In the budget proposals tabled by Finance Minister Amos Kimunya yesterday was the populist but timely suggestion that members of parliament and holders of constitutional offices be taxed for the first time in
There was some enthusiastic foot-thumping in the august house when Hon Kimunya made the proposal, but one wonders if the same members of parliament are capable of voting through such a radical proposal that would affect them directly. The tradition of the Kenyan parliament thus far has always been to increase its’ own perks and not to decrease them.
Indeed this would be the perfect way of reducing the MPs fat pay cheques which has been an issue of great concern by the Kenyan public quite often eliciting great anger.
But public outcry has never concerned MPs too much and the vast majority of them have done as they wished. Increasing their own salaries as a matter of priority and quickly forgetting the needs of the voters who sent them to the house in the first place.
In fact anybody who digs a little deeper into the personal lives of the legislators will be shocked at what they will find. Frequent sex with under-age prostitutes along
Oscar, is it appropriate to talk ill of the deceased?
ReplyDeleteWelcome Oscar.I have an avalench of rants that i have to make but being my tradition to stick with issues at hand i will only do as much.
ReplyDeleteI havent been particularly able to post my reactions on current issues but will do in discourse.Firstly i wish to express my very remorse condolences to the families of one Kipkalya Kones and Lorna laboso.Lorna is a person well known to me partly or technically being my MP.I am one person who prides myself to having about three or so Mps by virtue of having homes spread along several consitituencies.The closest i got to the late Kones was when Ford-P was what it was.For Lorna i have wined with her and she is a very good person politics aside.I wish them all good.
Back to the post,the call to tax Mps is something that we have all called for,and for a very long time.There is huge doubt the mps will sharpen the knife that willl cut them.I have alot of misgvings about Kimunya's ability to insitute the changes he has proposed.According to me,Kimunya is one person with a very impressive CV but a thug in the same line.Muna Wahome,a very distinguished writer with the Daily Nation describes Kimunya fairly well in today's paper.I share in her reservations about Mr Kimunya and wish that he will prove us wrong about implementing the proposals he made.
Partly i still believe the budget will never make sense in kenya because our constitution is still some hinderance.So we cant achieve anything much.
That's what the NEW Kumekucha is all about? Sex and scandals? What s shame, especially since the drive is clear. Kumekuchans will have to pay to support Chris if they want to read anything of importance in the future. That's why he has invented the socalled Raw Notes just before leaving Kenya (subscription fees 15 $ - so let's say only 1000 Kumekuchans fall into this trap, Chris is pocketing $ 15.000. And considering the fact that he sells his contributions also to other blogs plus getting money for his other online businesses like advertisements etc., you and me should congratulate ourselves for having helped him to make a real good living abroad. Not even considering the fact that he lives free of charge with the Okellos who more than willingly accepted to hoste him after learning that he had first asked Marianne Briner if he could stay with her in Spain and she told him that she would prefer that he asked others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anon 1:19 AM - this is really not Kumekucha style or at least it was not in the past to talk like that about people whose family's are just learning to come to terms with their deaths, especially when there are small children involved. If you want to bring Kumekucha to the level of some other low-class blogs, then its days will be numbered. We are here to get informed about politics and other serious matters which touch the life and hearts of all Kenyans and not to read some dirt spread about people who cannot even defend themselves anymore.
If this is the way the New Man on the Ground thinks to work here, he better goes back to his real profession of writing fictious books where he can spread all his own phantasies about sexual escapades to the public. But please spare us these details here on Kumekucha.
Anon @1:19 it is morally okay talking ill of the deceased as long as it is the truth. And legally you are safe from any defamation cause of action because the law holds that a dead person can not be defamed. A deceased is not a person but a thing before the law.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, if we were are to refrain writing negatively about the dead then no worthwhile history would be written.
However, I would wait untill they are buried to allow their relatives to grieve in peace. Then I would turn on the heat on the image of Kones for his barbaric role in the ethnic crashes of 1992.
If a man lived as a thug, how does death santize him? If we talked about his thuggery when he was alive why should we stop simply because he has gone to answer to his Maker for his actions? Is this not the kind of hypocricy we are trying to avoid in order to build a better country?
ReplyDeleteOscar and Chris you have a right to have the material available for those who want to read for a fee. The moment these people voluntarily chose to enjoy the benefits associated with public political limelight, they also assumed the risk of having their private lives examined and exposed. It comes with the territoy they decided to occupy. These politicians want to ride on our bare backs, but they don't want us to ask why their pants are stinking.
I dont remember if anyone asked me if i wanted to be taxed...But at the end of the month the faithful govt of Keya bags 30% of money that i have worked my butt out knowing well that i really don't have the genetics of working hard.
ReplyDeleteI dont think the MPs have a choice in this...THEY MUST BE TAXED hiyo hawana choice!!!It is no longer an option.
Someone is earning 10,000 and he is being taxed and yet someone else earns over 800k and even absconds duty and he is not taxed...That is an insult every true hardworking man/woman!!!
On the issue of their lives (love & Sex) i think that is just not my damn business......Show me any perfect man out there and let him be the first to cast the first stone....So long as they are doing what i am paying them to do...why do i care....Issues of morals it is between them and their maker.
Ivy
Ati Africans don't talk ill of dead people. What a monkey tale! They go around whispering and as Anon@ 2:19 correctly pointed out, that is called hypocracy.
ReplyDeleteSo, is the story we are waiting for in regards to an affair between the two late MPs?
ReplyDeleteI for one, know that the late Kones was deeply involved in the state sponsored RV clashes of the 90s. This should be discussed here as a matter of national importance.
Replace a dead man with a coffin. That is all Kumekucha is about. For Chris' rip-off antics, I think he is simply a shrewd character out to make use of any opportunity to rake in a dime, by squeezing it in every best way from an unsuspecting 'fala'.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Chris has the Okellos write an invitation letter for him to go to the States, that was not after they had a massive row on this blog following Brinner's book.
the row was so massive that Brinner is now accusing Chris of perfidy afterit emerged that Chris offered to side by her sworn enemy.
At the same time, Oscar who happens to work in the ODM offices in Nairobi, a rank higher than Phil, who survives on handout from the politicians stationed there, will just make this blog and the so-called Raw notes a nasty read.
Anyway, they have a right to lie to the public and this post equally shows that.
This blog is all about malivce, slander, lies and murk. Please grow up or close the store.
ReplyDeleteWhile the love lives of dead people might exercise some twisted minds, what I'd find more interesting and useful are other dimensions of their lives that had direct bearing on the public. So for example, Hon. Kones motivation and involvement in fuelling ethnic clashes, and Hon. Laboso's contributions to women's empowerment, including her future plans regarding the same, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhich one is a greater LIE? Politicians sampling underage girls from K-street or a 76+ year old disowning his family and own blood? Double standards seem to mean different things. We scratch the surface and leave the TOP to rot. The knife cuts both ways and you cannot have your cake and eat it. If shrek wants to molify his grotesque looks with a (illiterate) beauty he must be ready to face the wrath of the ORIGINAL ORGRE from Matheri. No two ways about it neither eselective amnesia.
ReplyDelete2.56am,
ReplyDeleteWee wacha watu wajienjoy. The posts are daft but we like it that way. Very funny. I think Ivy is the funniest - I liked her "I dont really have the genitics for working hard". She also taught me math.
Karibu Oscar, nice post. Taxes, like death, should be no respector of persons.
ReplyDeleteBut....$15 for other people's sex lives? The MB crap ilitosha.
Hata kama uchumi ya stato ni mbaya bwana, we could surely get more creative ways to get money from other people's pockets into ours,yawa! Like--get a day AND a night job? Isn't it a 24 hour economy.
Oscar,
ReplyDeleteWelcome on board.
You seem not be aware that the Budget read by Kimunya and the proposals therein incorporates what is now know as a ODM/PNU Grand Coalition Government. You can therefore expect many many more GRAND ideas that did not see light of day in the last five years to come up for implementation NOW.
Again, it is my pleasure to inform you that proposals to tax MP allowances (amongst many others) was put forward by the ODM wing of the GCG. Not SURPRISING because you will remember the infamous Michuki rules which brought the entire matatu business into the tax bracket - and resulted into government financing nearly its entire budget from its own revenues - was also brought in by Prof. Peter Ayang Nyongo the then Planning Minister of LDP wing in the NARC government.
Now with the grand coalition government in place, these budgetary proposals are issues that have been discussed and agreed upon at party level before being elevated to government level. If there are any MPs who will vote against taxation of MPs allowances, I can assure you they will not be ODM MPs. I am saying this confidently because I am privy to some of those pledges budding ODM MPs had to sign-up to on the party's nomination forms and this was one of those preconditions.
We are in a multi-party democracy, ODM and its affiliates forms only about half of the National Assembly.
Unfortunately, I cannot vouch for the voting patterns of the ODM-Ks, PNUs, KANUs & NARC-Ks of this world. They have been there in Government before - with Kroll report, Goldenberg reports and many more - and they did absolutely NOTHING. Infact they have used these reports for blackmail and racketeering to enrich themselves. Goldenberg built Grand regency with tax payers money but that hotel has now been handed over to private individuals. Kroll report exposed how the Moi family syphoned large sums of cash from the exchequer. These thieves are now partners with cabinet ministers in some of those banks that channeled the funds, (clue 6 Ms), and Moi is playing politics in PNUs corner.
Oscar, get the drift????
Welcome Oscar,
ReplyDeleteOur MPs should be taxed for the simple reason that they do not do any productive work. Plus no one ever forces anyone to be an MP.
In my view, our MPs,most of them at least, are a lower that chewing gum stuck on the sole of a shoe.
They do nothing apart from sleep in parliament and empty talk. They are a bunch of sewer rats!
Finally, my condolences to the air crash victims.
Hi Oscar.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Kumekucha family. Sometimes we rant sometimes we rave but mostly we mean no harm.
Karibu sana.
Oscar Karibu,
ReplyDeleteTax is what oils a government's budget. MPs must be taxed like other Kenyans. The problem comes on resource allocation. As a nation we are known best for wrong reasons - TOP-UP et al. Collecting tax is one thing but spending it equitably and transparently quite another. Kenya doesn't suffer from lack of ideas but trashing of the same.
On a lighter notw WHAT IS IN A NAME? In my world it is a cluster of letters for physical identity aka tagging. But then detractors are already baptizing Oscar with a name of their political liking. Well, why not try Oscar Awards fora change?
They should also increase tax on sugar, cooking oil and meat and exempt fruits and vegetables. This will not only increase life expectancy among Kenyans but it will cut down the healthcare bill.
ReplyDeleteToo many unhealthy people around, I don’t understand why people eat fried food and then wash it down with sugared milky tea and coffee. Yuk!!
Kwale
Can we STOP this crap. What has this do to with maendeleo?
ReplyDeleteLet us explore ways to lobby our representatives to give us what we need. If the current mps were doing there jobs like they should I think they should be paid more at least 1m each after tax. Taxing will not make them work any harder.
Lets focus on the doable.
This is a blame mentality that has not been proven to work.
Leta ingine. At some point we need to get off our arses and do something tangible, something more than payukaring over here on trival issues.
The best solution is called, GIVE THEM AND OFFER THEY CAN'T REFUSE.
Not as simple as it sounds.
We must find a way to educate the masses so that they can call their representatives to order. We must find a way to enable the mamamboga on the street understand how to pick a winner in an mp or a kajora.
Failure to do all the above and we shall cry here, insult, disect and analyse till we are toothless with age.
KK should even change its name to 'Workable solutions for a better kenya' Lets apply our minds to our real problems and quit this time wasting topics that do not bring any change to anyones lives.
Its this sort of majoring on minors that is reflected in out leaders. This country is in the dogs but it seems we rather gossip than grapple with the real issues.
Wakenya Amkeni kumekucha. Take you plough and lets head for the garden.
Let me lead by example I happen to know that the worldbank can sponser certain projects directly to individuals at least i knew of one such project in mombasa.
so why don't we run a competition right here on kumekucha on a viable project that can be run in kenya to create employment. We present the final three which are then criticed by KKs and then we can send someone to World Bank to get funding....How about that? better than just pigaring domo here.
Sir Alex
Mps are not taxed? Well, I didn't know that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJL13ivOISQ
ReplyDeleteI just wacthed a passionate kenyan on the above link its worth pondering his thoughts maybe some people will wake up
Kudos Sir Alex--a very rare flash of brilliance!
ReplyDeleteVery RARE? Couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteAti at KUMEKUCHA? Very rare occurence. Rare indeed.
ReplyDeleteAll in all,we should just say rest in peace, to Kipkalya Kones and Lorna Laboso.And our heartfelt feelings or the close ones.
ReplyDeleteMambo mengine kando,or baadaye if one insists!
knoppix , please provide links when you want to cite a writer , i have been through the entire nation with no luck
ReplyDeleteoscar enyewe i think you ara just an alias of chris , oscar n chris are one and the same person , au sio
ReplyDeleteoscar- if you are a kenyan then you are the most disgusting human being walking the kenya soil- nd how dare you claim you know the love lifes of the dead?? kones and Laboso you uncouth shenzi pnu informant- take your PNU theatrics elsewhere and reading your post i can see you are a foolish kikuyu- and that is why kikuyu's do not respect the dead
ReplyDeleteyou want to know about living MPs love life then let the games begin i will name names and who they are sleeping with and who thy have fathered children with outside marriages and their wifes have no idea - you see i'm a kikuyu too from prominent family - and i draw a line when one starts abusing the dead unlike other kikuyu's i respect the dead -so start posting......