Kajiado is a part of Kenya where prevalence rates for female genital mutilation (FGM) are at their highest, and communities are deeply resistant to cultural change. However, Kajiado district is also an area where simple conversations hold out the promise of helping to end FGM.

Compared to 20 years ago in Kenya, people live for ten years less on average, more children die in infancy and a greater proportion of those who survive face stunting. Why? Soren Ambrose makes a case for holding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) responsible, arguing that the institution's obsession with low inflation rates - one of the foundations of trade liberalization - starves economies and hurts the poor.

On March 6, Kenya's Assistant Minister for Health, Enock Kibunguchy, told the press that Kenya urgently needs to hire 10,000 additional professionals in the public health sector, blurting out: “We have to put our foot down and employ. We can tell the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to go to hell.” [1]

These are strong words for a high-ranking government official to put on record regarding the most powerful international financial institutions (IFIs), and in particular the IMF, a body whose power extends to being able to call for the withdrawal of virtually all external assistance to a country.

Minister of Health Charity Ngilu had in fact been rumored to have made similar accusations in meetings with IMF officials and civil society representatives; since Kibunguchy's declaration she has confirmed she shares his view. Similar allegations have also been made by several civil society organizations focused on the IMF and on health rights. Indeed, in the last two years a number of organizations have identified IMF restrictions as a serious disincentive to hiring desperately-needed health professionals not only in Kenya, but in many other African and Global South countries as well.

Specific IMF policies, in particular the low ceilings it sets for inflation rates and wage expenditures in borrowing countries, are demonstrably illogical and detrimental. Together with the dubious defense the IMF mounts for maintaining such restrictions, cases like Kenya's provide a strong argument that those controlling the IMF should re-examine the restrictions it places on borrowing governments. The logic of demanding continual decreases in public wage bills is likewise suspect, as are the IMF's routine inflation targets. With increased funding from new sources, improved standards of living are within reach of even the most impoverished countries, if only the IMF would allow it.

The Health Care Crisis

Kenya's health care crisis has been 20 years in the making. Its dimensions are spelled out in the 2004 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - a government document written in consultation with the IMF and World Bank and approved by both bodies' boards. Life expectancy declined from 57 in 1986 to 47 in 2000; infant mortality increased from 62 per thousand in 1993 to 78 per thousand in 2003; and under-five mortality rose from 96 per thousand births to 114 per thousand in the same period. The percentage of children with stunted growth increased from 29% in 1993 to 31% in 2003, and the percentage of Kenya's children who are fully-vaccinated dropped from 79% in 1993 to 52% in 2003.[2]

Why this deterioration? As in most African countries, Kenya's health care system was hit hard by the “structural adjustment” policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank as conditions on loans and as prerequisites for getting IFI approval of the country's economic policies. Those policies were introduced in the 1980s, and have left a lasting mark on Kenya's health. As usual with such programs, the emphasis was on cutting budget expenditures. As a result, local health clinics and dispensaries had fewer supplies and medicines, and user fees became more common. The public hospitals saw their standard of care deteriorate, increasing pressure on the largest public facility, Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. As a consequence, that hospital, once the leading health facility in East Africa, began, like so many other African hospitals, to ask patients' families to provide outside food, medicine, and medical supplies. Most beds at Kenyatta and the regional and local hospitals accommodated two patients. Professional staff have taken jobs - some part-time, some full-time, at private healthcare facilities, or migrated to Europe or North America in search of better pay.

An October 2005 communication from an NGO coalition to the November 2005 “High Level Forum on Health MDGs (Millennium Development Goals)” notes that “between 1991 and 2003, the [Kenyan] government reduced its work force by 30%” - cuts that hit the health sector particularly hard.[3] For the period between 2000 and 2002 alone, the government was scheduled to lay off 5,300 health staff.

Those requirements were externally imposed. A World Bank Group document from November 2003, written to justify waiving a loan condition calling for a workforce reduction, notes: “This condition required retrenching 32,000 personnel from civil service over a period of two years. In practice, 23,448 civil servants were retrenched in 2000/01 before the program was interrupted by lawsuits. […] A specific commitment in the updated [agreement] is to reduce the size of the civil service by 5,000 per year through natural attrition.” [4] The very same document supports Assistant Minister Kibunguchy's assessment of the sector's current needs - “the health sector currently experiences a staff shortage of about 10,000 health workers.” The document, however, draws no connection between the shortage and the insistence on cutting more workers.

The impact of the layoffs and budget slashing in the health sector over the last 15 years was cited recently by Member of Parliament Alfred Nderitu as the primary motivation for his motion of censure against the IMF and World Bank in the Kenyan Parliament. His initiative would insist that any future loans from the institutions get Parliamentary approval. [5]

Clinics Without Nurses

Many African countries have shortages of medical staff because of lack of training capacity; in Kenya this is not the case. Thousands are unemployed or underemployed, eager to take up full time positions.

Both the Kenyan government and the IFIs regularly announce that health spending will increase substantially. [6, 7] With all these promises of increased resources for health care, with the World Bank's acknowledgement of a staff shortage, and with all those unemployed nurses, one might expect that the government would waste no time in hiring the thousands of nurses Kenya so desperately needs. And indeed, frequent promises are made by government officials to that effect. But the promises are almost never kept.

According to the Chief Economist in the Ministry of Health, S.N. Muchiri, the reason is that while the IFIs support increased expenditures on health, they forbid spending that money to pay staff wages. This is accomplished through insisting on a ceiling on wage expenditures; in Kenya, the targets are 8.5% of GDP in 2006 and 7.2% by 2008. [8] The IMF doesn't specify that hiring in the health sector specifically must be limited, but when the entire wage bill must be suppressed, the chances of hiring the personnel needed are slim indeed.

So when IFI staffers call for more funding for clinics, as they do in their critique of the government's draft PRSP, they mean buildings, equipment, and medicine. [9] Unfortunately, personnel are required to run the clinics. It is the choice by those institutions to prioritize targets for reduced spending on public salaries and on inflation, says Muchiri, that prevents Kenya from hiring health workers. [10]

Muchiri provides valuable “inside” confirmation of charges made with increasing intensity by civil society organizations over the last two years. Advocates point out that while recent funding initiatives like the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria and PEPFAR have made stemming the most critical health crises in Africa more possible, the IMF's power over borrowers' economic policy and its narrow focus on keeping inflation and payrolls as low as possible is actively discouraging governments from putting the available funds to use.

Numbers, Not People

On one level, it seems like commonsense for an organization like the IMF to seek out ways in which governments can reduce the amount spent on salaries, especially in countries like Kenya, which have had troubles with “ghost employees” on public payrolls in the past. But the self-defeating nature of this quest quickly becomes apparent. If the government were simply expected to identify and eliminate ghost employees, that would obviously lighten the government's burden and enable it to target its resources more wisely.

But the IMF's conditions deal with bottom-line expenditures, not with going to the root of the problem. Kenya's PRSP spells out the implications: “…achieving the 8.5 percent target by 2005/06 will require that any awards to be provided to the civil servants or any additional awards […] will be matched by a proportionate downsizing of the civil service.” [11] Any hiring of nurses, for example, would require that some other public employees be eliminated - regardless of how much the nurses may be needed, or how vital the other positions may be. Indiscriminate targeting like this only demonstrates the prioritizing of abstract economic statistical standards over real-life outcomes, including those most likely to have a positive material impact on poverty and on contributing to the overall health of both Kenya's population and the economy.

So if the health budget is to rise - as both the IFIs and the government repeat often - then the PRSP must remind us that: “The fiscal strategy assumes that these health expenditures will be focused on non-wage non-transfer expenditures and will thus enable the rapid increase in basic health services.” [12] Indeed, Muchiri reports that funds are often available for facilities or supplies, but not for staff. The result is that more people may seek out health services, but the ministry will actually be less able to provide them because of lack of personnel to administer the drugs or operate the machinery.

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation

But why does the IMF, with its power to exclude a country from the global economy by declaring it “off-track,” insist on reducing government payrolls? Adding employees to the government payroll, especially if accomplished with aid money, is considered by orthodox economists like those at the IMF to increase inflationary pressures in a developing country. And an increase in inflation is anathema to the IMF.

The IMF quite openly prioritizes inflation targeting over almost any other factor in the countries where it works. Pressed on the question, as they have been in the debate over health spending, its officials will invariably respond that inflation is a “tax” that hits the poor the hardest.

But is that true? Anis Chowdhury points out that:

“The poor have very limited financial assets; they are largely net financial debtors. Thus inflation can benefit the poor by reducing the real value of their financial debt. Meanwhile, the IMF's cure for inflation - raising interest rates - can actually harm the poor because this increases the servicing costs of their current debts. […] The poor fare worse when unemployment rises and persists, especially when there is no adequate safety net or social security system. At the same time, the real value of their household debt rises with falling inflation rates. Hence the poor have more reason to be averse to unemployment and less averse to inflation than the elite in society." [13]

After this seemingly obvious point is made, it seems only too easy to point out that those who stand to lose the most from inflation are those who hold large amounts of money - financiers, investors, bankers. Yes, there are risks to the poor in high and/or persistent inflation, but increases in inflation below a certain point are far more likely to cause pain to those whose incomes depend on relatively minor fluctuations in currency values. For the impoverished, as Chowdhury explains, such increases in inflation are likely to be more beneficial than harmful.

As is so often the case, it is easiest to discern the interests of policy-makers not from their rhetoric, but from whose interests are most vigorously protected by their policies - by who “wins” as a result. The IMF's longtime prioritization of inflation over all else lends weight to those who accuse it of using its powers to protect the interests of the wealthy over those of the impoverished, regardless of their rhetoric that maintains the reverse.

IMF official Andy Berg recently admitted as much: “Higher inflation […] tax[es] people who hold cash or whose nominal incomes are fixed.” But Berg's next sentence restores IMF ideology, and at the same time exposes its flimsiness: “And this tax discourages private investment and tends to fall on those least able to adapt - in other words the poor.” [14] Berg relocates the pain from the rich to the poor, but offers no logic for that move.

Drawing a Reasonable Line on Inflation

To challenge the IMF, the question must be where to draw the line - at what point, to use Berg's phrase, is “inflation out of control,” or at risk of spinning out of control? Berg says “in poor countries the danger point is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent.” The good news is that this figure is actually less conservative than the standard used in most IMF programs. In most countries with IMF loans, the conditions call for inflation to decline and stay below five percent. [15]

Few economists outside the IMF opt for a level as low even as 10% in defining a healthy rate of inflation for a growing economy in a developing country. Terry McKinley, an economist with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), declares: “As long as current revenue covers current expenditures, governments can usefully borrow to finance [social] investment. […] Fiscal deficits should remain sustainable as ensuing growth boosts revenue collection. The resultant growth of productive capacities will keep inflation moderate - namely, within a 15 percent rate per year.” [16]

There is no room for neutrality in this debate. Adhering to IMF standards in order to avoid trouble will, according to McKinley, likely sabotage any hope of genuine development:

“Moderate inflation can, in fact, be compatible with growth. But low inflation can be as harmful as high inflation. When low-inflation policies keep the economy mired in stagnation or drive it into recession, the poor lose out, often for years thereafter, as their meager stocks of wealth are wiped out or their human capabilities seriously impaired. […] Without jobs and income, people cannot benefit from price stability.” [17]

Tactfully avoiding mentioning the IMF by name, McKinley argues: “The new 'politically correct' justification for minimizing inflation is that it hurts the poor. However, this misreads the facts: very high, destabilizing inflation (above 40 per cent) definitely hurts the poor; and very low inflation (below 5 per cent) can also harm their interests when it impedes growth and employment.” [18]

Rick Rowden points out that Latin American countries and “East Asian tigers” like South Korea grew rapidly despite inflation rates of around 20%. [19] But that was before the IMF moved into the development world in the 1980s, and re-wrote the rules - without any definitive evidence to support their claim that doing so was advantageous to the poor.

The IMF appears to be caught in a classic case of “fighting the last battle.” When the IMF started lending to developing countries in the early 1980s, they were afflicted with astronomical, runaway inflation. It still apparently believes that hyperinflation is the most dangerous threat. But hyperinflation has been eliminated almost everywhere (apart from crisis or pariah countries like Zimbabwe); indeed most developing countries now have inflation rates well below 10%, and many below 5%. [20] This is largely as a result of the IMF's hyper-vigilance over the last 25 years. The problem today is not hyperinflation, but IMF-induced stagnation.

More and more economists - outside the IMF - are taking a more complex view of growth and inflation. Rather than insisting that a country have a demonstrated “absorptive capacity” before increasing the flow of revenues, they look at the likely impact of increased flows. In the case of increased spending on health care, not only is employment created (if wage ceilings are set aside), but the population's overall economic capacity improves, and private-sector activity, rather than being discouraged by public funds, is spurred by the increasing availability of resources.

Muchiri, in Kenya's Health Ministry, concurs with McKinley's positions on inflation targeting, and with the view that public spending, especially on healthcare, will encourage growth. He acknowledges that his government has committed to a low inflation target - its “Letter of Intent” to the IMF states: “The monetary program for 2004/05 is designed to reduce underlying inflation to 3.5 percent.” [21] And thus far Kenya seems to be meeting that goal.

But, says Muchiri: “3.5 percent is too low for an economy that is supposed to grow by 5 percent. A certain level of inflation is healthy - you can't grow otherwise.” This recognition moves Muchiri to criticize officials of a nearby country who have told him they must limit expenditures on health care - even refusing funds from the GFTAM - in order to prevent any risk of inflation rising. That line of thinking is clearly reflected in the recent statements by Kibunguchy and Ngilu.

But Finance Ministers who have committed to the IMF's inflation targets, and in many cases made those targets the centerpiece of their macroeconomic policy, are deeply reluctant to do anything that might raise that rate. Not only would doing so risk IMF disapproval and blacklisting, but it would also be seen as reversing a position they have publicly, and politically, committed to. Until this logjam is broken, a higher quality of life - even life itself - will continue to elude many thousands.

Muchiri counts as a significant victory the recent concession made by the IMF, after substantial negotiations, that Kenya could hire more health professionals if it could find donors willing to provide extra funds who themselves were comfortable with the impacts - economic and otherwise - that hiring additional health staff might have. It is this concession that recently allowed Kenya to announce that it will use funds from the Clinton Foundation, PEPFAR, and the GFATM to hire upwards of two thousand new nurses and other health professionals. [22] Unlike with previous pledges, advertisements for the positions are now appearing in newspapers.

But the very existence of these policies, and the fact that he must invest so much in winning exceptions to them, cause Muchiri to reflect on his experiences of watching mothers and children die in hospitals for lack of surgeons or a lack of capacity to offer preventive care, and speculate that the IMF and World Bank could reasonably be charged with genocide. “The only difference from what happened in Rwanda is they don't use pangas [machetes]. They use policies.”

* Soren Ambrose is Coordinator, Solidarity Africa Network, Nairobi, Kenya. He is also associated with the Washington-based 50 Years Is Enough Network, which in April convened a meeting to launch an international campaign to shrink or eliminate the IMF (for more information write [email][email protected]; see related commentary, by Ambrose and Walden Bello, at [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References:

[1] Elizabeth Mwai, “Ignore the World Bank on health, says minister,” The Standard (Nairobi), March 7, 2006.

[2] Republic of Kenya, “Investment Programme for the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation, 2003-2007 - March 12, 2004 - Revised.” Published by International Monetary Fund as “Kenya: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper,” IMF Country Report #05/11 - January 2005, p. 9. Subsequent citations as “PRSP.”

[3] “A joint NGO statement to the High Level Forum on Health MDGs,” October 2005, p. 3.

[4] International Development Association (World Bank Group), “Kenya - Economic and Public Sector Reform Credit - Release of Second Tranche - Waiver of Two Conditions and Amendment of Development Credit Agreement,” November 20, 2003, para. 33, p. 10.

[5] “Plans to Censure WB, IMF,” Kenya Times, March 14, 2006.

[6] PRSP, p. 18

[7] PRSP, p. 21

[8] PRSP, p. 19.

[9] International Monetary Fund, “Kenya: Joint Staff Assessment of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper,” Country Report #05/10, January 2005, para. 33, p. 10.

[10] S.N. Muchiri, Chief Economist, Ministry of Health, Republic of Kenya: Interview with author, March 21, 2006, Nairobi, Kenya. All of Muchiri's quote come from this interview.

[11] PRSP, p. 20.

[12] PRSP, p. 21.

[13] Chowdhury, Anis. “Poverty Reduction and the 'Stabilisation Trap' - The Role of Monetary Policy,” University of Western Sydney draft available from [email][email protected] Cited in Rick Rowden, “Changing Course: Alternative Approaches to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Fight HIV/AIDS,” ActionAid International USA, September 2005, p. 30. www.actionaidusa.org/pdf/Changing%20Course%20Report.pdf

[14] Berg, Andy. “An interview with Andy Berg on the macroeconomics of managing increased aid inflows,” IMF Civil Society Newsletter, February 2006.

[15] Rowden, p. 30.

[16] Terry McKinley, “MDG-Based PRSPs Need More Ambitious Economic Policies,” United Nations Development Programme - Policy Discussion Paper, p. 4.

[17] McKinley, pp. 14-15.

[18] McKinley, p. 16.

[19] Rowden, p. 31.

[20] Rowden, p. 21.

[21] Republic of Kenya, letter to Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the IMF, December 6, 2004. Published by the IMF as “Kenya-Letter of Intent, Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies and Technical Memorandum of Understanding.”

[22] See Lucas Barasa, “2,210 jobs lined up for nurses,” Daily Nation, August 9, 2005, and Francis Openda, “State to Hire 1,420 More Health Workers,” The Standard (Nairobi), October 12, 2005 - http://allafrica.com/stories/200510110915.html

The Government has released Sh1.3 billion for the free education programme to meet general expenditure in schools. This is the equivalent of Sh185 a pupil in all the 18,000 public primary schools in the country, acting Education minister Noah Wekesa said at the ministry headquarters.

Transparency International Kenya (TI) released the 2006 Kenya Bribery Index amid criticism for leaking the report to one media house before the launch. The report summarizes the findings of Transparency International(TI)-Kenya’s fifth national bribery survey. The survey is part of TI Kenya’s effort to inform the fight against corruption with rigorous and objective research and analysis. The survey captures corruption as experienced by ordinary citizens in their interaction with officials of both public and private organisations.

Exclusive exposure of high level scandals by the Nation Media Group (NMG) has steered the company into the billionaire's club but its power to reveal matters of public concern is still under threat, according to group chief executive officer Wilfred Kiboro. Addressing shareholders during the company's 43rd annual general meeting, he said Kenya has come a long way in embracing press freedom and creating a well informed society, but the proposed Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Bill was an attempt by the government to interfere with media independence, curtail the right to free flow of information, and reduce investment in the media.

The Sexual Offences Bill in Kenya has come closer to enactment after sailing through the second reading in Parliament. The Bill, sponsored by Nominated MP Njoki Ndung'u, will now go to the committee of the whole House where members will scrutinise it clause-by-clause. In this stage, members are allowed to amend it on the floor of the House. Once members agree on the amendments, the Bill goes to the third stage, for presidential assent.

Kenya's justice and constitutional affairs minister has admitted that corruption was still rampant in the country, and it permeated all sectors. "It appears that we have only scratched the surface in fighting the menace," said the minister. At the same time, she said there was a wrong perception that corruption only thrived in the public sector, adding that it was also rife in the private sector.

For Nalangu Taki, a simple glass of water can come with a heavy price. This resident of Narok in south-western Kenya says women in the district have to walk long distances to obtain water, sometimes getting attacked by lions. "Women wake up at six am every day and walk for over 20 kilometres to get to water points. At the water points, they meet lions which are also searching for water," she told IPS. The scramble for resources claims lives.

In Kajiado district in Kenya, simple conversations hold out the promise of helping to end female genital mutilation (FGM). These conversations are taking place under the auspices of "intergenerational dialogue" (IGD), an approach jointly supported by the Ministry of Health and German Development Co-operation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ). The dialogue enables young and old people to talk about the practice of FGM.

A special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury - the head of the Anglican Church worldwide - is expected in Kenya to try and defuse the escalating row over the visit of the Bishop of Chelmsford, a supporter of gay rights. The visit has spurred controversy over Bishop John Gladwin's support for the "full inclusion" organisation, which supports a more liberal approach to the inclusion of gay people within the church. Both the Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers have accused Kenya's Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of "abandoning" Bishop Gladwin during his trip.

A ban on smoking in Kenya's public places has come into force, to reduce the number of tobacco-related deaths. From Monday, anyone smoking in offices, bus stations, airports and sports venue faces a fine of 50,000 Kenya shillings ($700; £375) or six months in prison. Bars and restaurants without separate smoking areas are also affected.
*Updated News:
Kenya suspends public smoking ban
Kenya's High Court has suspended a controversial ban on smoking in public places which began on Monday. It ordered the suspension for 30 days after tobacco companies challenged the health minister's authority to impose the restriction.

Carolina for Kibera, Inc. (CFK) is a 501(c)(3) international non-governmental organization housed at the University Center for International Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Supported by private donations and grants from the Ford Foundation, CFK has established a youth sports association, girls' center, and medical clinic in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.

Ndungu Wainaina reflects on the succession politics presently waging in Kenya. He argues that the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) rose to power owing to the public desire for broad constitutional reforms in the sphere of governance to guarantee among others, human rights. Sadly, the coalition is now disintegrated and concludes that the task of completing the constitutional review and democratic transition in the country remains with all Kenyans.

The Kenyan state is in transition. The upcoming general elections in 2007 and the impending Kibaki succession are wrecking havoc on the political scene. But the agenda for this election is not clear. As of now the country stands between the possibility for progress into reforms and the rebirth of a new nation built on the firm tenets of democratic government and the respect for and promotion of human rights, or regression into the abyss of authoritarianism and bad governance. The 2002 general elections that saw the exit of the Kenya African National Union from state power for the first time in independent Kenya was primarily driven by the general public desire for reforms in governance, constitutional review and human rights spheres. The quest for a new democratic constitutional order was so central that all the political parties consistently promised to deliver a new democratic constitutional dispensation once they ascended into power.

The now disintegrated National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), won the elections on the promise of establishing a new constitutional dispensation within 100 days of getting into office. NARC won the elections, but failed to facilitate the making of the new constitution. This has resulted in a credibility deficit for the new government. Following the removal from government of the Liberal Democratic Party, a key partner in the Coalition, courtesy of the reconstituted cabinet in December 2005, the National Rainbow Coalition seems to have been dissolved. This has had a tremendous effect on the conduct of coalition politics in the country and the growth of constitutional democracy.

Four years after it was elected on the platform of reforms the NARC Coalition has failed to spearhead any of the key reforms that Kenyans wanted. The government failed to manage and facilitate the constitutional review process. Courtesy of its policy of non-negotiation, the government has engendered polarization of the country. Constitutional reform is the greatest casualty of this failure in leadership by the current government. Ending official corruption, impunity, institutional transformation and restoring the rule of law has fallen flat. Instituting a legitimate and radical transitional justice process in order to offer a firm socio-political and cultural framework to advance democratization and human development has been deferred. Continued reference to corruption cases in court is irrelevant as long as no tangible results are evident.

The reform of institutions has been slow, superficial, and misdirected. The conception and institution of the Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector (GJLOS) reform has presented a situation where the path and direction of reforms has been reduced into a patching up process. Even though the president has insisted that his government is committed to socio-economic reforms to respond to the massive inequalities and poverty, results are mixed. The reported economic growth rate is lopsided in favour of the few big mainstream businesses while disinheriting the largest chunk of the population.

The country, now faced with the upcoming general election, is preoccupied with the intertwined political questions of undertaking a successful constitutional review and governance reforms and the Kibaki succession. Politically, Kenya is only democratic to the extent of regular elections; the government’s responsiveness to the will and the wishes of the people remains very limited. The progress towards democratic governance in Kenya depends more on the capacity of the citizenry to demand and protect their space and not magnanimity of the state.

The task of completing the constitutional review and democratic transition in the country remains with all Kenyans. There is urgent need to establish, focus and strengthen the citizenry into a critical mass that will provide the philosophical, institutional and logistical support to the various initiatives of the citizenry to develop a popular coalition to force and enhance the national drive towards completing the constitutional review and institutionalizing just and democratic governance in Kenya.

The experience of NARC has shown that regime change is not sufficient to facilitate democratic change. It is only right that the general Kenyan populace should in addition to being informed and made aware, be fully included in the quest for a new constitution and democratic order. For this to happen there is great need to consolidate and promote the emergence of a strong constituency of grassroots’ constitutional and democracy crusaders. The population has increasingly lost faith in the capacity of the government and commitment of the politicians to review the constitution and entrench democratic governance. More and more Kenyans are getting despondent. There is evidence that this development is neither entirely innocent nor accidental, but rather a consequence of political elite rigged democratic development.

The country requires the commitment of a core of champions around a common new vision for Kenya. This would guarantee democratic governance and social development. The sole objective of this core would be to drive and establish a new leadership to ensure the enjoyment of democratic governance by all. A large constituency of disinherited and excluded people is not only a great threat to the nation’s stability, harmony and continued existence as a going concern but also potentially the breeding ground for rebellion. The new leadership would usher a unique situation and opportunity of not only establishing a new constitutional order but also putting in place social democracy practitioners as the leaders and governance implementers of long desired changes in Kenya.

This transformative change calls for a core of leaders and citizens who are driven by higher values and aspirations than just material accumulation and professional excellence. It calls for an efficient economy with a human face; a strong political edifice with a human heart. If Kenya is to start dealing with her unhappy past comprehensively and decisively and to build a brighter future for all, then it will require people with a passion to serve and to change things; in the public, private and voluntary sector. It will require men and women with a dream great enough to die for and a vision big enough for everyone to have a part in it. It is time for converting the citizenry from casual observers to major stakeholders in this country. This will not threaten any one but rather secure the interests of even those who have done much to hurt the interest of the citizens and the country at large.

* Ndungu Wainaina is a Programme Officer, NCEC and Director, International Center for Policy and Conflict. P.O.Box 11996-00400 Nairobi. Tel: 4445974, 4446313; email: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Suspects in the Anglo Leasing scandals are unlikely to appear in court soon because the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission is frustrated in its bid to quickly conclude investigations, it was revealed on Thursday. The KACC deputy director, Ms Fatuma Sichale, said investigations into the Sh7 billion Anglo Leasing scandals were being hampered by factors beyond the commission’s control.

As most mobile phone users will testify, the quality of handsets is neither assured nor obvious. With reconditioned brands flooding the market, the quality is as comprised as it can get. This has been attributed to stiff competition as thousands of dealers fight it out for a share of the rapidly expanding industry. Dealers in reconditioned phones have also found their fair share in a market where the mobile phone has lost its status symbol, as poor farmers and students take up the technology.

The donor community is ready to fund the implementation of the report on the illegal and irregular allocation of public land. However, they are being discouraged by the uncoordinated manner and slow pace at which the government is dealing with the process. The chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry into Illegal and Irregular Allocation of Public Land in Kenya, says that several donor agencies have shown interest in funding the implementation of the report. "But they are being disappointed by lack of political will."

For women who are victims of rape, recovery from the violation is typically arduous and draining. In Kenya, the post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), an anti-HIV treatment, is available in just seven of the 73 government district hospitals and one of the eight provincial hospitals. PEP reduces the chance of HIV infection when a woman is raped by someone carrying the virus, if administered within 72 hours of the crime.

Public university lecturers in Kenya are planning to call a strike next month if the Government does not start immediate negotiations over salaries. The Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) officials have started meeting members to seek an endorsement of the planned strike should they fail to push the Government to the negotiating table. At the heart of the impending confrontation is the lecturers' quest for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement following the expiry of another one effected two years ago.

The shocking details of how use of outdated communication equipment by police is frustrating the fight against crime has been exposed. And this despite the Government's claims that it has allocated Sh11 billion - and probably spent some of the taxpayers' money - to replace it. The multi-billion-shilling radio project was among those highlighted in a Public Accounts Committee report released in March. But in interviews with the Sunday Nation, current and former officers described the kit as "very poor".

The 2nd Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights will be held from June 19 - 21, 2006, in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference will be convened by the Africa Regional Office of Planned Parenthood Federation of America - International (PPFA-International) and the African Federation for Sexual Health and Rights (AFSHR). In addition, the conveners will provide technical support and assist in mobilizing resources and other support for the conference.