A Political Kenya: Latest Politics and Kenya Economy News

Kenya Parliament has failed to establish a special tribunal to try post election masterminds. This implies that Koffi Annan should go ahead and hand over the secret envelope compiled by the Waki commission to the International Criminal Court at the Hague. The envelope contains a list of prime suspects who planned, funded and executed the post election violence that occured in Kenya between December 2007 and March 2008.

101 MPs supported the motion while 93 opposed it. The constitution amendment bill which sought to entrench special tribunal courts in the constitution failed to garner the requisite 145 mps needed to pass the motion. This was despite President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga presence in parliament.

House speaker, Kenneth Marende made the ruling: "The nos have exceeded the minimum (by 20 votes), consequently therefore honourable members, the motion is negative and therefore lost".

The bill can only be brought back to the house after 6 months.

Kenyans eyes are now on Koffi Annan watching his every move and expecting him to keep his part of the bargain and hand over the envelope to ICC to kick off the process of investigating post election violence masterminds.

There is however a feeling that Koffi Annan does not want to turn tables and would have preferred a local tribunal within the control of Kibaki and Raila as long as there is a resemblence of peace in Kenya. This is what Kenyans made of Koffi Annan's recent meeting with the prime minister and his extension of the grace period to give the government time to pass the constitution amendment bill.

Will Koffi Annan play ball?

Jeff Koinange, former CNN journalist, now in Kenya's K24 television station is back, with a bang.

In just three days, he has interviewed, William Ruto, Bonny Khalwale and Ababu Namwamba, all key players in the Maize Scandal. His interviews are generating news and rejoinders all over.

Last night it was Ababu Namwamba's turn "on the bench", coined from the outdoor bench where Jeff conducts his interviews.

Facts as per Ababu Namwamba

Khalwale a hired musketeer
Ababu claimed that Khalwale is bent on sanitizing some politicians and incriminating Ruto for political gain of his hirees.

Ababus supports establishment of a local tribunal to try post election violence masterminds

"Let us act local but leave room for the Hague to move in if someone plays monkey business. The process marred by 2012 succession. Extremely difficult for this bill to be passed".

Amos Kimunya is a happy man now that the spotlight is not on him. Thanks to the Nakumatt and Sachangwan fires, maize scandals creeping on William Ruto and Kiraitu Murungi's Triton oil scandal, Amos Kimunya is a free man.

My main worry is that although he was "exonerated" Kenyan style from corruption and wrong doing in the sale of the Grand Regency, no attempt was made to resolve the loss of money in Grand Regency bank accounts.

At the time of handover of Grand Regency from Pattni to Central Bank of Kenya, the receiver managers claimed that there was over Kshs 300,000,000 ($4m). CBK alleged that there was no such money in those accounts.

Where did this money go?

Business Daily reported that a report on the collapsed Nyaga stock brokers by PWC audit firm has been gathering dust at CMA shelves for the last three months. Over 70,000 investors are estimated to have lost Kshs 1.3 bn which may not be recovered.

NSE denies any knowledge of the report but James Wangunyu, the NSE chairman and the chairman of Standard Investment Bank trashed the report as well. James, whose firm, among other stock brokers, engage in a Kshs 200m "overnight lending" to troubled stock brokers like Nyaga sat at the NSE board which approved the Kshs 100m bailout package to Nyaga. The money was to be used expressly to repay clients monies but was diverted to clear some of the debts owed to James' firm by Nyaga stockbrokers.

Both PNU and ODM promised thorough reforms at CMA and NSE but nothing has been done as yet.

William Ruto dragged Martha Karua's name into his sty. Ruto being haunted by the maize scandal and post election violence is a man under siege. Like a drowning man he is clutching to any floating straw in sight. His latest being Martha Karua.

Martha Karua ia a no nonsense straight shooter and today aimed her quivers at Ruto shrugging off his accusations thus: "No serious politician will seek a partnership with someone associated with corruption or violence. I will not carry excess baggage now or in the future. We should have an independent probe into the issue (maize scandal)".

After arrogantly refusing to pay tax, Right Honourable Prime Minister Raila Odinga has asked MPs and civil servants who earn more than Kshs 100,000 to pay tithe in March 2009. The 10% salary contribution will be towards alleviating the food crisis and famine in Kenya.

Anyone in Kenya who gets a salary of Kshs 100,000 and above pays 30% of this salary back to the government as tax. With the exception of MPs. So, in March civil servants will pay a tax of 40% on their salaries while MPs pay a voluntary tax of 10%.

If our 210 MPs paid tax on their income averagery 30% of Kshs 800,000 like the rest of Kenyans, the government will have an extra 2 million bags of strategic reserves to alleviate famine.

Raila Odinga is slowly becoming a student of Kibaki, wasting every opportunity begging and absconding.

Jeff Koinange of K24's Capital Talk is back, on the bench.

William Ruto, the embattled Minister for Agriculture is all over the media giving interviews to all who care to listen.

Puzzling is Ruto's allegation on Capital Talk that the witch hunt to finish him is orchestrated by one Martha Wangari Karua and it is all about 2012 politics. Ms Wangari allegedly met with Ruto at one of her friends place where she advanced the idea of cooperating for with Ruto to secure the 2012 elections. Ruto had not time for such nonsense. Wangari is avenging and clearing her way to succeed Emilio Kibaki. What better way than to use the maize scandal and current famine to finish off this "front runner". For this reason among others W. Lord Ruto will not resign or step aside to facilitate investigations.

Martha was also accused of orchestrating a finishing-off netball for Amos Kimunya.

The more W. Lord Ruto denies his hand in the maize scandal the more he makes us believe that where there is smoke there is fire. His picking of Martha Karua is bound to generate heat in the coming weeks. the fact that he did not refer to Oburu Odinga, Raila's elder brother, whose viewpoint is close to Martha's on the maize scandal is telling. Neither did he go vicioulsy for Dr Khalwale's jugular as he did for Martha.

But Ruto is one of the sacred cows in this coalition who must be handled with extreme care for he is brittle. He is not any other sacrificial lamb entwined in a bush waiting to secure Isaac from the Abraham's knife. Some councillors from Nakuru made this point clear last week. So has a large section of Rift valley allied MPs.

Raila knows all to well who holds him by the balls. He has not moved with spped to investigate the maize scandal the way he did with the Grand Regency saga where he formed a committee at 4, committee met at 5 and by 7 the report and verdict was ready for the 9 o'clock news. Orengo, the accuser chaired the committee. You would expect him to appoint Dr Khalwale to chair the maize scandal committee. No, the investigations will be done by an international forensic expert to peruse all NCPB financial transactions, not a boardroom consensus like the Grand regency one. Whether the forensics scope will include Public Ethics Act provisions is another issue.

Ruto does not mind the Hague or the tribunal. Any of those is game for him, he says. As long as there is no selective justice. That means he must be taken with the clear label of "This side up". Selective justice will be applied if he is taken to the Hague or tribunal while those who stole the election or manipulated the process or the outcome or whose inaction caused the violence are not apprehended as well. Going by Ababu's allegations last week, it is easy to guess what Ruto is implying. Afterall Ababu is now available for higher, isn't he?