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Outside the Box :  Nation Editors' take on issues around the General election campaigns.

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Move over contractors, cowboy architects are now kings
By Jaindi Kisero
Managing Editor, The EastAfrican
Posted On: 23/07/2008 09:49:54
 IT WAS PRIME MINISTER RAILA Odinga who popularised the phrase ‘‘cowboy contractors’’ in reference to a group well-connected contractors who had  at that time come up with clever schemes of making money from the Government without doing any work for it.  This happened especially towards the end of former President Moi’s rule.  They would clog the Government payment systems with fake pending bills. That is how we got to a point where the Government was spending more money paying court awards, pending bills and on incomplete road projects than on the construction of new roads.  The business of chasing pending bills had become a business unto itself – a secondary market complete with well-connected brokers whose jobs was to chase these payments on behalf of the cowboys.   If, as a permanent secretary, you resisted paying these cowboys, they would sue you in the High Court, and invariably, they would win.  There were many cases where judgment was entered against the Government because the State did not a file a defence.  At the end of the day, all the payments demanded from the Government would be  “legal”.... Read all of Move over contractors, cowboy architects are now kings

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Elections 2012: Kibaki is irrelevant but politics must go on
By TOM MSHINDI
MD Monitor Publications
Posted On: 18/07/2008 17:09:22
The embarassment caused to the President by the party in which he is the only individual member – the incongruously named Party of National Unity (PNU) – has helped to debunk two fallacies:

One is the relevance of the President as a player in the current political equation, and the other about the place of politics in the normal order of things.

President Kibaki became a lame-duck on February 28, 2008, immediately he signed the grand coalition deal that ushered in the twin-headed governance structure.

And Kenyans will be happy to know that their perpetual preoccupation with politics is not an aberration. Every society politicks all the time; it is the quality and purpose of politicking that differs.... Read all of Elections 2012: Kibaki is irrelevant but politics must go on

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African rulers shouldnt waste victims; they should eat them
By Charles Onyango Obbo
Managing Editor, Convergence & New Products
Posted On: 17/07/2008 08:01:30
SUDAN’S PRESIDENT OMAR el-Bashir has been indicted on genocide and war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In Southern Sudan, which endured the brunt of a 21-year war against the oppressive rule by of the Khartoum-based northerners, The Nation’s correspondent reports that the beer all but ran out after news broke that the ICC had issued warrants for el-Bashir’s arrest.
In the north, there were angry protests against the ICC.... Read all of African rulers shouldnt waste victims; they should eat them

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Privatising Kenya Railways was an experiment gone bad
By Jaindi Kisero
Managing Editor, The EastAfrican
Posted On: 16/07/2008 09:00:19

By now it should be clear to everyone that privatisation of the Kenya Railways is a total failure.

 In  less than a year, the Rift Valley Railways (RVR) has retrenched 600 employees and dismissed over 200 casual workers.

On Tuesday, managing director Roy Puffet announced that the company will shortly be sending more workers to the streets.

In the last few years, and as the corporation was being prepared for privatisation, it was forced to reduce its workforce by almost 50 per cent – from 7,000 to 3,400.

Thus, an institution  that used to be among the biggest employers in the country, with a powerful workers union and owning colossal assets – mainly buildings and land in Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa and Nakuru – has been made to shrink almost into nothingness.

And it is not only the workforce that is shrinking.... Read all of Privatising Kenya Railways was an experiment gone bad

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