Frederick Kai
Cord leader Raila Odinga yesterday called for reform of Kenya's key institutions to get the country back on track, saying they had failed. He singled out the Police, Judiciary, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), financial institutions, the education and the election system as among sectors which need urgent resuscitation.
Addressing lawyers during the second day of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) annual conference in Diani, Kwale County, Raila blamed the government for allegedly running down the country and said the planned removal of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners was the best thing for Kenyans … “as they were a stumbling block for a free and fair election”.
Raila said the struggle to liberate the country from bad governance, corruption and mismanagement of public resources which began before independence must continue, and styling himself the father of reforms in the country.
In a question and answer session, Raila was challenged by lawyer Ahmednassir Abdullahi to explain why he had led supporters to the streets... “knowing very well that it was unconstitutional, to which the former premier said "all options had been exhausted."
"The Constitution provides for demonstrations and street protests as the last option after all means have failed. In fact protesters should be protected by police to prevent hooligans from penetrating like what happened,” he said.
Raila claimed the Jubilee government had rejected dialogue on the IEBC issue prompting Cord to devise another way to force the same.
“We sought for dialogue but they refused. We got 1.6million signatures to petition the IEBC but they rejected 700,000 of them, claiming some looked like elephants. But how do you know that somebody’s signature is the elephant?,” he posed.
He claimed IEBC had manipulated and jammed the biometric voting systems during the 2013 elections, leading to over 2 million Kenyans voting only for the President which he termed a scandal.
“Ten million people voted for governors, senators, MPs, MCA’s but an extra 2 million people voted only for the President. How possible was that? Is it not strange?,” he asked quoting figures from a British firm he said had analysed the presidential results.
He accused the Jubilee government of lying to Kenyans that the economy was doing well, whereas the public debt had increased by Sh71billion in one year. “During the 2015/16 financial year, debt repayment was Sh262 billion and today, it stands at Sh433 billion only a year later.
At this rate in five years time, the country will use all collected tax and borrowed cash and leave no capital for current development,” he said. He said that increased public borrowing leads to high interest rates, inflation and overburdens future generations.
“There is a conspiracy against our people through corruption and mismanagement of resources. Kenyans today are among the highest taxed people in the world as we steal and borrow then using the remnants in the wrong priorities,” he said.
Raila claimed that Kenya was the third most corrupt country in the world, making it a global laughing stock, adding that 30 Personnel Armoured Carriers imported from China allegedly failed to work on day one, quoting the Nairobi Law Monthly magazine report.
“There are sports scandals such as the shame in Rio at the ongoing Olympics today, NYS, Eurobond where Sh100 billion cannot be accounted for,” he said.
Raila opposed the capping of election campaign funding for the presidential race at Sh 5 billion campaign, Sh2.5 billion for senators and governors, Sh3 billion for MPs and Sh10 million for MCAs, saying it was a sure way to bribe voters and compromise the election process.
“And these figures were not discussed with anybody including myself who is a presidential candidate. It’s a Jubilee scheme to rig the polls”, he charged.
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