A Political Kenya: Latest Politics and Kenya Economy News

This story from the newly launched Nairobi Star.

Ruto in secret Narc-K talks

Kanu bigwig William Ruto could be on his way to ditching the Orange coalition and joining the Kibaki camp.

He has held top secret talks with the President’s key allies on at least three separate occasions – once in State House itself.

Although the Eldoret North MP has not met Mr Kibaki face to face, the President is privy to the delicate negotiations and has asked to be kept fully briefed.

Mr Ruto’s meetings with the President’s men – among them Defence minister Njenga Karume, Sports Minister Maina Kamanda and the presidents’s strategy adviser Stanley Murage – are said already to have yielded fruit, with the MP’s insurance firm Amarco winning a Sh 500 million tender to insure military vehicles.

The contaract was given to Mr Ruto’s company last month and factored into this year’s Budget. The Eldoret MP is also reported to have raised the possibility of several outstanding court cases involving alleged corruption being withdrawn.

In return it ahs been suggested Mr Ruto would cross over from the Orange movement to Narc-Kenya, taking with him the influential North Rift vote which would vastly increase Mr Kibaki’s chances of re-election.

Backing the switch of allegiance on Mr Ruto’s side and seen as the man who brokered the talks is MR Joshua Kulei, the private secretary of former President Moi.

One senior Kanu MP revealed: “I am privy to one of the meetings which was at State House and held on June 9 after Ruto came from a public rally in Kapkapet in Kericho district.”

Mr Ruto was flown to State House directly from the function, after being promised he would be meeting Mr Kibaki. Instead he was greeted by Defence Minister, Mr Karume.

The meeting was held two days before the Kanu National Delegates’ conference at Kasarani.

“Two other meetings took place in the home of influential Nairobi businessman Mr Jimmy Wanjigi in upmarket Muthaiga – a stone’s throw from the President’s own private residence – according to an istant minister from Central province. He said Mr Ruto’s contact people in the president’s team were Mr Kamanda and Education Minister Gorge Saitoti.

Last night, Mr, Ruto was not available for comment.

Nairobi Star

Just when everyone thought the going would be smooth at Royal Media Services after poaching top presenters from KTN and NTV, all is apparently not well at the locally-owned media house.

The media company which owns Citizen Television, Radio Citizen, The Leader Newspaper and eight other vernacular radio stations has been rocked with scandals, sources have divulged.

The embarrassing scenario has now seen the proprietor of the company S.K. Macharia and his wife Mrs Gathoni Macharia who are Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively contemplating sacking Waruru Wachira who was hired from Kenya Film Corporation.

According to inside sources at Royal Media headquarters based in Hurlingham, Wachira whose monthly salary is said to be more than Shs 500,000 plus numerous allowances has been reduced to signing vouchers since the Chairman and Vice chairman have lost faith in him as far as decision making is concerned.

Trouble started for Wachira when he re-instated Ms Cess Mutungi who had been suspended from Hot 96 allegedly because of drink problems and missing her breakfast morning shows. She had also earlier been kicked out of Chris Kirubi’s owned Capital FM because of similar reasons.

On being brought on board as Managing Director of Royal Media Services, the first thing Wachira did was to poach from KBC Ms Yasmin Martin a lady with whom their alleged relationship dates back to when he was the Managing Director at KBC. His attempts to bring on board Ms Tichi Nyasani another alleged mistress hit a snag when it leaked that he was having a hidden agenda.

Wachira has brought The Leader weekly to its knees by frustrating efforts by the founding Managing Editor Kiruri Kamau who has since resigned in a huff.

Md Judy Muhoro who was the force behind getting advertisements for The Leader weekly has also resigned to join KISS FM’s Nairobi Star that hit the streets this week due to Wachira’s interference.

Even after Royal Media Services commissioned research firm Infotrak whom they paid Shs 500,000, Wachira frustrated efforts by Kiruri to implement some of the issues contained in the crucial report a situation that has seen the paper’s weekly circulation cut from 6,000 to 2,000.

According to inside sources at The Leader Weekly, Njoka has now embarked on replacing those perceived to have been close to Kiruri, a situation which ahs affected the quality of stories carried in the paper which at one pointy was becoming a force to reckon with.

ODM-K presidential aspirant Musalia Mudavadi has lauded the government for anticipating some of his vision policies by implementing his proposal to create office of an Ombudsman.

The former vice president, however, doubted that the government had thought through before hurriedly appointing the committee. He said he hoped the committee was not part of the government ploy to hoodwink Kenyans by stealing ideas from the opposition.

“I launched a realistic vision and I am honoured that the government had found it fitting to appoint a committee at this time. I however do hope that this is not part of the stealing of ideas this government has perfected,” he said.

Mudavadi promises to create the office of the Ombudsman as a guarantee to equal access to justice in his vision entitled, “A Dignified Life for Kenyans”.

A former Standard Group chief executive and veteran journalist Tom Mshindi has found his way back at the Nation Media group after being appointed managing director of Nation sister newspapers in Uganda Daily and Sunday Monitor with effect from 1^st July 2007. He takes over from the outgoing MD Conrad Nkuru who has been promoted and transferred to Nairobi as Group Development Director.

Nkutu will be based in Nairobi while Mshindi heads to Kampala.

Mshindi’s appointment was made public to the staff of the Monitor Publications Ltd through a letter signed by the Chief Executive of the Nation Media Group Linus Gitahi.

Gitahi’s letter to the staff says in part “Tom Mshindi has been appointed the new Managing Director, Monitor Publications Ltd. Mr Mshindi a veteran journalist and respected editor, served as the Managing Editor of the daily Nation for nine years and as Group Managing Editor and CEO of the Standard Newspapers group.

Before the Standard, he worked as communications programmes consultant within the United Nations system in New York and Lagos, Nigeria. Lately, he has been a consultant in media relations, general management and communications. He has consulted for the World Bank, the United Nations and various other clients and helped set up Channel 2 entertainment TV station that is a joint venture between KBC and a Dubai based investor.

Mshindi is credited with turning around the fortunes of the Standard during the three years he was in charge through a business re-engineering process that brought far reaching improvements in the quality of the products and the marketing systems.

Some of the consultancies involved media research in East Africa from which he has gained useful insights in the challenges and opportunities existing in the countries and the region.

Mshindi holds a BA in political science and Literature, a Diploma in Mass Communications/Journalism from the University of Nairobi, a masters degree in international affaris from Columbia University/IESE. The changes take effect on July 1^st 2007.

Only days after its ISO 9001/2000 certification, Kenyatta International Conference Centre Corporation, the parastatal that manages the conference centre, is planning to construct a Shs 17 billion complex to tap into the ever growing international conference hosting.

The complex expected to be completed in three years’ time will be modelled along Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Conference centre will house Africa’s first seven star hotel complete with 220 VIP suites 20 of which will be presidential suites in internationally recognised and certified standards.

If approved, work on the site could begin as early as next year once the ongoing shs 1.2 billion rehabilitation programme on KICC is completed. The current phase of the rehabilitation is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Philip Kisia, KICC Managing Director, revealed that the corporation had already submitted the plans to the Ministry of tourism, treasury and office of the president for approval.

“It will be a complex,” Kisia said, “complete with several shopping malls, bars and restaurants, cinema halls, duty free shopping complexes, hotels, car rentals, health clubs, curio shops, salons and barber shops, churches, mosques and other prayer centres…a complex providing anything and everything anybody can dream of in terms of needs.”

It is expected that once complete, the complex will transform KICC into a city within a city in the same lines as the Sandton Conference Centre in South Africa or Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

Kisia says: “The reason why the government and KICC board of directors are committed to this project is because modern conferencing is expanding very rapidly going beyond the capacities of the conferencing facilities which were constructed even in the 1980s through the 1990s because they are very limiting in the fast emerging scenario, yet it is extremely lucrative.”

The conference centre was built in late 1960’s but it opened its doors as a meeting facility in 1970s after it was officially opened in September 1973 by the late President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

It is estimated that when the convention centre is completed, it will increase the revenue generated by the center as a state corporation from shs 250 million to shs 2.3 billion annually. In the last two years, KICC has increased its turnover by 250 percent.

“The revenue generated to the national economy by the conference center annually is expected to be upwards of Shs 25 billion while employing more than 500 people on a permanent basis. Not to mention the huge number of business opportunities expected to be generated,” said Kisia.

According to the plans drawn by the KICC board, the convention centre is expected to have underground tunnels connecting its complex which will also house some shops to enable those strolling around the centre to do their shopping.

Parking facilities will also be underground, while the helipad on top of the KICC main twenty-eight floor structure is being revived to begin handling helicopter landings. Helicopters will be used to provide shuttle services for visitors from the airports to the convention center and other destinations.

The plans document possibilities of constructing a cable car network that will ferry passengers from the convention center to various parts of the city above the Nairobi skyline at a fee.

The convention center according to the plans, will occupy the area from Garden Square restaurant, all the way to Sheria House, Public Service Commission (PSC) headquarters and the Comesa grounds across parliament road part of which is currently being used as a public pay car park and open grounds for exhibitions and other activities.

The KICC boss says the ambitious plans for the convention are aimed at positioning Kenya to compete effectively in international conference tourism that has traditionally been a preserve for European and American countries.

In the recent years, Asian countries have emerged as competitors in preferred destination for conference tourism.

“Once the convention centre is complete,” Kisia said, “our only competitors will be South Africa and Egypt, but we are determined to dominate this market in the entire East African region, and the Comesa trading block because we have the capacity and the widest range of attractions to offer than any of our competitors.”

The high-level entry of Libyan investors in the country has its roots in a secret trip a senior Narc politician made to Libya months before the 2002 elections. Read how:

§ The Narc politician travelled to Uganda and was issued with a Ugandan passport to enable him travel to Libya without leaving any trails that could have been picked by the Moi government

§ The politician was flown to Malta Island where he was picked in a private jet that flew him to Libya for a meeting with the country’s top leadership

§ Libyans contributed millions of petro-dollars to the Narc campaign

About two months before the general elections, a top politician in Narc, had a hush-hush meeting with an emissary of the Libyan government.

At the time, Narc was desperately looking for money to finance its campaigns both for the presidential and parliamentary candidates against Kanu’s well-oiled political machinery.

Coming at such a time, the Libyan emissary was a godsend for Narc. After the meeting, an itinerary was drawn but the then opposition politician could not fly directly to Libya because that would have alarmed the then President Moi who did not enjoy particularly cordial relations with the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.

In order to evade Kenya’s intelligence radar, the Narc politician had to take a circumlocutous route to Libya.

His first stop was Kampala in Uganda, where he was issued with special passport so that he did not have to use his Kenyan travel documents and leave unnecessary paper trails. From Kampala, the next stop was Malta Island where a private jet awaited him and flew him directly to the Libyan capital Tripoli for high-level meetings which culminated with the Libyan contributing millions of dollars to the Narc campaign and partly helped tilt the balance against Kanu.

Informed sources say that the Libyans were the single largest contributors to the Narc campaign kitty in 2002. The Libyans are said to have put in close to half a billion shillings in the kitty.

The money came in through two key Narc politicians; the one who flew to Libya and another who got the money in a hotel in the suburbs of Nairobi. The latter has since fallen out with his colleagues in Narc and is today a leading contender for presidency via ODM-Kenya.

Once Narc won the elections and the new government was sworn in, the Libyan government quickly sent another emissary who held a series of meetings with top level Narc politicians.

It was from these meetings that the idea of Libyans investing in the country started taking shape. This led to the creation of a local subsidiary of Tamoil Group, the Libyan multinational corporation that has huge investments in Africa and parts of Europe.

Among the local players who were initially involved in the creation of the subsidiary company, Tamoil East Africa included well-connected businessmen Alex Mureithi and Joe Kamau.

Analysts say that Libya’s sudden interest in expanding its sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Africa is driven by President Gaddafi’s desire to see Libya become a major player in Africa in the same league – or higher than – such countries as South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt.

Another factor that has expanded Libya’s investment interests in Africa is the fact that the atmosphere for Arab investments in Europe was substantially poisoned by the 9/11 US bombing.

Kenya holds special appeal for Libya and President Gaddafi by virtue of its strategic positioning as a regional leader and also because of the country’s prominent role in regional bodies such as COMESA and IGADD.

During the Moi regime, Libyans confined their interests in the region to Uganda where President Museveni enjoys very good relations with President Gaddafi.

During his days in power, relations between President Moi and his Libyan counterpart were at best frosty and at worst hostile.

President Moi regarded President Gaddafi with suspicion often accusing his government of fuelling and funding anti0Kikuyu government forces within the country.

This led to the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the subsequent closure of the Libyan embassy in Nairobi in 1987.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were only restored in the last years of the Moi government.

Of Gaddafi’s son and Americans

Last year, a US private equity group Carlyle with links to leading Republicans was poised to bid for and buy state-controlled Tamoil, valued at 3 billion Euros.

Al-Saadi Gaddafi, the son of President Gaddafi reportedly said Carlyle was one of four or five groups involved in an international tender to buy 100 percent of Tamoil. It is estimated the business will fetch close to 3 billion Euros (about Shs 250 billion).

The Washington DC-based Carlyle has been known in the past for its links to prominent right-wing US politicians. These include the former US Secretary of state James Baker and the former US defence secretary Frank Carlucci, as well as the former British Prime Minister John Major. None of the men retains positions with the company.

Carlyle and Halliburton, another company associated with US Vice President Dick Cheney, concentrates on energy and defence contracts. Both hold high stakes in reconstruction of the war-torn Iraq.

The sale of Tamoil to Carlyle would have marked a change of direction for Libya, which has used the business to expand its international downstream operations.

Selling the Libyan company to such a well-connected American group would enable the Libyans to consolidate their business and political links with the American political and economic elites.

It is not clear what became of Carlyle move but suffice it to say that Libyans have since sold part of Tamoil Africa to an American firm known as Colony Capital, private investment firm, founded in 1991 by Thomas Barrack Jnr.

Given the complicated nature of such deals, there is a possibility that the new buyer is still part of the Carlyle group.

The sale was structured in such a way that the Libyans still retain an interest that will ensure that the Gaddafi government still ahs something which can be used as political and economic leverage in geo-political positioning.

A year and half years ago Kibaki was nearly a write-off in terms of re-election. Chances of Kibaki re-election keep getting a boost each passing day. The promising budget and economic performance of the country will be his main campaign platform. He has done well and this will be the one thing his critics will not counter successfully.

Quite unnoticed was his near-triumphant entry to Luo Nyanza last week after a successful tour of the North Rift last month. Luo-Nyanza is considered the bedrock of anti-Kibaki leadership and Kibaki has avoided touring the region like a plague since the defeat in 2005 constitution referendum. His visit was devoid of the expected jeering and booing and instead was cheering and respectful welcome. The presumed Luo-Nyanza kingpin, Raila Odinga was at hand with other regional leaders to welcome the president to their turf and some were even quoted praising Kibaki's leadership.

Kibaki has a lot of patching up to do on some key areas that may cost him a second term:

1. Insecurity esp in his bedrock support of central Kenya. This region for the last two months have been terrorized and traumatised by the Mungiki adherents. Emerging clashes in other areas such as Mt. Elgon need to be cut in the bud for the Kibaki team to convince the residents that Kibaki is worth their votes.
2. Arrogant and high-headedness among his generals. His key cabinet figures like Michuki and Karume is no secret that they bring more wrath than votes. Being octogenarian is a non-issue but inflexibility, dictator-tendencies, dishonesty, sleaze and such vice is unacceptable. Why would such liabilities like Kiraitu be seen to be Kibaki's key campaigners.
3. Slow Infrastructural developments. Despite improvements in building infrastructure and huge budgetary allocations in this area, no secret that Kenyans are disillusioned at the slow pace of rehabilitating key road networks all over the country.
4. Inconclusive anti-corruption measures: Despite the low levels of bribing taking place in public service amenities like passport applications, ID cards, chiefs, police etc the corruption perception is still high. The fact that Goldenberg and anglo-leasing theft was not dealt with conclusively is a minus for Kibaki
5. DP/Narc/Narc Kenya squabbles: These are key parties linked to Kibaki's past, present and future. Even if party affiliation is deemed insignificant by Kibaki peers, it is the only vehicle that political management is enforced by Kenyans. If you are a good contractor, ability to make other people's residents magnificent, yet yours is in shambles, leaking and stinking is telling. Charity begins at home.
6. Ignoring constitutional reforms. Kibaki had the golden opportunity to write Kenya's history in golden letters like the late Kijana Wamalwa would have put it. Calls for constitutional reforms were not stupid. They were grounded on a great urge to re-correct the path that Kenya as a country was taking in terms of governance, political and economic management, social needs and to reflect the ordinary Kenyans wish of how they intend to be ruled. Just because Moi was out did not mean all the constitutional needs were adequately addressed. Viewing constitutional based opposition as empty debes was wrong. Debate that Kenyans rejected the Wako draft did not necessarily mean that Kenyans said NO to comprehensive constitutional reforms. Kibaki had the chance to rise above all individual, political and sectarian interests and spearhead a conclusive and Kenyan friend constitutional reforms. In their victory, the nay-sayers of the 2005 referendum indicated acceptance of Kibaki's leadership in spearheading the reform process. He had the political and religious goodwill which he burnt up under the Mugumo tree.
7. I have a feeling that Kibaki has lost touch of the ordinary mwananchi, the mwananchi's needs, worries, fears, expectations and hopes are not in his mind. Economic prosperity is a smokescreen that has deluded Kibaki and his team that all is well. They are in seven heavens forgetting that there are a myriad hells down here that need to be addressed as well.

by sirken