, saying it was still interested but it wanted to confirm the present-day value, as well as the thorny issue of the status of the land. Spectre inspected the site and found the plant buildings in a very poor condition. Time and weather had taken their toll, as had vandals. Now an even greater investment would be required to revive the factory. But Spectre wrote to Bellhouse Mwangi Ernst & Young on February 18, 1999, making an offer of shs. 120 million, 10 per cent to be paid on acceptance and the balance within 120 days. "We are in negotiation with the government over the land issues," said Spectre's letter, "and do not anticipate difficulties in that regard." On June 9, 1999, receiver Muiruri wrote to Spectre accepting its offer of shs.120 million. Spectre had been outbid by shs.15 million by another bidder but successfully argued its case that it planned to develop the factory in accordance with the government's original aims, and not simply to cannibalise the moveable assets, as the other bidder planned. To make things crystal clear, Muiruri noted in his letter that the shs. 120 million was for the "moveable assets and not of shares or of any running business". The land was not mentioned at all but Spectre was already pursuing its own negotiations in this regard. On April 7, 1999, Spectre general manager Israel Agina had written to Moi requesting the allocation for industrial development of the parcel of land on which the molasses factory stood. Agina noted that the land had already formerly been allocated to the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation but that the allocation had not been completed. What he said was true. The land had already been allocated to the molasses plant by the government, which had itself compulsorily acquired the land in 1976 for precisely that purpose. The land was previously communal land, and shs.2 million had been paid to the local community, which had ceded the land at this price only on the promise that the community would benefit from employment at the plant. The community had not otherwise been adequately compensated. The government, having thus acquired the land, had in 1982 issued a letter of allotment to the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation, which had paid the stand premium of shs.2.4 million to the government. All that remained was for the title to be issued, but this had not been done by the time the factory went into receivership in 1983. And as an interesting aside, on October 29, 1983, the Municipality of Kisumu had written to the KCB, the debenture holder for the Kenya Chemical & Food Corporation, demanding land rates for the plot, unpaid since 1978. The letter contained the sentence "As you are aware, the Corporation owns 240 acres of land on which it started its operations [writer's emphasis]." In his letter to Moi, Agina said the land remained an obstacle to the conclusion of Spectre's desired purchase of the plant, while the factory's existing assets were deteriorating rapidly. "We hope," said Agina, "to convert the idle facility into a socio-economic complex." That hope became a reality. More than two years after Spectre was offered the company, the sale agreement was finally drawn up mid-2001. In September of that year, government letters of allotment granted a total of 114.8 hectares of land for 99 years for total fees of shs. 3,699,750, which were paid by Spectre International on October 11, 2001. The land was to be used for horticultural, industrial, residential and educational purposes, including the growing of such crops as citrus, tomatoes, onions and cabbages, and for a school and a health clinic. All title certification, registration, search, new register, attestation, inspection, copying, survey, rent, stand premium, stamp duty, land adjudication and other fees were likewise paid by Spectre four days later, on October 15, 2001. The sale agreement was signed. As usual, however, the transfer of title was not effected until nearly two years later. This eventually occurred in 2003 (under the Narc government), by which time Spectre had also paid the commissioner of lands all the rent arrears relating to the land for the years 1982 to 2003. Spectre then set about the huge task of rehabilitating the plant - appraising the work with professional valuers and beginning to seek expert scientific advice on appropriate crop-growing and methods of ethanol production. It also began the search for investment partners. Eventually, Energem would take a 55 per cent controlling share, and the Kisumu Development Trust (with directors the late Joab Omino, former Rarieda MP George Ngure Ondeny and current chairman John Otega) would hold five per cent on behalf of local people, who had come together to raise shs.1.8m towards the project. Spectre would retain the remaining 40 per cent. The rehabilitation project resulted in the commissioning of the plant in 2004. The yeast plant was completed in 2006 and the factory now produces industrial ethanol for blending with liquid (bio-fuels), potable alcohol for beverages and chemical industries, carbon dioxide, and bio and organic fertiliser yeast. At the height of the factory's operations, a daily output of 60,000 litres was achieved, but the current precarious state of the sugar industry has affected this. Nevertheless, the company employs directly more than 500 people and indirectly another 200. At the height of its operations, it remitted an average of Sh1.2 billion to the exchequer every year. It also exports to the Comesa countries. The Kisumu Molasses Factory has partnered with local schools to build laboratories and boreholes, and to provide electricity and clean drinking water. It conducts a free medical camp every three months for the entire Kisumu area, bringing in doctors and buying medication, all of which is provided free of charge to the 6,000-plus local residents treated. It is helping in efforts to control and eradicate water-borne diseases in the area. So, from a derelict, rusting, useless hulk to a fully functioning industry bringing benefits to local residents through employment, education and health, and contributing more than a billion shillings annually to the Treasury, the Kisumu Molasses Plant has been a huge success story. Unfortunately, huge success stories can lead to terrible jealousy, as Ouko's case also so sadly demonstrated. A Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land was appointed by President Mwai Kibaki on July 4, 2003. It presented its report, commonly known as the 'Ndung'u Report', to Kibaki in June 2004. The main part of the report lists many ways in which directors of public corporations with large public land holdings had misused their positions to make these organisations - for which they had a duty of care and a responsibility to the public - fail, so that the assets could be sold off cheaply for private gain. The commission found that such state corporations' land was illegally allocated "in total disregard of the law and public interest". It said no justification for the allocation of such land could be found in any of the records, and that subsequently "the lands so allocated were then sold by the allottees to other state corporations for colossal amounts of money far in excess of the prevailing market value of the land. This way, many individuals were unjustly enriched at great expense of the people of Kenya." The report went on to detail how "the loss of corporation land was triggered by the actions of the Commissioner of Lands", whose office would engage in some "specially designed correspondences" prior to wrongly granting title to individuals or their third part proxies "The corporation management would wake up to a rude fact that their land had been acquired and title issued thereto without their knowledge," said the report, adding that another ploy was the illegal allocation of state corporation land after "irregular surrenders" of that land. "The allottees would sell the land so illegally acquired," said the report, so that "in a space of say three months, a civil servant, a politician, a political operative, etc, would transform from an ordinary Kenyan, financially struggling like many others, into a multi-millionaire. Thanks to the rampant illegal allocation and sale of state corporation land." The report cited Kenya Railways, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Power & Lighting Co Ltd, Kenya Airports Authority and Kenya Industrial Estates as among many state corporations that "lost huge chunks of their land in these circumstances". None of this applied in the case of the Kisumu Molasses Factory. But despite this, the allocation to Spectre International Ltd of land on which the molasses plant stands is also mentioned in the report, which concluded that the "direct allocation of alienated government land to the company by the commissioner of lands was illegal". This conclusion would appear to be in direct contradiction of the facts, as detailed above, which are that: • The land on which the molasses factory stands was acquired compulsorily by the government for the purpose of building the molasses plant. • The land was already allocated to the molasses plant in 1982, though the transfer had been only partly completed by the time the company went into receivership in 1983. • The land was properly allocated a second time, this time to Spectre International, in 2001. • Spectre paid 20 years' rent arrears and all the necessary government fees for the land. • The land has been used for the economic realisation of the original objectives of the government, of the investors and of the local community. • It was government land, and government is not in the business of selling land. Government merely allocates land for industrial and other development. This is a normal procedure and it is precisely the procedure properly followed in the case of the molasses plant. As in no other case investigated by the Ndung'u Commission, the land on which the Kisumu Molasses Plant stands has been used for the purposes stated. A hugely successful company has been established on it, which has been of immense benefit to the country via the returns the plant remits to the Treasury every year, and to the local population through jobs, education and health care. And its success is down to the determination of one man, Raila Odinga. Let no one tell you otherwise, for whoever does so is not telling you the truth. Many have tried to say that Mr Odinga took money for the plant from local people and converted it to his own use. This is totally false and blatant propaganda. The shs.1.8 million raised by the local community is safe, in the form of the five per cent shares in the hands of the Kisumu Development Trust. The contributors will begin to see returns on their investment when the Kisumu Molasses Factory becomes a publicly quoted company on the stock exchange. Before any company can go public, it is required to have made a profit for two consecutive years. Spectre had huge commitments, loans and other expenses to meet in the course of the massive task of reviving the molasses plant. But it eventually it began to be a profitable concern, and it was intended that the company would be listed last year, 2011. Unfortunately, the major shareholder, Energem, then went bankrupt. This led to the need for major restructuring and a search for another strategic partner. This was found, but the sugar industry problems have meant that the plant's output has not yet been steady enough to qualify for stock exchange listing. It is hoped this might happen next year. In the meantime, the silence from anyone whose interests are being safeguarded by the Kisumu Development Trust is deafening. What is more, the company's doors are open to anyone who feels aggrieved, and the fact the Trust chairman John Otega is the company's human resources manager makes this all the easier. All the noise that is heard comes only from those interested in political propaganda. So that is the story, and all receipts, correspondence and certificates of allocation relating to the purchase of the Kisumu Molasses Factory and the land on which it stands are available for inspection. Land remains generally a very interesting and potent matter and, now that we are on the subject, what about all those other issues in the Ndung'u Report, issues that involve billions in public funds lost to this nation, massive issues that absolutely dwarf the Kisumu Molasses Factory - where no issue at all exists? Is anybody going to start talking about those? The writer is a freelance journalist.Deyings this article by Sarah -(who according to MM had sexual relationship with Raila was discussed exhaustively right here in Jukwaa when it came out duri ng the peeling back the mask times . Here is our own Jakaswangas take on the spin-doctoring by Sarah . b6kIt is a marathon read, this Sarah. But I am not in church so I am sport. Take a look. Those who have worked for politicians and gotten out sane and early enough, will humorously recall the horrors of the contradictions raised by the various boards on which the game is played simultaneously. Wheeling and dealing in politics is of such a nature, that it is no wonder, that many successful heads of gigantic corporations, making a step into politics anywhere, usually find out they do not have what it takes, and regret the career switch. Politics is the business of millions of everybody, a multinational concern, merely the money-making machine for her shareholders. A simple agenda. Sarah Elderkin, is my favourite journalist in Kenya, even if technically she is no longer into that business. She combines passion, wit, intellect and ratio --that is plausible reasoning, with a flair for the script that annoints the hearts of the literati. And like my brother Omwenga, who is going places and, I am afraid, will soon find altercations on jukwaa beneath his dignity -- (forgive me, O Oyomito)-- Elderkin is not into a 500-words-column just for the sake of it. Like Noam Chomsky on a good day, she is 'readers only'. 'Perusers' be gone! So when Sarah turns her formidable prowess into spin-doctoring, I am in the front line of readers, to learn . Between the lines. I rate her a grandmaster in the arts. You can search the market, you wont be finding a handful in East Afrika, and Elderkin tops Kenya, in my opinion. That she is caucasian is an added bonus. With the best brains of Kenya indistinguishable from every Omollo Kamau and Mutiso, I take full responsibility for that sentence. Tongue very cheeky in cheek. To avoid cisgender Kathure's wrath. See following disclaimer ;D: Emilio Kibaki --AAA brains at economics. Look at his achievements. George Saitoti --nobel class maths of a brain. Look at his achievements. Mutula Kilonzo --highest intellect in law ever since SM Otieno. Look at him. Dr. PLO Lumumba --God kissed his brains. But a total public failure. Amos Wako -another god of brains. A total public failure. Yes, trying to explain systematic, inbuilt failure in public administration in places like ... not necessarily Kenya, has led me to study how the best brains of Afrika work when they achieve power. Unfortunately, only caucasians are ready to pay me for this kind of nonsensical research. So it is a good change, to see a caucasian working at the top of her ability for a Jaluos! Evens the scales a somewhat.=================================================== Sarah [quoteStar] Unfortunately, huge success stories can lead to terrible jealousy, as Ouko’s case also so sadly demonstrated. A Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land was appointed by President Mwai Kibaki on July 4, 2003. It presented its report, commonly known as the ‘Ndung’u Report’, to Kibaki in June 2004.
The main part of the report lists many ways in which directors of public corporations with large public land holdings had misused their positions to make these organisations – for which they had a duty of care and a responsibility to the public – fail, so that the assets could be sold off cheaply for private gain.
The commission found that such state corporations’ land was illegally allocated “in total disregard of the law and public interest”. It said no justification for the allocation of such land could be found in any of the records, and that subsequently “the lands so allocated were then sold by the allottees to other state corporations for colossal amounts of money far in excess of the prevailing market value of the land. This way, many individuals were unjustly enriched at great expense of the people of Kenya.”
The report went on to detail how “the loss of corporation land was triggered by the actions of the Commissioner of Lands”, whose office would engage in some “specially designed correspondences” prior to wrongly granting title to individuals or their third part proxies “The corporation management would wake up to a rude fact that their land had been acquired and title issued thereto without their knowledge,” said the report, adding that another ploy was the illegal allocation of state corporation land after “irregular surrenders” of that land.
“The allottees would sell the land so illegally acquired,” said the report, so that “in a space of say three months, a civil servant, a politician, a political operative, etc, would transform from an ordinary Kenyan, financially struggling like many others, into a multi-millionaire. Thanks to the rampant illegal allocation and sale of state corporation land.”
The report cited Kenya Railways, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Power & Lighting Co Ltd, Kenya Airports Authority and Kenya Industrial Estates as among many state corporations that “lost huge chunks of their land in these circumstances”. None of this applied in the case of the Kisumu Molasses Factory.
But despite this, the allocation to Spectre International Ltd of land on which the molasses plant stands is also mentioned in the report, which concluded that the “direct allocation of alienated government land to the company by the commissioner of lands was illegal”. This conclusion would appear to be in direct contradiction of the facts, as detailed above, which are that:
• The land on which the molasses factory stands was acquired compulsorily by the government for the purpose of building the molasses plant.
• The land was already allocated to the molasses plant in 1982, though the transfer had been only partly completed by the time the company went into receivership in 1983.
• The land was properly allocated a second time, this time to Spectre International, in 2001.
• Spectre paid 20 years’ rent arrears and all the necessary government fees for the land.
• The land has been used for the economic realisation of the original objectives of the government, of the investors and of the local community.
• It was government land, and government is not in the business of selling land. Government merely allocates land for industrial and other development. This is a normal procedure and it is precisely the procedure properly followed in the case of the molasses plant.
As in no other case investigated by the Ndung’u Commission, the land on which the Kisumu Molasses Plant stands has been used for the purposes stated. A hugely successful company has been established on it, which has been of immense benefit to the country via the returns the plant remits to the Treasury every year, and to the local population through jobs, education and health care. And its success is down to the determination of one man, Raila Odinga. Let no one tell you otherwise, for whoever does so is not telling you the truth. [endquote Star]
Sarah ========================================== part 11. Sarah has reached a very important conclusion, made a very important discovery, whose consequences are yet to be overseen. She questions, no, positively indicates, that the Ndung'u commission, it its final report, is in error in having cited the Molasses land-plot as part of the state-tracts illegally alloted to the Who-is-Whos of Kenya, where the public lost large chunks of land through the corrupt dealings facilitated by the office of the commissioner for lands. The den of dens of corruption. That now is a power pack, a sledge-hammer hit. The credibility of the report must now be called into question. Are there other errors? can such a disreputable report, form the basis of a national policy of land reclamations? Is it not so, that those whose lands face confiscation or requisition on the basis of these findings, can now sue for injuction, pending a more credible report. Or a revision of the current version? If Ndung'u was not accurate in Raila's case then, who knows what other errors his carelessness --or is it malice, have let seep into the devastating conclusions? Conclusions which on the intergrity bill, if chapter six is not watered down, will hinder many political careers (with the suspected activistic judiciary in place). I am sure Sarah has calculated and factored in what the attack on the credibility of the Ndung'u report entails in the wider political picture, just like, on the other side, those who attack the alleged [jurisprudential] activism of the new CJ Mutunga, have a game plan in the offing. No hazarding a guess on that.It would have been better, if Sarah categorically stated, soon as the Ndung'u report came out and this was in the report, that Spectre took steps to seek clarification and absolution on that paragraph. But now, the timing of this Elderkin response, and coming in the aftermath of the Miguna book, makes it rank as a damage control exercise. A PR gimmick. I find that sad. PS: these things read like thrillers and I wonder where our financial journalists are. A power alcohol company collapses as bad investment in Kenya, even as elsewhere, Brazil, the industry is becoming bigger than oil! a cabinet minister is murdered by his colleague? Murder by cops, politics, big money, IMF, World Bank, shady international investors. Better than any Godfather story Mario Puzo can dream up! PART 3. It is a statement which brought a grin to my face. If only because of its blow back potential. Sarah writes: ` Moi’s action was also interesting from another point of view: it came days before Kenya was to meet its increasingly reluctant donors in Paris.' --This is in reference to Moi disbanding the Ouko inquiry, and in the same breath, sacking Nicholas Biwott from the ministry of energy, just days before the meeting by donors in Paris with Kenya on the agenda. Sarah is no fool, and her pedigree in journalism too, makes her read between the lines... The manoeuvres, and rules of the game. The Big Game. Therefore, one of the most interesting things in her post, is the total ommission of political history. What shifts were in play, and in which context do they fall? How, by the theory of non random events, were collisions and coalitions re-arranging the members of the poliical class, who too, were involved in real life economic disputes? This is where a strange word enters dholuo lexicon: kopareshon. A word, to write a thesis on. this kopareshon.Raila had, by one version, led the Luo out of 'Wamalwa's' FORD. Another version is, the desperate ideological tendencies could not be contained under one party. This led to the famous NDP with its 21 Luo MPs after the 1997 elections, in which Raila lost the presidency but retained Langata. Sometime later, in a move later to be copied by opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta, the leader of the NDP abandoned the opposition benches and entered a kopareshen with KANU-Moi. This koparesen would see NDP rewarded with 3 ministries in 2001, with, I am not sure who else, but Adhu Awiti at Economic planning, and Raila at Energy. Energy had been Biwott's brief earlier on, the total man, the alleged killer of Ouko, and the primary author of the sabotage of the Mollases plant, which fell under this ministry. It is interesting, therefore, in good roman sense, when Elderkin's super attention to detail, discards these earthquakes on the political scene as of no consequence. If it were I, I would sit back and tap the bridge of my nose. Becase Moi, by my profile, is too wily a political knave and calculator not to be abreast of what goes. So when manager Agina writes in 1999 to him, Moi, on the Molasses land just at about the second auction, and subsequently the lawyers write to the auctioneer, that ' they are negotiating with the government on land issues, and they do not anticipate difficulties in that regard'; and the receiver ( Muiruri and the rest, who had made this land issue a sticking point in the first round of the auction, forcing it all the way to Ringera HCCC 2324 1996) prove very accomodative, the investigative instinct of the old journalist Sarah is definitely misfiring when she does not investigate it further, nor offer a considered opinion. Her keen insight, should not have gone blunt, or perhaps dim is the better word, just as the need arose to shine light into the inner workings of power. The boardroom deals of the governing elite as they pact, which made Marx quip, parliament is the golf-club of the bourgeoisie. Drinking wine preaching water. Cut Moi some slack guys, behind the scenes. Kanyotu, I think he wil be the greatest sealed lips in our history, on the request of Moi, some say at the behest of Biwott who also understood power, had a complete economic ongoing profile of 'all' ( ), and it gave Moi a capacity to play financial chess with deadly effect. Called negotiations. I think the tale of one, Githunguri, is the best anecdote: He had to pay some debt-servicing pronto or loose a giant property. And then no bank in the republic could effect a transaction on any of his accounts within the specified period. A technical fault? a compulsory banks holiday by God? a sudden epidemic of diarhea effecting only bankers? You wonder. Kenya ni nchi ya ajabu, some musicians sing. And they have that smile on their face, you wonder what they are thinking of. Now Ndung'u has to salvage his reputation. Our Sarah, you can not buy her in the market. I just saw Ouru added another caucasian to his defence team. Caucasians, you just can not trust a brother to do a job when you are in deep sh!t, can you??? I will be back.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 10, 2013 8:40:23 GMT 3
Raila allegedly has an illegally acquired land in Nandi county. www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000076955&story_title=Kenya-Uhuru-promises-to-address-land-issue-if-electedUhuru promises to address land issue if elected By Michael Chepkwony Eldoret, Kenya: Jubilee Coalition presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta has pledged his government will implement appropriate land policies and press for equity if elected in the March 4 presidential vote. Uhuru said his administration would ensure proper land policies that promote maximum utilisation of the resource in production to spur development. “Land should be used as a resource to address food security and create jobs. Dwelling on select ownership is a way of promoting hatred which the Jubilee coalition is against,” Uhuru said in Nandi County on Saturday. Uhuru and his running mate William Ruto said they would focus on providing solutions to economic challenges facing Kenyans. Addressing a rally in Kobuchoi centre, they criticised their opponents for only lamenting about the country’s problems without offering practical solutions. The Jubilee coalition team said agriculture was the backbone of the nation’s economy and that land had to be properly utilised to enhance development. Ruto said: “Land is an important resource in development but our opponents are using it to promote disunity in the nation. We need to handle the matter with sobriety.” Ruto criticised CORD presidential candidate Raila Odinga for making claims that he cannot substantiate. “Our opponents in the CORD coalition are making statements against us over land issue. Those are meant to cause separation at this jubilee year when we want all Kenyans to unite and work together as one nation,” said Ruto. Uhuru said that threats issued by Raila over lands owned by some persons in the country were illogical, adding that every Kenyan has a right to own property. The DPM asked Raila to clarify how the parcel of land in Nandi County, which the Odinga family is alleged to own, was acquired. “Let him tell us how he acquired land instead of talking about other land owners. We need to be honest to Kenyans,” he said. Uhuru and Ruto rooted for “six-piece” so that Jubilee coalition can form a strong government with majority representation. Uhuru told Aldai constituents to vote for URP candidate Cornelius Serem as their next MP adding that Dr Sally Kosgei will have a place in the government. “We shall give mama (Dr. Kosgei) another job because her presence is significant,” he said as everyone applauded. Ruto hit out at Industrialization Minister Henry Kosgey’s bid for senate in the county and endorsed Stephen Sang of URP. Ruto said that Kosgey should retire and let his son Alexander Kigen Kosgey who is vying for Emgwen seat to take over leadership. “Tell Kosgey that we already have his son in Jubilee and we appreciate that. Let us have Sang as the senator,” he said. At the same time, Uhuru urged electorates to dismiss opinion pollsters saying that the trustworthy pollsters is what will be reflected on March 4. He said: “Have you ever been interviewed by those pollsters? Come out in numbers and vote so that the truth can be known.” Ruto and Uhuru were accompanied by former MPs Najib Balala and Adan Duale.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 12:16:58 GMT 3
Whilst addressing a meeting at Tom Mboya college on Sunday, Raila sought to defend himself and his company against allegations that the many people who put in their money in the project will lose it. Raila told the meeting that the locals raised 1.7 billion shillings whilst Spector International raised the balance (cannot remember but a figure of either 1.6 billion or 2.2 billion). He said that the company has started making profits and that it will soon be floated on the NSE. When this is done, those Kenyans that raised the money will be allocated shares then!! They therefore should not worry as their money was safe.....! So who is keeping this money and was it ever invested in the firm? Is it earning any interest since the deposits were made in 1995? I was hoping the PM was misquoted, but the story was carried by the two major papers, so there must be some truth in it. If that is the case, then someone has been ripped off! But since they do not seem to mind, why bother? Kamale, Did this come to pass?
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 11:49:56 GMT 3
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 11:44:59 GMT 3
Kenya to seek assurance on relations with US after polls elections.nation.co.ke/news/Kenya-to-seek-assurance-on-relations-with-US-after-polls/-/1631868/1688548/-/it2h95/-/index.htmlKenya will seek clarification from the US government on relations between the two countries after the March 4 General Elections. Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia said the Kenyan government welcomes President Obama’s declaration that he will work with whoever Kenyans elect as President. He however said the government is compelled to seek clarification on the true US stand after Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ambassador Johnnie Carson’s Thursday warning that the choice Kenyans make in the elections will have consequences. Ambassador Carson’s remarks are being interpreted by the Kenyan government as a warning that the US may review its relations should Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto get elected to the top office. Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are facing crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Mr Kimemia said Ambassador Carson’s remarks contradict President Obama’s earlier assurance to Kenyans that the US government was ready to work with any candidate who Kenyans elect. In a video message to Kenyans on Tuesday, President Obama had assured Kenyans that the US will not endorse any presidential candidate in the general elections. Ambassador Carson however, in a teleconference on Thursday, warned Kenyans that the choice they will make on March 4 will have consequences. Mr Carson advised Kenyans to be thoughtful about the impact of their choices on Kenya and the world. He did not however mention the name of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 11:26:12 GMT 3
www.kenyan-post.com/2013/02/revealing-truth-behind-odinga-family.htmlREVEALING the TRUTH behind the ODINGA family and Kisumu Molasses Plant (SHAME) The Kenyan DAILY POST Editor's Choice 05:06 Let us go straight to the subject matter. Source(s): RELIABLE. Name(s): WITHHELD: · “Under the guise of empowering the Luo Community economically in the 1940s, Adonijah Jaramogi Oginga Odinga incorporated a company called Luo Thrift and Trading Company. He proceeded to travel across East Africa collecting money from Luos who wished to buy shares in the company… · A colossal sum was raised some of which was invested in large scale sugar plantations in the Nyanza Sugar Belt, posho mills in several market places in Nyanza, real estate in Kisumu Town and Maseno, among other properties which also included a printing press and a bilingual weekly newspaper called The Nyanza Times, not to mention a public transport company called Lolwe… · No sooner had these commercial ventures been put in place than transparency left through the window. Under the stewardship of Jaramogi, Luo Thrift and Trading Company did not call any Annual General Meetings as stipulated in The Companies Act, nor did it declare or issue dividends to its shareholders… · Progressively, the properties bought with the proceeds from the poor shareholders changed hands mysteriously and became personal property. Those who attempted to raise this issue in public or in private were harassed and intimidated into silence… · Although they are usually the most vocal on matters touching on corruption on the national front, Luo MPs have lost both legitimacy and credibility in terms of protecting their electorate and addressing their legitimate aspirations, for economic progress; · By keeping silent on the fate of properties one family appear to have stolen from poor Luos through Luo Thrift and Trading Company, including Ofafa Memorial Hall… · By the time Odinga died on January 20, 1994, most, if not all, of the assets bought under the flagship of Luo Thrift and Trading Company had mysteriously reverted to private companies associated with him… · Three years later, his son and scion of his business and political dynasty, Raila Amolo Odinga, commenced another collection spree, again from poor Luos; under the guise of empowering them economically by assisting them to buy shares in the then stalled Molasses Complex, in Kisumu… · While millions of shillings which Raila collected from Lous disappeared mysteriously into thin air, 240 acres of land where the Molasses Plant, in Kisumu, stands was transferred to the Odinga Family Business around the time leading to the KANU/NDP merger, after the General Election of 1997. NB: The actual merger reached fruition in 2001… · Subsequent queries about the money only yielded one consistent but misleading answer from Oburu Odinga, Raila’s elder brother, who is today the Assistant minister of Finance. Oburu kept on repeating that the money was safe in a bank account… · He declined to state the amount in the said account, which bank it was kept in and how much interest it was earning, if at all… · If the money had been collected to assist the contributors to buy shares in the Kisumu Molasses Plant, how did it end up in a mysterious bank account and what was it doing in that account? · Over one decade has elapsed since that money was collected from Luos; but it seems as if it is still lying in the unknown bank where it appears to be destined to lie forever, while many contributors wallow in abject poverty… · As members of the Luo community began to come to terms with the fact that they had been swindled out of the shares they had been promised and that the over Kshs. 100 million or so raised could have disappeared into the pockets of Raila Odinga and Company, it was reported from Paris, the capital of France, that the shares they had been promised had been sold to someone else! · According to the respectable Indian Ocean Newsletter No. 1065 of November 22, 2005, a Canadian company called Diamond-Works teamed up with Raila Odinga by taking 55% stake in his firm, Spectre International for US Dollars 2 million which is an equivalent of Kshs. 170 million… · It was reported at the time that part of the amount from Diamond-Works of Canada was to serve to pay Spectre’s debts as the company has allegedly borrowed money for the project. Who did they borrow from after collecting from the poor Luos? · The whole story about the Kisumu Molasses Plant has not been told, but the Odingas will no longer remain in a position where they will continue to withhold the truth from Kenyans, in general, and the Luo community, in particular, about the mystery surrounding their acquisition of the Kisumu Molasses Plant with the connivance of “the Moi-Nyayo-KANU regime!” Nothing to add: Enough said! Everything is in black and white. Alluta Continua. Moses Onyango (Source: Africa news)
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 11:16:55 GMT 3
Ndungu Report -Molasses Plant www.marsgroupkenya.org/pdfs/Oct_0....mmendations.pdf"On most occasions the loss of corporation land was triggered by the actions of the commissioner of lands without involving the corporation management. After specially designed correspondences a letter of allotment would be issued by the commissioner of lands to an individual or company for land belonging to the corporation. A grant title would subsequently be made to the same individual or to a third party to whom the land would have been sold through an informal transfer of a letter of allotment. The corporation management would wake up to a rude fact that their land had been acquired and title issued thereto without their knowledge. At other times , the illegal allocation of state corporations land usually triggered by irregular surrenders of corporation land . A letter of surrender would be written by either the corporation (managing director, managing trustee, director etc) The letter would be addressed to the Commissioner of lands stating that the corporation no longer needed a specified parcel of land. Almost immediately an individual or company would apply to be allocated the land in question. The Commissioner of lands would then make an allocation of the land to the applicant by issuing a respective letter of allotment. If the land was large in size, the allottee would apply for consent to subdivide the same into different units. The commissioner would again grant the consent to subdivide the land.Next the allottees would sell the land so illegally acquired to one or different purchasers for millions of shillings ! Thus in a space of say three months a civil servant ,a politician , a political operative etc would transform from an ordinary Kenyan, financially struggling like many others into a multi-millionaire. Thanks to the rampant illegal allocation and sale of state corporation land. The state corporations that lost lands allocated to them in this manner were usually strategic enterprises which required huge chunks of lands to be able to carry out their mandate .Thus state corporations such as Kenya Railways Corporation, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Kenya Power & Lighting Company Ltd, various Development Authorities, Kenya Airports Authority , Kenya Industrial Estates Ltd etc lost huge chunks of their land in these circumstances. The Commision also found that other state corporations would be mismanaged and end up in receivership or liquidation , following which the corporations assets , including land would be sold at throw away prices or the land would simply be allocated by the commissioner of lands to favoured individuals. One such case is that of the Kenya Food and Chemical Corporation Limited of Kisumu commonly known as the “Molasses Project” This energy saving project was conceived by the Government in the 1970’s and was intended to manufacture gasohol from sugar cane molasses which was produced by sugar factories in Nyanza and Western Provinces . Land for the project was compulsorily acquired by the Government in 1976 at 4 million shillings. Although hundreds of millions of tax payers funds were invested in the project it stalled in the 1980’s and the company was put under receivership and remains as such to this day.Land for the project was offered to the company by a letter of allotment but this was never formally accepted or paid for and no title was issued . However in 2001 the commissioner of Lands S.S.K. Mwaita allocated the land to a company known as Spectre International Limited for 3.7 million shillings or KShs 33,000 per hectare.The land measures approximately 112 hectres and comprises of seven blocks the particulars of which are as follows 1. L.R. No 26453 area 26.10 ha user horticultural 2. L.R. No 26454 area 39.00 ha user industrial 3. L.R. No 26455 area 13.40 ha user residential 4. L.R. No 26456 area 21.23 ha ,user residential 5. L.R No 26457 area 3.50ha. user recreational 6. L.R. No 26458 area 2.20 ha , user health clinic 7. L.R. No 26459 area 6.50ha user educational The direct allocation of alienated Government land to the company by the commissioner of Lands was illegal.It was not clear how the government then intended , if at all , to revive or sell the project having already allocated the seven blocks of land to Spectre International Limited a private company."
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 10:53:18 GMT 3
allafrica.com/stories/201302070049.html?aa_source=acrdn-f0Kenya: Raila Must Stop Obsession With Kenyatta Family Land As the race to succeed President Kibaki hits the home stretch, Cord presidential candidate Raila Odinga keeps harping on the nationally emotive issue of land pointedly targeted at his chief competitor, Uhuru Kenyatta. This is in the hope that voters will be dissuaded from casting their votes in favour of the Jubilee candidate on March 4. But instead of Raila's vote-hunting tricks and obsession with the Kenyatta family land issue earning him support , he ends up creating fear and despondency among voters and investors (existing and potential). The same trick was used during the first multi-party elections in 1992 when one of the then leading presidential candidates created similar fears by threatening to expel from Kenya business people from a certain community. The said candidate did not realise his dreams to State House. Kenyans are not fools. They know too well that the current campaign against the Kenyattas and Raila's threats to reposses "stolen" land is meant to deny Uhuru the presidency. But sooner or later, the same campaign will be extended to other wealthy land owners including the Delameres, the Kuki Gallmans, the Moi's and the Mazrui's. Raila should not be allowed to get away with this. It is not just Uhuru he is threatening but everybody with land- both foreigners and locals. Under a Cord government, nobody will be safe. Again, Raila should be advised that whether his claims are true or false, the land associated with the Kenyattas does not belong to Uhuru. Uhuru is only a member of the family. The Prime Minister should take Uhuru's challenge and show Kenyans that he has evidence of the parcels of land in the name of the Jubilee leader. Lands Minister James Orengo, an ODM member, can quickly provide this information! To suggest any form of "punishment " to Uhuru over land in the name of the Kenyatta family is to equally suggest that Raila's son, Castro, should be linked to the Molasses Plant Scandal in Kisumu and the controversial parcel of land in Malindi which Raila claims ownership after the eviction of squatters (this matter is in court and remains sub judice). Raila should stop throwing stones because he lives in a glass house and cannot survive the scrutiny over matters of land. The Cord presidential candidate is no stranger to examples of mis-informed land appropriation schemes elsewhere in Africa. A few years back, President Robert Mugabe of of Zimbabwe started a disastrous land redistribution programme that resulted in an exodus of foreign investment and aid. Raila is all too well aware of what has been left of Zimbabwe. Mugabe's government is on its knees and the economy is in the Intensive Care Unit. The mineral rich country is now the best example of hyper inflation. Zimbabwe's finance minister confessed last week that the government has only Sh18,000 in its accounts! Those who know the Cord leader well will tell you that Raila's anti-Uhuru campaign over land is not based on any sense of service to the people but a scheme of theatrics aimed at gaining cheap populism to enable him romp to power. Once he gets the votes from the people and gets to power, he won't even remember his promises on the land issue. It is dishonest for Raila to keep harping on the land issue to sway the voters towards Cord. His intentions are suspect and amount to inflammatory speech. Raila is simply looking for sympathy that unfairly persuades voters to take certain political sides antipathetic to Uhuru. It is encouraging that, rather than engage in a shouting match with the Cord leader, Uhuru remains focused on the real issues that affect Kenyans. He has concentrated his campaigns on what a Jubilee government intends to do to transform the country both socially and economically. These issues are improved healthcare for all, better, affordable and accessible education, job and wealth creation, youth and women empowerment, security, unity and reform - issues that connect with the voters in a positive manner. In sharp contrast, Cord leaders seize every opportunity in their campaigns to create suspicions, fear and hatred among Kenyan communities by engaging in hadithi, vitendawili and derogatory metaphors.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 10:48:32 GMT 3
Raila-Uhuru renew 1960s rivalry elections.nation.co.ke/Blogs/Raila-Uhuru-renew-1960s-rivalry-/-/1632026/1686776/-/6k7tpc/-/index.htmlIn the early 1980’s Jaramogi Oginga Odinga seemed on the road to political rehabilitation; until he called founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta a land grabber. It’s like history is repeating itself with the ongoing war of words between the sons of the fathers. Cord Alliance presidential candidate Raila Odinga has kicked up a maelstrom with the campaign depicting his main rival in the race for State House, the Jubilee Coalition’s Uhuru Kenyatta, as a land grabber. Raila’s father, the first vice president of independent Kenya turned pioneer opposition leader, had been denied all rights to public office since he was detained without trial by President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1969. After occupying State House in 1978, President Moi sought to mend fences with some of the personalities that had fallen foul of the Kenyatta regime. He appointed Mr Odinga chairman of the Cotton Lint and Seed Marketing Board. He also gave the nod for his return to politics. Then Mr Odinga chose to explain at a public rally why he had fallen out with President Kenyatta. He was for equitable access to land and special consideration for the needy, he said, while Kenyatta favoured the privileged few. Headlines the following day quoting Mr Odinga calling the late President Kenyatta a ‘land-grabber’ had President Moi seeing red. Mr Odinga’s path back to Parliament was blocked and he was again consigned to a political Siberia from which he was not to re-emerge until the return of multi-partyism a decade later. More than another two decades, the son of Odinga and the son of Kenyatta are embroiled in a major battle for the presidency, with the land question a controversial issue. The campaign was launched when Mr Odinga repeated an unverified, and most likely false, newspaper claim of a few years ago that the Kenyatta family owned land the size of Nyanza Province. Uhuru hit back with a challenge to anyone who has evidence that he has grabbed land to take him to court; adding for good measure that it is Mr Odinga who has to answer for grabbing the Kisumu Molasses factory. Into the melee waded Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo and the chairman of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission Mzalendo Kibunjia with cautions that the land issue would inflame tensions. Mr Odinga remain unfazed, insisting that the land question cannot be swept under the carpet. Indeed the rival campaign manifestoes give considerable play to land. Both recognise that land is an emotive issue that has provoked conflict, and offer almost similar solutions. But then Mr Odinga on the land issue seeks to exploit Mr Kenyatta’s Achilles Heel. Nobody has accused Uhuru Kenyatta personally of being a land grabber. Nobody has even bothered to quantify the Kenyatta family land, but it is taken as unchallenged fact that vast holdings stretching from the Coast to the Rift Valley form the base of the family fortune. Uhuru Kenyatta has obviously been a direct beneficiary, but one could question whether the son must pay for the sins of the father. Another legitimate question is how many generations back can issues of land ownership and land claims be pursued.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 10:37:22 GMT 3
allafrica.com/stories/201302071636.htmlPresidential candidate Raila Odinga has been a little too exercised lately. He has been "addressing" historical social injustices on the campaign trail and repeatedly challenging Uhuru Kenyatta, his main rival, to give up some of his family land for landless Kenyans. Sounds noble, right? Is this about the landless or political posturing? Some have loosely alleged that Uhuru owns land the size of Taita Taveta. James Orengo, in his capacity as Lands Minister has a duty to verify whether or not this is true. He should also tell Kenyans how much land other presidential candidates own because only Martha Karua has declared her wealth. This is the era of "open government" where presidential candidates must rise above suspicion. Uhuru has repeatedly dismissed Raila's challenge as a cheap political gimmick aimed at inflaming tensions and dared him to show evidence that he acquired any public land illegally. No evidence has been tabled yet wild allegations which could easily result in lawlessness keep popping up. Every Kenyan, including Uhuru, has a right to own land anywhere in the country. Raila's challenge to Uhuru is a thinly veiled threat of "nationalising" and "redistributing" or inciting people to occupy private land. This is an outdated, archaic and dangerous tactic to win an election. It reads like a page in Robert Mugabe's book. When Mugabe felt politically threatened by Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC he resulted into a chaotic "repossession" of land from white farmers and "redistribution" to his supporters. Mugabe's idea of "correcting" historical social injustices ended up disastrously. It transformed Zimbabwe from Africa's food basket to a basket case. Mugabe had been President for over 20 years when he suddenly realised that most Zimbabweans had no land. Twenty years is long enough for a leader to address his country's land problem. Mugabe did not. Similarly, Raila spent the last five years as Prime Minister of Kenya with executive powers. James Orengo, a stalwart of Raila's wing of the coalition served as Lands Minister. They failed to come up with a comprehensive land reform policy. If Raila believes Kenya can solve its land problem by taking some from those who own a lot of land, then he should cast his net wider. He should be the first one to give. Like Uhuru, Raila is one of the richest men in the region. He and his family also own hundreds of acres of land in Nyanza, Nairobi, Coast province and elsewhere. He has no credibility to challenge anyone on this unless he leads by example. Raila's approach seems like nothing more than an attempt to incite hatred against one family. According to Miguna Miguna, Raila's strategy in 2007 was to pit 41 tribes against one. This time around it is millions of landless Kenyans against his main rival. This is a dangerous trend because what goes around comes back around. If Raila continues to make allegations without substantiation, he should also be ready to tell Kenyans exactly what became of the Kisumu Molasses plant. He cannot leave an empty chair on this while engaging in personalities. The Kisumu molasses plant saga is a real scandal because the Odinga family organised members of the public to raise funds to "buy" the plant barely a week after Raila had joined Moi's government. Kisumu Molasses Plant and the hundreds of acres of land on which it sits mysteriously ended up being the property of Odinga's East Africa Specter gas company. Does the East Africa Specter company hold the plant and its land in trust for the members of the public who "bought" it, albeit for a song? Why did East Africa Specter, which owns the Kisumu Molasses Plant, sell 55 per cent of its shares to South Africa's Energem? How much did Energem pay for its shares and how much did members of the public who saved it from the auctioneers get? Energem started doing business in Kenya after Moi appointed Raila Minister for Energy. The ownership of Energem is suspicious. Was the public involved in deciding to sell the plant's shares to Enegem's president, Antonio Teixeira? What is the relationship between the owners of East Africa Specter and Teixeira? Teixeira was named by a British MP as a gun-runner in the then war ravaged Angola. Back in August 2004, journalist John Kamau raised these questions, but nine years later the molasses plant remains a mystery. Raila may now confirm or deny these allegations while challenging Uhuru to give up land. Kenyans may also want to know about Redicon, a South African fishing company that was pursuing Lake Victoria fishing rights but withdrew abruptly in 2001. No reasons were given. At the same time, Raila was the Energy minister, but little is known about the country to country oil concessions with Nigeria. These are things Kenyans would like to know. Is it okay for candidates to nitpick and portray their opponents as gluttons of privilege? Remember those who live in glass houses do not throw stones! Kaberia is a Washington-based political analyst.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 10:27:11 GMT 3
kenvironews.wordpress.com/2007/09/18/raila-a-odinga-astute-businessman-or-corrupt-politician/The sudden ostentatious display of wealth by Raila Odinga has left many baffled. Unbeknown to the public, Raila is a fabulously wealthy man in his own right with a personal fortune estimated to be in excess of Kshs. 4 billion. Read how the man who wants to be Kenya’s next president acquired his wealth which includes investments in the lucrative petroleum industry and in manufacturing. How Raila acquired his billions. Raila Odinga’s big break came in 2001 soon after he led his party, NDP, into a merger with KANU, the then ruling party. As Energy Minister in Moi’s government he was introduced to the family of Sheikh Abdukeder AlBakari, one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia with interests in petroleum drilling, petroleum exploration and export in the Middle East, Asia, USA and Africa. Through the Saudi contacts,Raila was initiated into the lucrative world of oil business and soon enough he had joined the league of gig independent oil importers via his firm Pan African Petroleum Limited. Industry sources say that one of the things that helped Raila make a quick buck in the oil business was a concessionary petroleum deal he struck with the Al Bakri Group where he was not only incorporated as a silent partner in the local arm of Al Bakri International but was also supplied with petroleum products from Saudi Arabia at subsidized prices which his firm would sell in the market at normal prices. That way,Raila was able to deftly beat the competition in oil business by occasional price undercutting. While still Energy Minister,Raila re-established and nurtured his links with the Libyan government of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi where again he not only did good business in oil importation but also got substantial material support during the 2002 general elections. Besides supporting Raila’s political causes, the Libyans also played a key role in stabilizing Raila in the oil business in a couple of ways. Industry sources say that between 2001 and 2002 when Raila served as Energy Minister,he received at least three consignments of petroleum products at very low prices which were later sold locally at market prices. The overall turnover from the three Libyan consignments is reliably said to have been in the region of over half a billion shillings, a tidy sum of money in any language,enough to ensure that one crosses the Rubicon once and for all. Raila’s enviable international links Reliable sources say that Libyans bankrolled the NARC campaign with some US$ 3 million (about Kshs 210 million), thanks to Raila’s good contacts in the oil-rich land of Gadaffi. There is no doubt that if Raila becomes the ODM presidential candidate he can count on massive financial support from the Libyans once more. Besides Libya, Raila enjoys good links with the South African government of Thabo Mbeki while in Nigeria he is known to have strong links with immediate former president Olosegun Obasanjo,who was a close friend of Raila’s late father Jaramogi. That Libyans, South Africans and Nigerians had enough confidence in Raila to channel campaign funds through him although he himself was not a presidential in 2002 is an indication of how highly regarded he is in some international circles. Evidently,he could certainly count on even more enthusiastic support from his international contacts should he become the ODM presidential candidate. For Raila,the linkage between politics and business went much deeper than petroleum business. It is significant that the Odinga family business,Spectre International Ltd,acquired the then state-owned Kisumu Molasses Plant soon after Raila started politically cooperating with Moi. Raila has consistently argued that the acquisition of the molasses plant was a pure business deal which had nothing to do with politics, but his critics point out at the coincidence between the time his family acquired the parastatal and Raila’s shift of political alliance. It is highly unlikely – indeed one may even say impossible – that the Moi government would have sanctioned the Kisumu Molasses Plant deal at the time if Raila had not become an ally of Moi’s. Former commissioner of Lands Sammy Mwaita offered to sell the 240 acres on which the Kisumu Molasses Plant is built to Spectre International on January 11,2001 at a price of Kshs 3.6 million at a time when Odinga started working closely with Moi. By June of the same year, Raila was appointed to the cabinet and made Energy Minister. Significantly, Spectre International had applied for the same land in a letter of February 18,1999 but the request had been rejected by the government at the time. Titles were prepared in favour of Spectre International on February 3,2002 for a 99-year lease backdated to September 1,2001 and the Odinga family was ready to laugh all the way to the bank. When the Odinga family started the process that led to the acquisition of the Kisumu Molasses Plant in 2001,Raila had already established good business contacts in South Africa. Energem Resources Incorporated,an international firm quoted at the Toronto Stock Exchange,had been looking for an investment opportunity in Kenya for a long time and the Kisumu Molasses Plant appeared just right. Soon after taking over the plant from the government, Raila struck a lucrative deal with Energem whereby the Canadian firm bought 55 per cent of the Kisumu Molasses plant. Sources say that the Odinga family was paid over US$ 5 million (about Kshs 420 million) to relinquish the control of the molasses plant. The Odinga family had paid only Kshs 3.6 million for the property. The Canadians also ploughed in millions of dollars to rehabilitate the plant and it is today one of the largest manufacturing concerns in the country employing hundreds of people and producing at least 60,000 litres of industrial ethanol for local consumption and export. Ethanol from the Kisumu Molasses Plant is used as a fuel additive in east and Central Africa. Among other products coming out of the plant include yeast, carbon dioxide alcohol and related industrial products. A valuation of the plant carried out three three years ago placed the Kisumu Molasses Plant at US$100 million (Kshs 7 billion). With the Odinga family owning 40 percent of the plant,putting the family’s stake in the plant in the region of Kshs 7.8 billion. The remaining five per cent shares in the plant are owned by a development trust on behalf of the local community. Besides Kenya where Energem is in partnership with Raila in the Kisumu molasses plant business, now renamed Kisumu Ethanol Plant, other African countries where Energem’s presence is significant include Sierra Leone, Sao Tome, Congo Brazaville, Angola. Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),Chad and Central Africa republic. Raila’s wealth at a glance Company/Property Estimated Worth Spectre International Limited (the holding company for Kisumu Ethanol Plant) Kshs 7 billion of which Odinga family owns 40 per cent whose value is approximately Kshs 2.8 billion East African Spectre (the gas cylinder manufacturing plant founded by Raila’s late father) Kshs 500 million Raila’s family home in Karen Nairobi Kshs 50 million Runda House Kshs 15 million Pan African Petroleum Company (the firm through which the Odinga family imports and distributes petroleum products) Has had a turnover in excess of Kshs 500 million.
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 9, 2013 10:18:06 GMT 3
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 7, 2013 23:11:30 GMT 3
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Feb 5, 2013 13:30:31 GMT 3
All, Lawyer Onyango Oloo has just exposed the history of Opoda Farm. If you don't know, Opoda Farm has been made popular because that's where Raila Odinga built his home-- his home is shamelessly known as Opoda Farm.
Do you know the history of Opoda land in Bondo?
How did the Odingas acquire that piece of Opoda land?
HiStory Back in the day (1960s) when hot smoke was being spread that Vice Prisident Jaramogi Oginga Odinga would one day become the President of Kenya, he (Jaramogi) allegedly needed land to build an airstrip in Bondo. This was at the highest height of Odingaism.
No need for history, lets go right into it....
Onyango Oloo's KTN Interview According to Lawyer Onyango Oloo, Jaramogi identified and then used his immense powers to grab a piece of land in Bondo that he "earmarked" for building an airstrip. The land is in Opoda. To acquire Opoda land, Jaramogi displaced a whole village from Opoda. Most Kenyans now know this piece of land as Raila's home called Opoda Farm. Nobody but Raila's family and their workers occupy that massive piece of land that once-upon-a-time used to be a village full of villagers!
Now let me hand this over to the Greatest son of The Lake, Lawyer Onyango Oloo.
"If we would go to the TRUTH, I know of a whole village which was taken by a very prominent Kenyan in the guise that he was going to be President of Kenya so he needed an airstrip. He DID NOT BECOME PRESIDENT, THE AIRSTRIP WAS NOT CREATED,THE SON HAS NEVER RETURNED THAT LAND."- Onyango Oloo, KTN Interview Feb 4, 2013.
KTN interviewer asks Onyango Oloo, "Would you like to name that individual"?
"The Opoda Farm where the Prime Minister comes from (where he built his home) was taken from the villagers in the guise that the Vice President then, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was going to be President and he needed an airport if not an airstrip. TO DATE THAT LAND HAS NEVER BEEN RETURNED, HE NEVER BECAME PRESIDENT....." Onyango Oloo, KTN Interview Feb 4, 2013.
Courtesy of NP
|
|
|
Post by nowayhaha on Jan 31, 2013 0:43:43 GMT 3
Politicians told to keep off land issue standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000076259&pageNo=2&story_title=Kenya-Politicians-told-to-keep-off-land-issueEldoret, Kenya: Politicians have been cautioned against stirring tension through exploiting the emotive land issues during campaigns. Land experts warned this was likely to polarise the country and incite ethnic tensions ahead of the elections that could trigger violence. The Land Development and Governance Institute (LDGI) Executive Director Mwenda Makathimo cautioned politicians against spreading falsehoods or create misery on account of land issues. “They should stop doing this anywhere in the country, especially for their selfish gains, as this could result in the scenario we witnessed during the previous elections,” he said. Clear Mechanisms He instead urged the politicians to fast track the gazettement of the National Land Commission nominees whose names were approved before Parliament was dissolved. Makathimo noted that it was the only independent body in the Constitution capable of resolving all historical land issues and implementation of new land laws. “Where disputes arise, they must be resolved in a legal and peaceful manner as provided for in the national land policy, the Constitution and the new land laws that stipulate clear mechanisms within which land disputes are resolved,” he noted. He regretted that land had resulted in the death of innocent Kenyans, destruction and loss of private property and the disruption of businesses and people’s lifestyles that has undermined local and national economies. He was speaking in Eldoret where they conducted a public education forum on land, peace and elections under the initiative dubbed Ardhi na Amani Kenya where they unveiled a caravan on the same. LDGI chairman Ibrahim Mwathane, assured all Kenyans that once instituted, the land commission would deal with all the matters being raised by politicians through legal, structured and institutional processes. Johnstone Kiamba, a member of the institute, urged Kenyans to be good stewards of land by subjecting it to proper use.
|
|