Misguided policies cause of tragedies

Story by ALAN NGUGI
Publication Date: 7/30/2007

NAIROBI CITY FATHERS HAVE been doing a great job beautifying parts of the city, planting trees and carrying out many other worthy activities

But on the flip side, they have exhibited some of their most awful deficiencies, among them a dearth of long-term plans or policies, failure to implement the few that they do have, gross incompetence in whatever they do, and lethargy.

What comes immediately to mind is one of the almost useless Fire Brigades anywhere. While one can count their engines on the fingers of one hand, they usually arrive at the scene when the worst has happened.

This happens even within the CBD. Their lamest excuse is lack of water, but the truth is that clueless officials have no idea where the ancient fire hydrants are, and most likely, these hydrants anyway.

Even then, for a city of three and a half million souls, why would something like a full-fledged fire brigade be an issue 44 years after independence?.

One would have thought this would be a top policy priority in a city replete with industries, offices, businesses and extensive residential areas!

The recent spectacle in Kawangware where a fire razed a school only for the fire-fighters to arrive late — they were pelted with rocks by irate residents — ought to have been sobering. But these ‘‘City Fathers’’ are too busy enforcing a ban on smoking in the streets , and one wonders whether cigarettes are greater tragedies than potential and actual fires destroying billions of shillings worth of property.

This state of affairs is replicated all over. Barely a day after the Nation exposed Nakuru’s non-existent fire brigade, a monumental fire razed a whole shopping mall just half a kilometre away from the town’s station.

The Nakuru town officials were also quite busy enforcing their trailblazing smoking ban. Just what sort of priorities guides these councils?

WHAT’S THE POINT OF ‘‘BEAUTIFYing’’ streets and roads when a fire can destroy entire buildings in minutes?

Other episodes of ineptitude have been all too visible. The recent tremors are a good example. What would have been the result if any of the earthquakes had hit 7.5 on the Richter scale?

Crumbling buildings built deficiently because of the rank corruption at City Hall and other councils would have seen possibly thousands of people killed.

Since there are no rescue facilities to speak of, no emergency ambulances, no fire-fighting equipment or other disaster-prevention measures, this would have been yet another national tragedy.

Yet another of these haphazard decrees is quite visible in the Globe Roundabout matatu stage and in the hastily-constructed hawkers market nearby.

The matatu stage is an exercise in impossible chaos. When someone woke up one day and thought matatus were clogging the streets, they dumped most of them in an area where only the dexterity of the drivers allows them to manoeuvre their vehicles.

There are no route slots, no exit points and the deafening din coming out from the place pollutes Nairobi more than all its smokers combined.

Talking of the smoking bans, one is led to beg the question whether NCC has ever considered anything about the extremely toxic fumes spewed daily out its Dandora dumping site.

Has the council ever thought about the health effects this has on the residents of the massive Dandora or the adjoining, Korogocho and Kariobangi estates?

Maybe one of the priorities the Government itself should now undertake is either revamping these councils or disbanding them. They serve absolutely no purpose in their current disposition; indeed they are gross irritants to their residents.

Greed is killing Kenyans


Publication Date: 7/30/2007

Yesterday, it was reported that at least 10 people were feared dead after a multiple accident on the Nairobi-Nyeri Highway. In the same paper, a report indicated clearly the probable cause of this and other road accidents which have risen drastically since 2003.

Both reports had two things in common: Most accidents involved matatus and other passenger service vehicles, and, secondly, in almost all cases of road carnage, the vehicles were cruising beyond the recommended speed.

Almost all PSVs have thumbed their collective nose at the so-called Michuki Rules that sought to regulate the speed at which they should be driven, and apparently, the police are either too powerless to enforce them, or their greed has proved to be ungovernable.

Whatever the case, few PSVs these days have functioning speed governors, or if the vehicles have them, they have been tampered with as to make them useless.

Even simple devices like seatbelts have been ignored with impunity. Few passengers bother to wear them, and as a result, whenever there is an accident, they are tossed around like so many peas.

Rules are only as good as they are enforced. The reason why traffic police officers don’t bother to enforce the speed governor and seatbelt rules, except in spurts, is that to do so will interfere with their source of lunch money.

As a result Kenyans will keep dying on our roads, newspaper columnists and editorialists will keep fulminating at the outrage and waste of life, and nothing will change.

There would be no need to be so fatalistic if only our law enforcers did their job. But they need leadership at the top. Mr John Michuki tamed the ubiquitous passenger service vehicles. Why did no one take his place when he took over the security portfolio?

Taliban leaders set hostage deadline amid papal plea


Publication Date: 7/30/2007

KABUL, Sunday

Taliban leaders said Sunday their fighters would kill 22 remaining South Korean hostages if the Afghan government did not release rebel prisoners by a new deadline of 0730 GMT on Monday, a spokesman said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the deadline had been set by the Taliban leadership council, headed by elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, giving the threat added weight.

The kidnappers killed the leader of the Korean group on Wednesday, but several further deadlines have passed without the rebels carrying out their threat to kill the remaining hostages.

“Since the talks between us, the Kabul administration and Korean government have reached deadlock and they are not honest ... hence, we will start killing the hostages if they do not start releasing our prisoners by tomorrow at 12 o’clock,” Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location.

Sporadic talks between the Afghan government and South Korean diplomats on one side and Taliban rebels on the other have continually snagged over the rebel demand for Kabul to swap jailed insurgents for the Koreans.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has previously ruled out any deal with the Taliban after coming under harsh criticism for freeing five rebel prisoners in exchange for the release of an Italian hostage in March.

In his first comments on the latest hostage case, Karzai condemned the kidnapping, but did not say whether any deal might be possible.

Abuse of guests

“Hostage-taking and the abuse of foreign guests, especially women, is against Islam and Afghan culture and the perpetration of this heinous act on our soil is in total contempt of our Islamic and Afghan values,” a spokesman quoted him as saying.

An Afghan minister said on Saturday force might be used if talks fail. Pope Benedict on Sunday called the kidnapping a “grave violation of human dignity that clashes with every elementary norm of civility and rights and gravely offends divine law”.

Breakaway Somali republic arrests three politicians


Publication Date: 7/30/2007

HARGEISA, Somalia, Sunday

The government of the breakaway Somali republic of Somaliland Saturday arrested three politicians planning to form an opposition party, in a move diplomats said could hurt its bid for sovereignty.

Security forces arrested the leader of the Qaran political association, Mohamed Abdi Gaboose, and his deputies Mohamed Hashi Elmi and Jamal Aideed Ibrahim, and charged them with founding an illegal organisation and creating instability.

A regional court ordered the three held at Mandera prison.

Somaliland permits by law only three political parties, a situation which Qaran has criticised repeatedly.

It wants voter registration – due earlier this month – to go ahead so that it can gain the numbers it needs to be among the three legally recognised parties ahead of presidential elections due on April 15.

All three existing parties, including that of President Dahir Rayale Kahin, oppose that.

“We strongly condemn the arrest of the leaders of the political organization. We strongly urge that they immediately be released,” said Mohamed Saed Hirsi, chair of the Somaliland Lawyers’ Association.

Brown stresses ties with US


Publication Date: 7/30/2007

LONDON, Sunday

Britain’s new leader Gordon Brown stamped on talk of cooler relations with Washington Saturday, saying before his first meeting with President George W. Bush that the bond between the countries remained strong.

Mr Brown flies to the United States today for his first meeting with Bush since he succeeded Tony Blair as British prime minister a month ago.

Some of Brown’s ministerial appointments and a comment by one of Brown’s ministers that Brown and Bush were unlikely to be “joined together at the hip” have fuelled speculation that the cosy relationship Bush had with Blair would change under Brown.

Blair was Bush’s closest ally in the invasion of Iraq, but Brown is well aware that the war’s unpopularity in Britain was one of the factors that forced Blair to step down early in June after a decade in power.

Brown, who was Blair’s finance minister, said in a statement released before his trip that ties with the United States should be Britain’s “single most important bilateral relationship”.

“It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty, opportunity and the dignity of the individual. And because of the values we share, the relationship with the United States is not only strong but can become stronger in the years ahead,” he said.

None of the world’s major problems could be solved without the active engagement of the United States, Brown said.

“We will continue to work very closely together as friends to tackle the great global challenges of the future,” he said, adding that the relationship between a US president and a British prime minister would always be strong.

Mr Brown will hold talks with Bush at Camp David before travelling to New York for a meeting with United Nations’ Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.