Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Pregnant With Remorse?
Before we start beating our collective breasts and shouting racism and neo-colonialism over the supposedly lenient punishment handed to Tom Cholmondeley following his conviction for the manslaughter of Robert Njoya, we should consider this: A day before he sentenced Cholmondeley to 8 months imprisonment, High Court Judge Muga Apondi sentenced Florence Gathoni to 3 months in jail for stabbing her husband to death earlier this year. He said the latter sentence would have been heavier but for the fact that Florence is 19 weeks pregnant.
Perhaps the kindly judge also felt that Cholmondley was pregnant with remorse
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Terminal Benefits
A fool-proof method of getting rich in Kenya: really suck at your government job. As Gladwell Otieno, former head of Transparency International, Kenya and Execitive Director of the Africa Center for Open Governance (AfriCOG) wrote in an article in the Daily Nation, "no matter how dismal, negligent or even criminal your performance may be, you will not only never be held to account for it, you will be amply rewarded".
I belatedly learnt (courtesy of the Mars Group) that it cost upwards of Kshs. 68 Million to fire the ECK Commissioners responsible for bringing us to the brink of anarchy. Each recieved between Kshs. 2 milion and Kshs. 5 million for their trouble. This is in addition to the Kshs. 2 Billion frittered away over the past 15 years on such things as sitting and subsistence allowances for daily one-man meetings (see AfriCOG report here). Compare this with the Kshs. 10,000 - Kshs. 25,000 offered to the victims of the ECK's bungling to rebuild their homes and shattered lives.
Who says crime (and incompetence) doesn't pay?
