Combating Terrorism in Kenya

 

Ever since the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya which claimed over 225 ordinary lives and left thousands with permanent scars and disabilities  to the surviving victims in country where recourse for Medicare and health insurance is a preserve for those in formal employment , the fight against terrorism  in the country still faces major hurdles  both regionally and internationally mainly driven by the fact the Kenya hosts many international organizations in the Horn Of Africa of strategic interests to the West and also harbors many western related multinational firms hence an easy target for these extremist groupings. The spillover effects saw Kenyan forces wade and fly into neighboring Somalia in October 2011 to stymie their quest for destabilizing the ‘tourism industry’ following the abduction of a French nationality on the northern coast of Kenya as well the murder of the British couple (husband)  and  kidnapping of the wife  acted as a precursor to the  numerous sporadic shooting , placement of IED in northern Kenya and  hurling of grenades in various parts of the country claiming the lives of innocent people in revenge to Kenya’s entry into southern Somalia.

The absurdity in the fight against these terrorist groups is that they continue to attack the same areas repeatedly which raises a concern on our security apparatus either as lacking the will to protect its citizenry or reluctance in continuous monitoring of these criminal gangs, the country’s borders have become porous to attacks and entry of illegal and dangerous immigrants who take advantage of our welcoming hearts. From the bus attacks in Eastleigh, Grenade and club shootings in Mombasa , the arresting  of Iranian nationals with bomb explosives in Mombasa to the heinous church shootings in Garissa it is now high time the government put its feet down to clamp these criminal minds and activities. One may ponder and ask why landlords and real estate developers are not willing to pay taxes on rental income but are better of harboring tenants whom they even have no clue what kinds of jobs they do in as long as they pay and get their rental incomes.

To fight terrorism and criminal gangs the current government should make mandatory for landlords to declare rental income as this will in one way or the other reduce money laundering cases and at same the same time pass a legislation that will see all landlords and real estate developers before entering into tenancy agreements , file information regarding the tenants employment contract, PIN Number and National identity and or their sources of income/means of subsistence  with a designated government security organ  and introduce heavy penalty for defaulters only such approaches could have easily profiled and tracked the Githurai terror suspect who was gunned down last week after months of trailing the suspect. In this country today especially in urban areas, neighborhood awareness and interactivity is extremely artificial - a source of ingredients for any evil minded person. Information sharing and digitizing of the above contents within the various agencies of the state for instance the KNBS, KRA and NSIS can aptly supplement The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2012 enacted by the last parliament and assented to by the then president Mr. Kibaki in October 2012. My Nairobi governor’s approach of arming private security guard to fend of criminal activities is a good idea but may be in 20 years to come, with the current appalling security guard wages, gun leasing even if they are serialized will be on the rampage just have a look at how Americans with better established security systems are divided on the gun control subject whether to pass it or not. Combating crime in modern day world requires more than community policing but also calls for  investing heavily in information technology and having better trained police officers, the police force should not be seen as reserve for those who earned low grades in their O – Levels but should attract personnel skilled to understand human minds and criminality.

 

The Fight against poverty and wealth inequality in Kenya.

Famous Italian economist Ferdinando Galliani once quipped that from manufacturing you may expect the two greatest ills of humanity and slavery, to be healed (Galliani 1770/1959), since the Narc Government took over the realms of power from the second president of Kenya Mr.Moi way back in 2003 there has been tremendous growth in infrastructure and real estate development  is on the rise ,in the country despite the political bickering  embedded in any political system which normally pits the capitalists against what ails the common mans needs for those who believe in Abraham Maslow motivational theory. Today we are living in country where land that is meant for food cultivation and animal husbandry faces fierce competition from those willing to set up property, Industries and infrastructure without conducting  proper due diligence plans for posterity though Vision 2030 purports to address it. Humanity is playing second fiddle to artificial demands created by economic blocks that are driven by profits a system set up by the proponents of free trade theory who are driven by self interests. In Kenya the expansive Rift valley region often referred to as the food basket of the country you encounter dairy and cereals farmers crying foul of low prices for their farm produce which can be attributed to the global chain trade system of rich countries subsidizing their farmers against the perfect market conditions prevalent in developing countries, the same applies to central, western and parts of Nyanza province where hunger is not priority but finding market for their farm produce is a puzzle , the Economic Stimulus package launched by then Minister for Finance now head of state  Uhuru Kenyatta in 2009 saw many farmers diversify from crop to Fish Farming in order to boast their incomes following the aftermath of 2007 post election Violence effects to cushion them against losses economic but not against the Franz stangel effects.

Come July 2011 the Kenya Red Cross society had raised a red flag that at least 3.75 Million Kenyans in arid and semi-arid lands especially in northern Kenya were threatened with death due to the threat of starvation because of drought to the contrary nature has conspired to bequeath this region with the black Gold. Malnutrition rates in Northern Kenya were at emergency levels with more than 385,000 children below the age of 5 years in 13 districts suffering from acute malnutrition. Furthermore, many schools without school-feeding programmes had been closed. Other visible indicators included increased livestock deaths and erosion of livelihood and survival options available to the affected pastoralists. The worst affected districts included Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit, Turkana, Moyale, Eastern Samburu, and Northern Isiolo although certain districts in rain dependent Lower Eastern Region such as the northern parts of Mwingi and Kitui districts and the Coastal Region, which had also sank into the emergency phase classification of food insecurity. Further, at least 20 people were reported to have lost their lives as a result of drought-related effects. It was at this point that the Government declared drought a National Disaster. This led to birth of local idea by the name Kenyans for Kenya Initiative which saw Kenyans through the mobile payment solutions MPESA and some of the leading corporate firms in the country led by telecoms leader Safaricom  raise charity funds close to over $10 million dollars in a span of one month this goes to affirm that synergies between public private sector partnerships can offer a lasting solution to the health, Nutrition and other related problems that bedevil our economies, it also demonstrates that Africa no longer needs aid but trade ,the initiative is a living demonstration of how PPPS can transform a society, the mid- to long-term plan for the initiative was to focus on integrated food security, water and sanitation, and health with a specific objective of ensuring resilience to the effects of drought for populations in Northern Kenya and its already bearing fruits as result of constructing  various dams, boreholes and the introduction of irrigation in the so called ASAL areas is but a noble cue  to be embraced .The new constitutional dispensation heralds new era in Kenya’s quest for equality and equity in terms of income distribution to the various devolved governments units who can take advantage of the Kenya open data government portal https://opendata.go.ke/ to enhance social justice prosperity inter alia , however the fight against poverty will need more action in terms of having more educated women, statistics have indicated that the more a woman is educated, the less number of children she would bear – which the economy can support , Vision 2030’s main aim is to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by the year 2030, all in a clean and secure environment however as a  society adopting a model similar to the  Chinese model  or rather some western child policy needs take into account the plight of the minority groups and future industrial and economic needs this explains why cheap odd immigrant labour  is rampant in the west against an ageing populace. The level of unwanted pregnancies can be tamed by way of having more women in classes and better equal employment opportunities; with a population that injects over a million newborn babies annually against a GDP per capita of $800 per annum it spells doom on the nation’s ability to achieve the aforesaid vision as my grandmother once told me to share is to care but not necessarily to bear the consequences of our neighbours actions.

The Horn of Africa: The New Hydrocarbons Frontier

Geologists and continental drift theory  led by  Alfred Wegener  believe that the countries in Horn of Africa i.e. Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia do not form part of the African tectonic plate they are  just part a small chunk of the continent that broke off from the Arabian plate and trampled into Africa and further believe that the same oil that was found under Saudi Arabia and Yemen is also to be found under East Africa, Madagascar  our Indian offshore  Africa brothers country is also believed to have been attached to the Kenyan  archipelago called Lamu  that was joined to East Africa before splitting apart about 145 million years ago and during the rifting it pulled apart where as those with a religious touch affirm that the fossil fuels beneath our earth are as a result of the decomposition of  aquatic living matter after the settling of the Noah’s Ark  believed to be somewhere in Mount Ararat - following the heavy floods after God  decided to wipe the wicked  mankind from the face of the earth. The diagram below depicts the earth drifts

  

History apart ,Eastern Africa has become one of the world’s most active exploration areas since Anadarko Petroleum made the decade’s biggest gas discovery off Mozambique, followed by  Tullow Oil Uganda’s discovery of oil way back in 2006 in the  Albertine Basin which analyst predict could be holding  3.5 billion barrels of oil. In Kenya Tullow Oil, which holds the most exploration licenses in Africa of any U.K.-based explorers, discovered   the black Gold in the Turkana Basin area  of Ngamia with the energy players Tullow predicting a total combined flow rate of 2850 barrels oil per day for the oil well, our neighbors Somalia are estimated to hold 80 -billion barrels of oil perhaps this explains why two summits have been held twice  in London not in an African city  in a span of less than two years  in the name of  ending the war and militancy that bedeviled Somalia after the fall of Siad Barre's regime way back in the 1990s and the wavering  of the UK stance on the famous  essential  contacts should ICC indictee now President Uhuru Kenyatta win the election  but are now humbled   to co - operate  with Kenya ‘s  electoral choice .These diplomatic and self positioning  challenges explains why any oil, coal and gas discovery by the foreign firms  boasts their share prices  and eventually their economies as they try to fend off Asian and local  Interests .Investors  as well  consumers are turning their attention to East Africa — especially since this region has the potential to be  a major oil and  gas  exporter to hyper-growth countries like China and India.

  

Countries like Kenya, the rest of the IGAD  and the Great lakes region on the other hand want to enhance intra Africa and regional trade as they move away from colonially set up markets, LAPPSET is one major project meant to achieve such goals however, its only imperative to have peace in Somalia to enable such projects take off in a smooth way hence the short term justification of the  presence of the Amisom forces  in Mogadishu and Kismayo , this relative calm augurs well not only for world economic players to take advantage of the beneath resources by offering painkiller panaceas  in the name of humanitarian aid and grants for development but also provides opportunities for the African economies to advance their economies. One may postulate why after 20 years of turmoil brought about by feuding clans and militant groups in Somalia and the intervention of AMISOM in quelling that civil strife - all the major energy players want to have a cake of the region by buying and leasing blocks and blocks of land to prospect for minerals that they do not wish to have the final products processed in the country of origin. Leaders in the horn of Africa must embrace peace and stability, harness and empower their human resources and develop eco friendly and energy laws that will ensure that resources do not become an impediment to economic growth but act as a platform to unique technological advances and value added agro based economy rather than reliance on being commodity based economies.

Towards an Eco-Friendly Environment with Greener Levies

Climate Change or global warming is something that has been caused by humans and it is in our power to put it right. As a result, over a decade ago a large number of countries across the world joined a treaty - the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate change in developing countries is yet to be fully embraced yet they are the very countries yearning for industrialization status without having  a proper framework for dealing with such an environmental issue regardless of holding vast forestation cover which is now being affected by pollution as a result of utilizing locomotives that are  shipped from the developed countries whose life span has expired hence cheaper but emits a lot of  carbon which is a threat to the human and environment at large hence the need for these least developed countries to develop eco friendly laws that will protect the planet earth  and its citizenry.

According to E D S van Vliet and P L Kinney, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 60 Haven Avenue, B-1, New York, NY 10032, USA, in their article Impacts of roadway emissions on urban particulate matter concentrations in sub-Saharan Africa: new evidence from Nairobi, Kenya, Published on 21 December 2007 they observe that the lack of ambient monitoring data for particulate matter in SSA cities severely hinders our ability to describe temporal and spatial patterns of concentrations, to characterize exposure–response relationships for key health outcomes, to estimate disease burdens, and to promote policy initiatives to address air quality .For example, we are aware of no routine PM10 or PM 2.5 monitoring anywhere in SSA other than South Africa prior to 2005. Starting in 2005, collaboration between the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has led to the development of air monitoring networks in two SSA cities: Accra, Ghana and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Emerging data from the new monitoring network in Accra suggest that annual average PM10 concentrations may typically be considerably higher than WHO targets and guidelines, and that exposure and disease burdens may be especially great for persons driving, working, or living near congested roadways (Nerquaye -Tetteh 2006).

In his book Plan B, Lester Brown (2003) of the Earth Policy Institute offers a comprehensive systematic summary of the range of policy areas that need to be addressed in order to achieve sustainable strategies for economic development.  He surveys crises in the areas of water and cropland shortages, global warming, and the negative environmental consequences of the growth of grinding poverty and he offers a menu of feasible policy initiatives that have implications for action at the local, national, and global levels.  Public policy and public funds need to support and coordinate investment in environmental assets that do not lend themselves to profitable market investments.  Voluntary initiatives such as the land trust movement have demonstrated that private philanthropy can also play a major role.  Progress in the areas of sustainable energy, agriculture, and forestry is demonstrating that coordinated public, private, and philanthropic investment can create profitable market-based productivity. “Externalities” the name economists give to those costs to the environment, the community, and individuals that are inadvertently generated by market activities and are not included in pricing.  These include pollution and its consequences, such as global warming and acid rain, and the depletion of natural resources including water and soil as well as oil.   A comprehensive program of taxes and fees to recover the full costs of externalities would be fair and conducive to sustainable business practices and personal behavior.  Henry George’s 19th century proposal for land value taxation (the “single tax”) would promote sustainable development and land use by taxing the value added to the land by the collective productivity of society.  (Under George’s proposal, improvements would not be taxed as these represent productive investments by individual landowners.).Therefore there is need for the government to embrace green taxes/levies in order to deal with the costs associated with such externalities arising out of motor vehicle emissions. Besides capping the minimum age of eight years on vehicles being imported and the zero rating of VAT on bicycles as way reducing pollution in the name of un-roadworthy vehicles thus  having an eco friendly mode of transport, the subject of having a fraud cum an eco friendly free mode of transport has never been fully addressed -  though considerable efforts are being made in having more commuter trains - the recent commissioning of syokimau train though using older technologies is a case in point. The world today is facing the emergence of a geopolitics of scarcity, which is already highly visible in the efforts by BRIC developing economies  to ensure their access to oil supplies this already evident in war prone countries like Sudan and other oil producing and emerging oil mining countries, The Brics (an acronym for Brazil Russia India and China) are in constant competition with the so called G 8 Countries and  not forgetting the Asian Tigers as they try to have a fair share of last frontier on the global economy i.e. Africa whose environmental policies are compromised by these established economies.“What brings them together is that they are at the frontier of capitalism,” once reckoned Christian Lohbauer, an international relations expert at the University of Sao Paulo in an interview with BBC.

In the future, the issue will be who gets access to not only Middle Eastern oil but also Brazilian ethanol and North American grain. Pressures on land and water resources, already excessive in most of the world, will intensify further as the demand for bio fuels climbs. Locally sugar firms like Mumias have shown the intent to diversify their risks from domestic production of sugar for basic and industrial use to production of ethanol, Kisumu Molasses plant is also a keen avenue to follow this coupled with growing presence and interest from the Brazilian economy to invest in Kenya a fact that was marked by the recent visit to Kenya by their head of state Luiz Da Silva’s on the 6th July 2010, By deepening its ties with Brazil, Kenya is likely to benefit from bio-diesel technology that is now becoming an option for energy-deficit economies around the world. Kenya was expected to enter the ethanol fuel market in September 2010 following the release of a formula that was to see petroleum blended with ethanol at the ratio of 85:15. Mumias sugar, Kenya’s largest sugar miller is already lining up for the bio-fuel business with the establishment of a plant to produce 25 million litres of ethanol per annum from 100,000 tonnes of molasses that will earn it Sh1 billion in additional revenue annually.“Kenya has a lot of land to support bio-fuels,” the Brazilian President reckoned  during his tour of Kenya - Nairobi, Brazil is a world leader in this field and Kenya stands to gain as we seek ways of becoming more efficient in our management of the energy sector,” President Kibaki said .Source: Business Daily Magazine July 8 2010. Development projects recommended under Vision 2030 will increase demand on Kenya’s energy supply. Currently, Kenya’s energy costs are higher than those of her competitors. Kenya must, therefore, generate more energy at a lower cost and increase efficiency in energy consumption. The Government should stay committed to continued institutional reforms in the energy sector, including a strong regulatory framework, encouraging more private generators of power, and separating generation from distribution. New sources of energy will be found through exploitation of geo thermal power, coal, renewable energy sources, and connecting Kenya to energy-surplus countries in the region while at the same time trigger the relevant stakeholders to devise policies that will combat the effects of global warming as well as charging and introduction of green levies to mitigate against any potential losses that may arise.