A Political Kenya: Latest Politics and Kenya Economy News

Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama are symbols of a post-racism age which is still unfolding. Mandela has become the most respected black man by other races in world history, while Obama stands a chance of becoming the most trusted black man in US history.

No African American has ever been so close to winning the US presidency. But no African American could have come so close without the unprecedented level of trust from a sizable part of the white electorate.

A major cause of this joint success by Mandela and Obama lies in their embodying a short memory of racial hate, and in their impressive readiness to forgive historic adversaries. They have both shown a capacity to transcend historic racial divides.

Cultures differ in hate retention. Some nurse their grievances for generations. Others may be intensely hostile in the midst of a conflict, but as soon as the conflict has ended they display a readiness to forgive even if not always to forget.

Armenians were butchered in large numbers by Ottoman Turks way back in 1915-1916. It has turned out that the Armenian culture has considerable proclivity towards hate retention. The story of the Armenian martyrdom of World War I has been transmitted with passion from generation to generation.

But they are still demanding justice from Turkey more than 90 years after the massacres.

The Irish also have long memories of grievance. Clashes occur in North Ireland every year concerning marches which commemorate “Orange conflicts” in the 17th century.

Jews also have strong collective memories of the Holocaust and earlier outbursts of the European anti-Semitism. But Jews have been more subtle in their troubled relations with Germany.

Mandela came from a culture which is illustrative of Africa’s short memory of hate. That culture is far from being pacifist. Wars and inter-ethnic conflicts have been part of Africa’s experience from before European colonisation and decades after independence. What is different about the African culture is its relatively low level of hate retention.

Obama’s tolerant multi-culturalism may be due to personal factors. He has a white American mother, a black Kenyan father, and an Indonesian step-father. His cultural ancestry includes Luo culture, Islam and black American Christianity.

Mandela’s life passed through stages. His early days as an African nationalist were characterised by a belief in non-violent resistance. In a sense he carried the torch of Albert Luthuli and Mahatma Gandhi. Sharpeville was a major blow to his belief in passive resistance.

The African National Congress within which he had become one of the top leaders, finally embraced the option of armed struggle and Mandela became commander-in-chief. When he was finally sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 after the Rivonia trial, some expected Mandela to become more bitter than ever.

Twenty-seven years later he emerged from prison as “truth and reconciliation” personified. The former C-in-C of the armed struggle emerged in 1990 ready to hold the olive branch, magnanimous in triumph and rather submissive in defeat.

Obama manifested not only racial reconciliation, but also an opposition to pointless warfare like that of Iraq.

But Mandela needs to be placed in the context of other African as well as African American leaders. Post-colonial Africa had produced other leaders who have illustrated Africa’s short memory of hate. Jomo Kenyatta was condemned by British colonialists as a “leader unto darkness and death” and imprisoned in a remote part of Kenya.

Eve of independence

He emerged from imprisonment on the eve of independence and proclaimed “suffering without bitterness.” He transformed Kenya into a staunchly pro-Western country. A short memory of hate indeed!

Ian Smith unleashed a civil war in Zimbabwe when he unilaterally declared independence. He lived to sit in parliament of black-ruled Zimbabwe and was not subjected to post-war vendetta or trial. Again, Africa’s short memory of hate was manifested.

Nigeria waged the most highly publicised civil war of post-colonial Africa, which cost nearly a million lives. The federal side under Gen Yakubu Gowon won the war, but was magnanimous towards the defeated Biafrans. Yet another manifestation of Africa’s short memory of hate.

By the time Mandela was having afternoon tea with the unrepentant widow of the founder of apartheid, Mrs Verwoerd, he had tough acts to follow in African magnanimity. There were precedents of forgiveness which he followed and improved upon.

Obama had to prove his post-racial tolerance by denouncing his firebrand pastor, and by leaving his own church.

In comparing Mandela with other post-colonial African leaders and Obama there were other elements of style to be taken into account.

Post-colonial Africa and its diaspora produced five styles of political leadership. A charismatic leadership style depends mainly on the personal magnetism of the leader, and is best illustrated by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and indeed Obama and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ideology and party organisation are used to mobilise the masses, and is best illustrated by Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania and, indeed, Obama’s mobilisation of young Americans.

Skills of management and technocratic pragmatism are in managerial style, and this is illustrated by Thabo Mbeki of South Africa today and Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Cote d’Ivoire who died in 1993. A coercive style of political leadership relies mainly on a regime of fear and demands compliance and obedience.

Most military regimes have been coercive in that sense, perhaps as best illustrated by Idi Amin of Uganda. However, there have also been civilian regimes of coercion and fear — such as that of Hastings Banda of Malawi.

Finally, there is conciliatory style of political leadership, which is predisposed towards compromise and reconciliation. Where does Nelson Mandela fit in?

Because of his record after being released from prison in 1990, there is a temptation to think of Mandela primarily as an example of conciliatory leadership. But, in fact, the younger Mandela was a powerful combination of charisma and mobilisation rather than conciliatory leadership.

Is such charismatic conciliation also characteristic of Obama? Mandela’s personal magnetism enabled him to rise rapidly in the ANC Youth League (NACYL).

In 1952 he was elected national volunteer chief, and proceeded to traverse the country organising resistance as part of the ANC’s Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws.

For his role in the campaign he was accused of violating the Suppression of Communism Act. He was convicted, but his record of strict non-violence at that stage earned him a suspended sentence and a confinement within the boundaries of the city of Johannesburg.

Much later, Obama was accused of Black American extremism and was even suspected of being a closet Muslim. But he was not tried in court.

Mandela’s role in the defiance campaign propelled him to the presidency of the Youth League, the presidency of the Transvaal region and the deputy presidency of the ANC as a whole.

The party’s initial policies still reflected the philosophies of no-nonviolent resistance, which had been advocated earlier by Mohandas (later Mahatma) Gandhi and Albert Luthuli (the first African Nobel laureate).

The ANC’s action programme was inspired by the Youth League and envisaged a struggle based on civil disobedience, labour strikes and non-cooperation.

Mandela was heavily involved in much of the planning, organisation and implementation of such methods of struggle. In anticipation of the possible banning of the ANC, Mandela accepted the awesome responsibility of preparing a master-plan for underground networking and secret lines of communication.

Mobilisation leader

But in most of the 1950s, he as a mobilisation leader was averse to violence. He also helped to promote the Freedom Charter which had been adopted by the congress of the people in 1955.

It was not until June 1961 that the ANC, after a long and agonising reappraisal, reached the conclusion that violence could no longer be ruled out against a coercive regime of racial intolerance.

It was in the same year that the Umkhonto we Sizwe (spear of the nation), the ANC armed wing, was formed with Mandela as its C-in-C. Mandela as a charismatic leader, was now involved in armed mobilisation.

While he has been a force for reconciliation between blacks and whites, Mandela has been less compromising as a southern warrior in the North-South relations.

Similarly, while he has offered the olive branch in relations between blacks and whites, Obama has been less compromising as a campaigner of the poor against the rich.

They may both discover what Luther King was beginning to realise in 1968 — that abolishing racism may be accomplished much sooner than abolishing poverty.

Prof Mazrui is director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Albert Schweitzer professor in humanities, Binghamton University, USA and chancellor, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology

Following the enactment and implementation of the Tobacco Control Act (2007), there has been confusion in the manner some law enforcement agents have executed their "mandate" on our customers. We would therefore like to advise our customers and business associates as hereunder:-

1. The Act has not made it illegal for smokers to smoke cigarettes.
2. The Act has not made it illegal to buy and sell cigarettes, therefore trade in cigarettes is a perfectly legal business activity.
3. The Act allows smoking in designated smoking areas.
4. The Act prohibits smoking in public places, and particularly in the following places:
• Offices and workplaces, including corridors, lounges, eating areas, reception areas, lifts, escalators, foyers, stairwells, toilets, laundries, amenity areas of such places;
• Court buildings;
• Factories;
• Cinema halls, theatre, video houses, such other halls or places of performance, disco halls or any other entertainment facilities at any time during which it is open to the public;
• Hospitals, clinics and other health institutions;
• Restaurants, hotels, bars or other eating places;
• Children's homes;
• Residential houses and such other premises where children are cared for;
• Places of worship;
• Prisons;
• Police stations and cells;
• Public service vehicles;
• Aircrafts, passenger ships, commuter boats, trains, passenger vehicles, ferries
• or any other public conveyance;
• Education facilities;
• Railway stations, airports, air fields, ports, and 'other public transport
• terminals;
• Markets, shopping malls and retail and wholesale establishments;
• Stadium, sports, and recreational facilities;
• Public buildings.
5. The Act empowers owners and managers of prohibited smoking areas to provide designated smoking areas within such premises.

Questions raised over whether book building method is the best for sale of State assets.

Capital market players are sharply divided after it emerged that a Safaricom foreign lead transaction advisor had hogged shares with a market value of Sh5.8 billion.

In fact, the Morgan Stanley Pic windfall has revived debate over whether the book building method of share sale should be employed in the highly charged privatisation issues in Kenya.
This is all the more so after the agent only achieved a 50-cent premium above the domestic pool pricing of Sh5.

Amongst those left scratching their heads is Mr Vishal Agarwal, the PricewaterhouseCoopers lead transaction adviser in the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) IPO whose book-building process was shredded by agitated stockbrokers in fear of being locked out from the commission high table.

This time round, Morgan Staley has firmly kept broker fingers out of an entire 820 million shares. And they are inexplicably quiet even after the Capital Markets Authority barred them from buying on their own account.

Morgan Stanley, together with their local partners Dyer & Blair, were engaged by Treasury to advise on the transaction for 50 cents.

With the kind of experts and the staff they often had to bring in and out of Nairobi, it would take an act of magic for them to cover their cost from the 50 cents, which would essentially leave each partner with 25 cents. Independent consultants would hardly be in a mood to be so charitable.

Holding for clients
Having reportedly said last week that they were holding the shares for their clients, it seems the move to offer almost free services is about to pay off. They will charge the clients on whose behalf they are warehousing the 820 million shares and probably the others on their book.

"Book building is a big black box' said independent analyst, Mr Robert Bunyi, who added that a fixed price could have sufficed in privatisation issues like Safaricom. He says that book building's inherent lack of transparency accelerated the dot.com bust in the US.

Ironically, the controversy could have come years earlier when a local consortium of investment bankers sought the same for the trend-setting KenGen initial public offering in 2006. The consortium consisting of Dyer & Blair, CFC Financial Services and Standard Investment Bank (DCS) failed in its bid as brokers rose against the concept.

"We are grateful it did not happen," said one of the players last week in view of the suspicion around the Safari-corn book building. On Thursday when we caught up with him, he had received five calls seeking opinion on the report about Morgan Stanley's having obtained about 820 million shares first carried in these pages last week.

Mr Agarwal went out of his way to sell the book building process and explained how the pricing and the bidding would proceed. He was drowned out by the collective voices of the brokers.

He now wonders what has changed since to inform Treasury's decision to allow Morgan Stanley a free hand in running the book. In the PWC case, he said, they had no intention of underwriting the issue and had offered full transparency.

Sorely lacking in the Kenyan market regulations are rules governing book building, a price discovery mechanism for arriving at the optimal price through inviting bids from fund managers.
But Mr Agarwal dismissed the notion that rules - which Nairobi Stock Exchange and Capital Markets Authority went out of their way to seek views about then - need to be formulated.
Strict rules.

"What we need is just a straightforward methodology on how you are going about it," he told Sunday Nation.

Book building is commonly used in other markets like Nigeria, the United States and India.

Indeed, the latter has strict rules. At the Bombay Stock Exchange where the book remains open for five days - and the process is accessible by both institutions and retail investors - book building is governed under Chapter XI of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Disclosure and Investor Protection) Guidelines 2000. The book building is available on screens of 7,000 traders spread over 350 cities in the country.

"I am not saying Morgan Stanley did anything wrong, but you have to ask why book building was acceptable now and not then," Mr Agarwal said.

Some market players, however, supported the non-disclosure of clients, saying it was standard amongst investment bakers.

Custodial services
Renaissance Capital CEO Maina Mwangi said it was the practice the world over and that the firm is just carrying out custodial services like any bank would. He says book building still has a place in the privatisation process.

On the Sh5.50 pricing of the foreign pool, he said this was influenced by the Sh5 set for the domestic pool besides the information available to the more discerning institutions that applied for the foreign pool.

The foreign pool raked in Sh11 billion, only Sh1 billion above what the shares would have fetched if sold locally.

Mr Bunyi takes a different position: "The premium was negligible. This book building is not superior to fixed price." He urged the Treasury and CMA to create an orderly and transparent system.

But it is obvious that given local market dynamics, Kenyans would have snapped up the shares even at a price higher than Sh5.50 - leaving a huge question mark over whether Treasury got equal value to the 50 cents it paid the advisors. Privatisation issues in Kenya are meant to finance state operations in addition to spreading ownership. In terms of the latter, it succeeded in leaving a bitter taste for those who got only the 21 per cent allocation, and especially for those who borrowed for the purpose.

As foreign investors remain net sellers at the NSE, one may also ask whether there is much value to be gained from selling corporations abroad. Instead of providing the stabilising factors, by selling they are just amplifying the volatility conventionally emanating from retail investors.

Former president Daniel Moi is believed to be on a revenge mission precisely against Agriculture Minister William Ruto for draining the Kalenjin vote towards the lakeside ODM candidate in last year's general elections bearing in mind that Ruto's current social stature in the community has eclipsed the Moi-Biwott- Mark Too axis considerably. Moi on the other hand is fighting a two-pronged war.

Besides fighting Ruto he is a common enemy among his kinsmen, the recent threat by the government to close down a local radio station (Kass Fm) was blamed on his unseen hand.

Moi is infuriated by the local media house for enlightening locals, and constantly referring to "Chepkeres," as he is popularly known in local dialect which translates to an invisible pest that irritates domestic birds. The move to close the station was preceded by Moi's statement in Sacho that local radio stations are seditious and bring forth ethnic animosity.

According to Ruto's henchmen many are convinced Moi grudge with ODM establishment is not a yesterday affair. They believe beyond reasonable doubt that the perceived rigging of last year's general elections was the brain child of the former president as he holds a perennial grudge againsj; Raila Odinga ever since he was involved in the 1982 coup, his evolvement in multiparty clamour, the Kanu split after Kanu NDP merger and more excruciating, the coronation of Ruto as Kalenjin spokesman.

Many believe the former president is a stumbling block on their way to the promised land and swear not to toe his line.

Although it is not clear what Ruto might have erroneously done to Moi, according to some locals Moi's hatred and actions against Ruto and ODM in particular are signs of the jealousy of a fallen and deserted general trying to resurrect from political oblivion. His detest for the ODM bandwagon is evident as he shuns occasions expected to be attended by ODM bigwigs in the region. Much conspicuous was his absence at William Ruto's father's funeral despite the deceased being his AIC church counterpart and the very recent funeral of the late roads minister Kipkalia Kones.

The community now feels independent from Moi and is charting its own future and many of its people claim Moi handpicked few egoistic people who amassed wealth for themselves at the expense of development.. It is imperative to note, that Moi and his people have enjoyed cordial relations ever since he was elected legislative council member for Rift Valley and it is until after the referendum that the community started drifting away from him.

He further widened the gap between him and the people after he threw his weight behind president Kibaki in last general elections. President Kibaki had hoped to reap a good chunk of their vote through his predecessor but came out empty handed. Locals feel Moi was around for too long and wanted to continue harnessing them. At the referendum he used to operate behind the scenes giving advice.

After the referendum gave birth to the ODM, Moi paused only applying his professional tactical intrigues to ensure one of his Nyayo sons scooped the then coveted ODM presidential ticket.
He abandoned the mission immediately Uhuru fled and ODM broke into two.

Many blame stagnation of development on the former regime and see Ruto's entry into the driving seat timely. As things stand now Ruto is sitting pretty on the mantle as any imposter is thwarted by his unwavering supporters.

Former agriculture minister Kipruto Kirwa and a former Keiyo South MP Nicholas Biwott tasted the pill after they aspired for a comeback but were destroyed prematurely on UDM and New Kanu respectively. Ruto first set foot in parliament in 1997 on Kanu ticket riding on "Ukweli wa Mambo" slogan and easily floored his political nemesis Reuben Chesire. He immediately identified himself with fiery backbenchers before Moi poached him to the government as assistant minister for internal security.

He at one point prior to 2002 elections punched a former ICDC Chesire at the precincts of State House after Chesire was suspected to be behind the calls by Sengwer sub ethnic group calling for the split of Baringo central constituency then under Moi's jurisdiction.

The Eldoret North MP and Musalia Mudavadi were joint beneficiaries of the Kanu split in 2002 electioneering period after the then vice president and minister for home affairs Prof. George Saitoti resigned to join LDP. Mudavadi took the vice presidency while Ruto took the docket. He consequently defied their path line after the referendum.

What many political pundits are wondering is that the community was not part and parcel of the presidency yet they got entangled in a long standing ethnic crunch between the Gikuyu and the Luo community. The Nagging community had one of their sons as statehouse for twenty four years and he did not deliver as they put it, how could they have benefited from their lakeside distant cousin in a shorter timeframe of five years.

SHE likes trying out new things and always encourages people to think out of the box and to work smart.

"You need to have self-confidence, plus a never-ending sense of urgency to develop your ideas," she says.

Meet Rose Kimotho, the managing director and founder of Regional Reach Limited, a media company that operates community television and showing free videos in the rural areas. The company also owns and operates a radio station Kameme 101.1FM and a TV station, K24, the first 24-hour news channel station.

She started her career as a journalist for the Weekly Review and the Nairobi Times after graduating from the School of Journalism in University of Nairobi.

Before setting up Regional Reach in 1994, Kimotho was the general manager and a member of the board of directors of MccCann - Erickson (K) Ltd, an advertising agency in Kenya. "I think that young people should stay in an organisation for as long as it takes for you to learn. That of course might take a number of years depending on the kind of work or the kind of organisation but you will get out knowing something," Kimotho says.

In 1980, she joined Ogilvy and Mather as a trainee copy writer where she rose through the ranks to become an account director in 1985.

"I rose to the position because I believe in doing the best and giving my all to everything that I am doing. I think that is how I have risen to where I am now," Kimotho says adding that as a junior employee learning about a job, one should always consult superiors and learn from them.

Many seniors, she says, are always eager to share their experiences, knowledge and advice.

In 1988, Kimotho joined McCain Erickson as a client service director and in 1990, she was appointed the general manager of the firm in charge of day-to-day operations of the company.

In 1991, she was appointed to the board of directors where her responsibilities included identifying and taking initiatives on key clients accounts to improve services and opportunities. She was also charged with overseeing the development and execution of marketing and advertising strategies.

"It was challenging but I like trying out new things and anything that was brought to me, I gave it my best shot because I believed that I could do it," Kimotho says. She did a management course at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, New York in 1989.

In May, 1994 she left Mc-Cann to start Regional Reach.

The company has installed television sets in more than 200 rural trading centres in ten districts in the country. The TVs offers entertainment to the rural folks and is used as a medium of advertisement targeting these groups.

The company expanded into radio broadcasting in December 1999 with the launch of Kameme 101.1 FM, a community radio station that broadcast in Kikuyu.

Last year, Kimotho launched the K24 first which covers 150-kilometre radius from Limuru.

"There was a need to promote local programmers and that is what made me venture into an industry that no one had touched," she says. "There was also a need to start a local station to promote local musicians and actors and that's why I ventured into it."

Venturing into business was not an easy ride for her. She says: "It was hard to start because a lot of people didn't want to lend me money. Banks were scared I may not be able to repay them but somehow I managed to convince them and they agreed after months and months of persuasion." Finances were not the only challenge that faced Kimotho as she set out in the business world.

"I have also had to make a lot of sacrifices such as having so little time for my family because sometimes I was forced to stay in the office for the whole night," she says.

"I can't say that I have faced any major obstacles in my career for being a woman, but I'll say that it can be quite a challenge balancing your work and family life."

Other positions that Kimotho holds include being a board member of Stanbic Bank and the Nairobi Hospital. She is also a trustee of Rhino Arc, an organisation that protects rhinos. She is also a former chairperson of the Marketing Society of Kenya and immediate former chairperson, Media Owners Association.

Rose Kimotho's Thoughts

• THE most important aspect is sharing with your employees and target Audience. When we were starting K24 and Kameme we went to the market and researched, we listened and reacted to what we thought would be important When you focus on your customers and gain their trust, they will not only recommend you but they will also remain loyal to you. Remember, personal recommendation and word-of-mouth are the least costly yet most effective marketing strategy for your business.
• It is important to dream and know that you can achieve anything. Always have clear and within-reach aspirations and pursue them persistently. Expect lots of negativity from people who always doubts how your ideas will work. But sitting still and wishing will not make anyone great, but having the thirst and inner drive will. Believe that nothing is too small to be done and made great.
• If you ever want to succeed in life, you should work on excelling in all that you ever wanted in life and never look back and regret if things haven't worked out. I have learnt that every person and each situation you come across is meant to give you a message. There is a reason why things happen and if you look beyond the obvious, then there's lots you'll marvel in life!
• Being genuine has made me a better person. As such I have learnt to ensure that every time I smile at someone, it is from the depth of my heart. Every time I take up a task, I do it to my best. Every time I learn something, I learn it perfectly well. And every time I get critical about myself, I remind myself about all the good things mentioned above which mean that I am making reasonable headway and most of all, that I am moving in the right direction.
• Competition should not be looked at as a threat but as a way of helping you to reinvent yourself. The trick with competition is to make something better than what your competitors are doing. Like the case with K24, there are better companies and I don't have as much money as they have but I insist on better quality. Competition is healthy as it keeps you on toes so that you strive to be better. I prefer and welcome any competition coming my way.
• Money is not everything. It is just a part of life and I think what is important is what you learn from everything that you are doing. You should never leave what and where your passion is for the sake of money.

Dark clouds are hanging over the rehabilitation of JKIA-Uhuru Highway-Gigiri road with claims that tendering procedures were not followed when the tender was awarded to Shengli Engineering and Consulting Company of China. Of great concern now is a claim that the total project cost is Shs.4.5b and not Shs. 2.16b as alleged by the ministry officials while other conflicting statements say that the Chinese government scaled down the amount of money it had initially promised, thus pushing the project into limbo.

According to the project specifications, the contractor was to undertake the widening of the dual carriageway between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport-Uhuru Highway-UNEP (headquarters), reducing roundabouts on Uhuru highway and improving street and traffic lights along the same corridor.

The big question that begs for answers is when the project tendering was done and how the project sum was arrived at. Road engineers now say the Shs. 4.5b allocated to this road is on the higher side and it is estimated that it can construct a road of 9m wide, 80 kilometre long. It
is estimated that the same amount can construct a new road from Kisumu to Panpaper mills Webuye.

The JKIA-Uhuru Highway-Gigiri road is estimated to be about 50km and what the contractor on site is doing is merely widening the road to create one more lane on both side and laying DBM and asphalt. Investigations further reveal that the work being done on the road is sub-standard leaving people wondering if the company has a supervisor (resident engineer) to ensure quality materials are used.

A number of concerned roads engineers who spoke to us on strict condition of anonymity wondered why the contractor was not repairing the cracks in the existing surface before laying the new layer saying that if the alligator cracks, it will propagate to the top in just under four years. It is therefore recommended that the contractor should first repair the cracks before putting on a new layer.

It is further alleged that the contractor is doing shoddy job between JKIA and Nyayo Stadium roundabout where blocks are used rather than using kerbstones. To show how substandard these material are, already backfilled widened areas have been left exposed between Firestone and Belleview turnoff.

Even as the controversy over the total cost of the project continues, it is now emerging that President Mwai Kibaki presided over the signing of additional funding for the road at a
ceremony at State House Nairobi witnessed by a Jia Qinglin, the Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Kibaki and Qinglin officially launched Construction work of the road at Nyayo National Stadium Nairbbi West on 26th April, 2007.

Back to the JKIA-Uhuru Highway-UNEP road, we have gathered that the construction of the 22 km highway was to be wholly financed by the Chinese government under a deal struck between President Kibaki and President Hu Jintao.

China had initially promised to provide Sh5.3 billion, but this had been scaled down to only Sh2.2 billion. Roads engineers said this amount of money can only cover the construction of an additional lane on both sides of the highway and set up the street lights.

What is further causing more confusion is a claim that the contractor, Shengli Engineering and Consulting Company of China had agreed to do the work only after issuing a number of conditions to be met by the ministry which included addition of Shs 300m before they moved to the site.

We have also established that Shengli Engineering and Consulting Company of China enjoys support, in the last government and won more tenders. Apart from the JKIA-Uhuru Highway-UNEP Road the company also won an international tender for capacity enhancement of the Nairobi - Eldoret Pipeline System in June last year at a cost of Shs.263m. The projet that involves construction of a new parallel pipeline from Mombasa to Eldoret which upon completion is envisaged to increase the flow-rate from the current 220,0000 litres per hour to 440,000 litres per hour.

Recently retired Nairobi Stock Exchange boss Jimnah Mbaru is one of those tipped to take over the Democratic Party leadership from Nominated MP George Nyamweya who is a man under siege as a plot to oust him as Democratic Party (DP) Secretary General takes shape.

Investigations by Weekly Citizen reveal that a number of DP top brass have been holding secret meetings behind Nyamweya's back with a view to replacing him at the party's annual delegates conference scheduled for July 15th this year.

Reports leaked to us show that Nyamweya's position will be taken by Roads Assistant minister Wilfred Machage who joined the party from Narc-K in the run-up to the 2007 general elections while Nairobi businessman Kimani Rugendo is angling to take the position of treasurer.

Nyamweya denied such plans terming them pure malice as the party's constitution does not allow for a national deputy chair of operations to take action against another. Party sources divulged that national vice-chair Joseph Munyao last week wrote to Nyamweya expressing displeasure in the manner in which Nyamweya was running the party's affairs alleging that he has failed to observe loyalty to the party.

Party sources divulged that Mbaru is secretly being sweet-talked to take over the chairmanship of the party from President Kibaki. Mbaru contested the Starehe parliamentary seat on Safina ticket in 2002 elections but lost to Maina Kamanda (Narc) at nominations, He did not contest the 2007 elections in which Kamanda (PNU) lost to Bishop Margaret Wanjiru (ODM). Kamanda has since filed an election petition.