-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Mwananchi] An Open Urgent Letter To Kibaki From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, January 16, 2003 3:22 am To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
By Patrick LOkeyo Publiceye Group Mr. President Narc government was formed by the will of the people by their wishes to fulfill their demands which they were denied under Moi leadership. Most professionals i.e Teachers, Doctors and Professors, etc., campaigned for Narc government to liberate them from autocracy of President Moi. By the will of the people Narc was conceived and Narc government was born by the majority by trusting and believing that President Kibaki will deliver their wishes and fulfill their demands. All votes were cast to Kibaki as a trusted Economist who will satisfy Kenyans by trouncing the corruption scam of President Moi. People still are waiting for their young born Baby to shine and laugh with their parents. By announcing free education I thought Narc was prepared enough with the transition period. I thought Narc had enough resources to overhaul the system . Teachers, Doctors and other workers were promised pay raise immediately Narc takes office. I'm perplexed to learn that Narc promises were used for vote seduction while deliverance is taking long time against Narc assurance contract. Our nation has been severely hit by Aids, Hunger, Starvation, Corruption, Diseases and illiteracy. Kenyan Professionals are the backbone to iniate Modernization and self reliance. If we underpay our Professors and Doctors then the nation is rotten. Teachers do a lot of work by laying the base of our future workers. All our professionals are vital to the nation. They should not be underpaid or their problems overlooked. If Kanu abused our professionals by cheating them on pay raise, Narc should not trash their demands. Narc government was made by the people for the people. As matter of fact, what will be the problem if Narc government informs all professionals that their pay will be paid from July/03 with arrears from January/03 since the budget did not include their salary on the existing budget? That will be understood clearly. Narc will be highly appreciated for recognizing our dear workers all over. President Kibaki avoid all this demostrations which are being planned and announce your intention to attract some confidence on our professinals who have been abused for along time under Kanu. Mr. President it will be wrong to sack Dr. Onguti from KNH. His sacking information was passed to me about your planning to replace him with somebody from ..!!!. Dr. Onguti never was a block to implement salary and allowances but Moi was. It will be unethical to demote a doctor who hails from an opposition background to replace your favorites. He has done his job as doctor to the best of his ability and never has he committed Malpractice. Moi's failures to implement salary and allowances should not be attached with Dr. Onguti. On Justice Department Chief Justice should go. He never went to Law school enough to his post, but he is the Chief Justice. Benard Chunga should go with Moi and become his private Chief Justice like his former State House press secretary. The man cannot lead enlightened Lawyers in Judiciary as he himself doesn't have enough qualification to guard Judiciary. The cabinet should not be making empty promises on their various strong holds when they know that the budget was made by Kanu which never included their projects. You were elected by the people work for the people, serve the nation and fulfill your promises. Improve internal security to attract both foreign and local investors which will also seduce consumers. January 14th 2003 NARC GOVERNMENT SHOULD ACT ON THE PLIGHT OF DOCTORS AND OTHER WORKERS IN KENYA By Okoth Osewe Barely two weeks after it seized power in a democratic election which ousted the 24 year old dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi thereby marking the end of 39 years of KANU’s dominance of power in Kenya, the honeymoon appears to be over for the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) government under the new President Mwai Kibaki as political challenges that require urgent attention begin to emerge. A cross section of workers in the country have moved into struggle demanding that Narc fulfill promises which were abandoned by the previous regime. Secondly, the free primary education policy which the government adopted after seizing power is proving difficult to implement due to lack of a transition period, limited resources and zero planning. As President Kibaki awaits to reopen the 9th Parliament, Doctors at the College of Health Sciences at the University of Nairobi who also provide clinical services at the Kenyatta National Hospital have threatened to go on strike unless the government harmonised their allowances with those of staff at the Ministry of Health. Associate Professors have demanded that their pay be increased to Ksh 75,000 while lecturers and their Assistants have demanded a pay rise of up to Ksh 60,000 and Ksh 45,000 respectively. At the Ministry of Health located at Afya House in Nairobi, 500 Doctors and Paramedics at Kenyatta National Hospital staged a demonstration on 8th January demanding the immediate payment of commuter allowances, risk extraneous allowances and non practice allowances totaling to Ksh 512 million, allowances which were part of recommendations that the Moi dictatorship could not honor. While demanding to meet Mrs. Charity Ngilu, the new Minister of Health, the medics also demanded the removal of top Hospital officials including Julius Meme, Health Permanent Secretary and Dr. Meshack Ong’uti, the Hospital’s Director whom the workers accused of being a stumbling block to the implementation of allowances which had been awarded by the former Moi dictatorship. As the Doctors took industrial action for their demands to be met, the 240,000 strong Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) led by National chairman John Katumanga, put the new government under pressure to implement a Ksh 2.8 billion salary award that the teachers won in 1997 after a protracted and highly publicised strike action that paralysed the education system. Late last year, the teachers were <A HREF="http://www.worldsocialist-cwi.org/eng/2002/10/07kenya.html">back in action with a new strike</A> that was defeated after compromised Union leaders collaborated with the former dictator Moi's government to postpone the pending implementation of the 1997 salary increments. Although President Kibaki had promised to pay teachers the remaining phases of the salary awards in January this year, Professor George Saitoti, the new Education Minister, told the teachers after Narc assumed power that the government could not pay them as had been promised but that they would be paid in July. This will be after the government expects to have convinced the IMF and World Bank to resume aid to Kenya, a feat the government said, is expected to be complete in three months. Inspired by the bold actions of their colleagues, Government Pharmacists have also staged a protest demonstration outside the Ministry of Health headquarters in Nairobi where they handed over an ultimatum demanding the implementation of allowances that had been awarded to the Doctors but in which the Pharmacists had been inexplicably left out. The demo, which involved Pharmacists from across the country together with University students, also demanded the immediate sacking of both Professor Meme and the Chief Pharmacist, Kipkerich Koskei whom they accused of sabotaging their struggle for proper remuneration. The strike threats, demonstrations and confrontations between workers and officials of the new Narc administration represents an underlying and huge problem facing millions of workers in Kenya – the problem of starvation wages and extreme deprivation. The Moi dictatorship dealt with challenges from workers by threatening them with the sack, a tactic that the Narc Administration will be unable to use at a time when it has just assumed power in a popular and democratic election. What the workers are doing is that they are exploiting the Narc honeymoon to fight for legitimate economic interests. The workers are putting Narc in a very difficult position because if the government accedes to their demands, such an action may provoke other workers in other sectors to move into struggle with new demands that may plunge the government into a new and unpredicatable crisis. Pressure from workers comes in the middle of crisis in education sector The pressure from the workers comes at a critical moment when the new government is still grappling to deal with the crisis that gripped the education sector following the announcement that the Kibaki administration had abolished Primary school fees in accordance with election promise. Thousands of pupils who have not been going to school for years due to lack of school fees suddenly flooded the 18,000 government schools demanding immediate admission while parents who had transferred their children to private schools quickly moved them to government schools to benefit from the free education. Many schools ended up with 300 pupils in classes designed for 35-40 pupils, forcing the government to introduce morning and afternoon classes to cope with the crisis. The consequence of this change is that the total number of hours for primary education per pupil has been drastically reduced in certain schools with the danger that the quality of knowledge imparted at the primary school level may be greatly compromised in the long term. The crisis was precipitated by lack of a transition program for the free primary education policy and the Minister of Education had to call for moderation as the crisis threatened to get out of hand. As reality sinks, the Narc government has just noticed that it needs to raise Ksh 5 billion to purchase new stationary and to finance recurrent expenses for primary schools across the country. The government has also admitted that it may need another Ksh 8 billion annually to employ an extra 50,000 teachers to help implement the free primary education program. The billions of extra money needed has become a source of worry for the Narc government which had estimated that free primary education would only require an extra Ksh 2.5 billion annually. This is beside the Ksh 28 billion which the government is looking for to implement the teacher's pay rise. The question is where the money will come from at a time when other public sectors that require urgent restructuring like the Health sector and the collapsed infrastructure are yet to be tackled. The extra expenses on free primary education will push annual government spending on education to Ksh 64 billion, an equivalent of 32% of total revenue of Ksh 200 billion the government expects to raise during the current financial year. Workers and allowances: What should the medics do? The demands by Kenyan medics for increased allowances will most likely spread among workers in other sectors because the question of starvation wages in the face of an ever rising inflation occasioned by the rot within the capitalist system is a question that has been at the center of workers movement in Kenya for years. Many workers are tired of living from hand to mouth while MPs are earning half a million Kenyan shillings per month. What the doctors and other medics should do is that they should co-ordinate their struggle and link up with other workers who have, in the past, been raising similar demands. Workers in Kenya should collectively demand that the government introduce a minimum living wage for all workers as a first step towards addressing the issue of poverty among workers in the country. They should organise joint demonstrations and other protest actions to put the government under pressure to act. Workers should re-awaken their Unions to take the lead in collective bargaining and if compromised Union leaders do not want to act, workers should form independent and fighting Trade unions that can fight for the worker’s interests. The re-introduction of free primary education is a welcome move. But, on a long term, the government will be unable to finance the project if it does not seize wealth-producing institutions that are currently on the hands of foreign multinational companies and other agents of exploitation currently milking the country. The need for resources to finance the reconstruction process means that the government must halt the IMF/World bank's privatisation programs and instead, aim at restructuring <A HREF="http://kenyasocialist.org/kswsfiles/tobeprivatised.html">State enterprises earmarked for privatisation</A> to generate revenue. Institutions like the Kenya Post and Telecommunications, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Railways, Kenya Power and Lighting company together with enterprises which have already been privatised like the Kenya Airways are profitable enterprises which should remain on the hands of the government. In the immediate future, pressure on the Narc government is unlikely to focus on calls for greater democracy and campaigns for the respect for human rights. More emphasis will be laid on demands for jobs, higher wages, better working conditions, better remuneration, food on the table, decent housing, better living standards, poverty alleviation, provision of basic social services, end to corruption, better infrastructure, supply of clean water and other critical demands which the Kenyan masses who brought Narc to power view as key to a radical transformation of the poor social and economic conditions under which they continue to live. These are demands which Narc will be unable to address under a decayed capitalist system of government that the Coalition has inherited from Moi, a system which has systematically failed Kenyans for the last 39 years. New political ideas that does not include; begging from IMF/World Bank, privatisations and exploitation of the country's wealth by foreign companies will be needed. Under the Narc government and after the celebrated "Velvet revolution" which toppled KANU from power, new political forces will have to emerge to lead Kenya's most difficult and probably most critical revolution - the Socialist revolution. The Narc government should act on the demands being raised by Doctors and other workers in Kenya. In the meantime, workers in the country should begin to reorganize and arm themselves with new anti capitalist ideas for future political and social explosions that will no doubt surface as political limitations of the Narc administration slowly comes to light and the masses begin to ask new questions about what needs to be done. See also: <A HREF="http://kenyasocialist.org/kswsfiles/programme/programmeworkers.html">KSDA position on workers in Kenya</A> <A HREF="http://kenyasocialist.org/kswsfiles/programme/programmetradeunions.html">KSDA's position on Trade Unions in Kenya</A> <A HREF="http://kenyasocialist.org/kswsfiles/programme/programmeeducation.html">KSDA's position on Education in Kenya</A> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT Join the Mwananchi group at http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/mwananchi to discuss African issues Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
