Statement by Raila Odinga MP for Langata Member, ODM-Kenya

Saturday, November 11, 2006

MY attention has been drawn to several comments concerning my recent discourse with various groups of foreigners and Kenyans in Canada, the USA and the United Kingdom - to the effect that I have been "washing Kenya's dirty linen in public". For one thing, it would not be necessary for anyone to do this in order for the world to know what is happening in our country. The evidence is there for all to see, and various reports by respected international bodies continue to expose the government’s lie that our nation is doing well.

But more importantly, washing dirty linen was not the activity I was engaged in.
During my tour, I had the opportunity to talk to many people, including Kenyans, in the North American diaspora - in Toronto, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC and New Jersey - and in the UK, in Manchester and London. The presentations I made to them were basically informative.

What the government does not seem to realise is that Kenyans living outside this country are part and parcel of our nation. They therefore deserve to be informed about important events taking place back home.

One thing I talked to them about was the Kenyan economy, for which the
government has been flaunting growth figures that are meaningless to anyone
except the bureaucrats who dreamed them up. As I have said before, the growth rate being publicised by the government has been inflated by the use of a different method of accounting from the one previously employed. When Kisumu Rural MP Professor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o was minister for economic planning, he decided to bring it in line with the current universal practice by expanding the statistical base. But it changed the parameters of the statistics by at least two per cent, and it is this two per cent that I have said skews the government’s figures and gives a dishonest comparison with previous figures.  As Lord Courtney said in New York State in August 1895, "After all, facts are facts" and although there are "lies, damned lies and statistics, still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of."

The economic growth the government is flaunting, if indeed there is any, is not
being felt by most people in our society. There is need to highlight, as I have
been doing, the suffering of the ordinary person, and the fact that the cost of
basic necessities, including food, paraffin, transport and rent, have all risen,
while people’s incomes have not increased, and their purchasing power has
therefore fallen. This is an issue that should be of prime concern to any
responsible government.

The fact is that this much-touted economic growth only translates into improved
living conditions for a small clique of people at the top. It is an issue that should worry any right-thinking Kenyan.

My view is that, for this country to be able to deliver people from poverty, its
economy must grow at a much faster rate, and not just reflect statistical manipulation.

One thing preventing this growth is corruption. Shocking figures released by
Transparency International confirm that Kenya remains one of the most corrupt
countries in the world. Eighty-five billion shillings a year that could be used
to uplift the poor out of their wretched misery is being lost through this
national disgrace. All the promises made by this government in 2002 about
zero-tolerance of corruption have been betrayed.

And the extreme poverty and hardship being suffered by millions in our country - - people the government has no shame in pretending do not exist when it touts its fancy statistics - - is nowhere more evident than in the pictures we have seen
coming out of Mathare Valley in the past two weeks. As people have fled for
their lives from the unchecked murderous villains who control the Valley’s
social fabric, we have noted the few ragged belongings they carry as they pick
their way desperately through mud and water and garbage. We have read that
children have not been able to complete their exams. We have seen pictures of
infants separated from their mothers. What about pregnant women? What about the sick, the injured, the old, the lame, the infirm? How do they flee? How can any sane government look at the Mathare Valley pictures published in the press and have the nerve to continue spouting about its own economic success?  The press, which is doing a wonderful job, has exposed for us the daily dread and terror that the people of Mathare Valley face, unable even to go to the toilet without paying a tax to the scum who hold them to ransom.
Yesterday, we visited Mathare Valley. We saw children and women lying outside in the cold and wet, covered in mosquito bites - a most pathetic sight to behold.  They are suffering, yet no government official has dared to visit them. Many of these refugees, who have lost or fled their homes, are crowded into four churches. Others are camped outside the Eastleigh air base. In such a situation, there is real danger of an epidemic of disease, and I urge the government and appeal to the humanitarian agencies to come to the aid of these suffering people. They need urgent attention and help in the forms of food, bedding, medical supplies and, most of all, assistance to reconstruct their broken homes.  I also listened to some of their stories and heard about the shocking privations they must endure on a daily basis. Do the people living in Mathare Valley have any basic human rights? It is a travesty of compassion and responsibility to allow this situation to continue, and it is no wonder that the UN Human Development Index placed Kenya far down among the world’s lowest achievers, lower even than such troubled countries as Zimbabwe and Sudan.

Government lack of responsibility can be seen nowhere more clearly than in the
horrors that continue to be visited on the people of Mathare Valley by members of the banned Mungiki sect. How can a banned organisation operate with impunity in the heart of a capital city, when the authorities have all the means at their disposal to prevent this? It is a question that leads only to one obvious conclusion: what is being done to the people of Mathare Valley, what is being done to the people of Kuresoi, of Molo, Pokot, Turkana, Samburu, Meru, Nyeri and other parts of the country, is being done with the complicity of the government.

This is confirmed by the fact that members of the illegal organisation that
terrorises the residents of Mathare Valley - not content with hacking people to
death with pangas outside their front doors and burning their homes - were able
to run riot in Nairobi streets and proclaim to the world at large their threats
of widespread violence and  destabilisation. They obtained this freedom through a licence granted by the authorities, reportedly on the order of some senior politician. That is what this government has come to. It is a national and international shame and disgrace   I should now like to turn my attention to the constitutional review process. On this issue, the government is doing nothing more than engaging in filibustering - - employing delaying tactics. It is now quite clear that the government is just playing games, and has no interest at all in meaningful changes. There was supposed to be a November package on minimum reforms by the Inter-Parties Consultative Forum on Constitutional Review, headed by Dalmas Otieno and Charity Ngilu. Are they going to present this package?

Key issues that were supposed to be addressed included the independence of the electoral commission, affirmative action, the enfranchisement of all eligible
voters, the requirement that the president be elected with at least 50 per cent
of the vote, the popular election of chairmen of civic authorities and provision
for the central funding of political parties. These remain key issues.  It is also totally impractical for the government to suggest that a referendum on a new Constitution be held in September next year, to be followed by a general election in December. In other countries, votes on constitutional issues have been cast alongside votes in a general election. There is no reason why we
should not do this here. There are minimal logistical problems involved and we
must now begin seriously considering this as the only viable option.

In the meantime, we look forward to the early introduction of the minimum
reforms that are vital to ensuring that both the proposed referendum and next
year’s general election will be conducted in a manner that meets the definition
‘free and fair’.

I should now like to inform you that we have received reliable information about a meeting that was held on November 5 in the Kilimani area of Nairobi. Present were senior people and a person who resembled one of the mercenaries supposedly expelled from this country - eight people in all. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss elimination of some political leaders. I would like, through the press, to ask the authorities to confirm or deny that such a meeting took place.  Finally, on this weekend, when people all over the western world will mark Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, when World War I ended, and will honour those who have fallen in all the wars since, I should like us to remember not only those Kenyans who fell in those foreign fields, fighting those foreign wars, but also those who fought for our independence, as well as those who have died for their ideals since Independence, and more recently, those who have died in Mathare Valley, Laikipia, Kuresoi, Molo and in other parts of the country where scenes of violence have been played out. They have paid the ultimate price here at home, in a war that continues to this day - the war for the second liberation of Kenya.

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them."


Raila Odinga, MP