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gathara

13 Jul, 9 tweets, 4 min read

@RailaOdinga

THIS!!! What law in Kenya creates the office of the First Lady, and why have we been paying for it since Kibaki's time? (In 2008, the GNU @RailaOdinga and Kamau are attempting to resurrect via BBI tried to include PM's and VP's wives in that deal as well).
gathara.blogspot.com/2008/08/gold-d…

https://twitter.com/SaddiqueShaban/status/1414794311926001666

standardmedia.co.ke/amp/the-counti…
In 2014, then AG Githu Muigai (also of the BBI Brigade) argued that there was no provision in our laws for creating and funding offices of County First Ladies but did not share the law creating one for his boss' wife.

(Notice how reductive the headline is and how it attempts to sensationalise the issue and make it about the relatively trivial distinction about how they should be addressed rather than the much more important question of the prudent use of public funds.)

nation.africa/kenya/counties…
That same year, MCAs were demanding allowances for their wives and husbands to compensate them for "loneliness" and Governors' wives were getting together to demand their slice of the public pie.

In 2015, ignoring the AG's advice from a year earlier, Kamau's wife (whose own office sits in obscure legal waters) went ahead to launch the County First Ladies Association with the apparent blessing of her husband.
president.go.ke/2015/07/31/fir…

@KenyaGovernors

Of course, @KenyaGovernors were only too happy to endorse their wives' club and the push to grab more of our money under the guise of "promoting devolution and upholding the constitution of Kenya in letter and in spirit".
cog.go.ke/component/k2/i…

(BTW, are the husbands of female Governors eligible to join the County First Ladies Association?)

Some Governors have elected to go even further, apparently opting to hand over the running of their counties to their spouses. allafrica.com/stories/202104…

Oh, and in case you forgot, in line with the tradition established by Kamau's mom, First Ladies (and their husbands) were dabbling in ivory as recently as 2013.
nation.africa/kenya/news/how…

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More from @gathara

gathara

@gathara

10 Jul

As "civilized" Europe, including France which had looted Haiti for a century to compensate former slavers, dissolved into WW1, the US robbed the Haitian National Bank then used the killing of the Haitian President as a pretext for a 19-year occupation.
antillean.org/american-occup…

The US government today describes its holding up the Haitian National Bank on behalf of US's Citibank as a selfless act of "safekeeping".
history.state.gov/milestones/191…

The story of "independent" Haiti, deliberately looted, impoverished and invaded from the start, then blamed for the resulting instability, is the story of colonialism and "independence" in Africa.
aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/…

Read 6 tweets

gathara

@gathara

30 Jun

@TrevorOmbija

#DayBreak If experts cannot explain to the common man what they are doing, then they are not experts. It is ridiculous to argue that representatives of the people should not actually reflect the people. @TrevorOmbija

@TrevorOmbija

#DayBreak Ukoloni has taught folks like your panelists that they cannot think or reason unless they have a certificate from some institution saying they can. They display a real contempt for the common people without degrees whose interests they claim to defend. @TrevorOmbija

@TrevorOmbija

#DayBreak It is the people with degrees and PhDs who have run this country into the ground. The unlettered folks in movements like the KLFA did not need degrees to understand that the colonial system, defended by the educated collaborators, needed to be overthrown. @TrevorOmbija

Read 6 tweets

gathara

@gathara

29 Jun

@JNJNews

Question: Kamau says GoK has negotiated with @JNJNews to get 13m vaccine doses for delivery in August. A few weeks ago, the director of @AfricaCDC told CNN they already had 220m doses of the same vaccine available for African countries to collect. Why didn't GoK go for that?

Actually, i think it was BBC, not CNN.

devex.com/news/african-u…
The AU had actually secured 400m doses according to this. One would assume we could get a better deal as part of this than on our own.

Read 4 tweets

gathara

@gathara

27 Jun

Race Day!!! #StyrianGP #ForzaFerrari #F1

Formation Lap. #StyrianGP #ForzaFerrari #F1

Lights Out!!! #StyrianGP #ForzaFerrari #F1

Read 17 tweets

gathara

@gathara

25 Jun

@eCitizenKenya

Question: When one applies for a replacement document online on @eCitizenKenya and the system says it is ready, why does one need to pay to print out a physical copy of the form in order to collect it? GoK already has the digital copy, no? Seems like a bit of a scam to me.

Also, if the document is ready, why not send you a digital copy that you can print out? This idea of having people spend hours to pick up "original" documents seems most anachronistic for a GoK that used to describe itself as "digital", no?

Presented my form and now waiting in a large crowded hall for someone to call out my name (no one tells you exactly what it is you are waiting for) and I shudder to think of how folks who are deaf or hard of hearing are expected to navigate this.

Read 8 tweets