IGIHE

Category: Politics

  • Kenya:War of words between Raila and Jubilee heightens

    {The war of words between Cord leader Raila Odinga and the Jubilee leadership heightened on Friday with each side warning Kenyans against electing its rival.}

    Mr Odinga denied accusations that he was a beneficiary of funds from governors elected on the ODM ticket as he warned that the country will disintegrate if Kenyans re-elect President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2017 elections.

    However, Deputy President William Ruto stoked more fire when he said that by defending Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi on corruption allegations, the Cord leader confirmed that he was complicit of graft in the counties.

    “I have never asked for money from governors, they are here they should tell you,” said Mr Odinga while addressing delegates from Western region at the Golf Hotel Kakamega.

    He said Jubilee should stop blame games and tackle corruption adding that diversionary tactics won’t help.

    Mr Odinga said the Jubilee administration cannot be trusted to run the country for another term on account of its failure to fight graft and insecurity as well as create jobs for women and the youths languishing in poverty.

    “Kenyans have a date with destiny in the elections of 2017. Our country is suffering. Corruption is at an all-time high and is spreading its tentacles to all levels of government,” he said as he accused Jubilee of protecting those in high positions involved in graft.

    {{LIKE ARMYWORMS}}

    “Jubilee has descended on our nation like armyworms and cockroaches, eating and stealing anything and everything that can be eaten or stolen,” he added.

    But the DP hit back saying: “Those in support of corruption in the counties are beneficiaries of that money. They must step forward and account for the money that is lost through corruption in counties which they are defending.”

    Mr Ruto, who last week ordered swift arrest and prosecution of suspects in the Sh1.18 billion scandal in Kilifi, faulted the former Prime Minister of double speak in addressing graft.

    “How is it possible to say that the interim report in the Ministry of Health is fit to be taken to court while that of Kilifi scandal is not good enough to have suspects prosecuted? He should know that we have a shortage of daft people in Kenya who you can lie to.”

    “Those implicated in corruption and misuse of public funds should carry their own baggage because they have no party, tribe and should be taken to court and be made accountable,” Mr Ruto added during a fundraiser at Chuka Catholic Church.

    He also accused Mr Odinga of owning the ailing Mumias Sugar Company millions of shillings, saying he was part of the problems that contributed to the near collapse of the giant miller.

    {{MUMIAS SUGAR}}

    A company associated with Mr Odinga has been previously accused of owing Mumias Sugar millions of shillings, but he has denied any wrongdoing.

    “While he is in Mumias, he should explain to the people the corruption that brought the company to its knees which he knows and which he and his compatriots are beneficiaries. When are they going to account for the losses and when will he refund his so-called loan?” he posed.

    Accompanying the DP were Senate Majority Leader Kithure Kindiki, Governor Samuel Ragwa and MPs Kareke Mbiuki (Maara), Muthomi Njuki (Chuka-Igambangombe), Beatrice Nkatha (Woman Rep Tharaka-Nithi), Mpuru Aburi (Tigania East) and Mburi Muiru (Tharaka).

    In Kakamega, Mr Odinga accused the Jubilee administration of scheming to undermine devolution by sabotaging its operations and giving it a bad name to discredit the system which had began to benefit communities in the regions.

    Mr Odinga said marginalisation of communities in some regions was unacceptable and efforts must be made to turn back the practice to save the country from disintegration.

    Raila Odinga (second from left), the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement, and Funyula Member of Parliament Paul Otuoma (second from right) dance at the party’s conference for delegates from western Kenya region at Golf Hotel Kakamega on November 25, 2016.

  • Turkey dismisses EU Parliament vote to freeze talks

    {Ankara criticises vote that calls for a temporary halt to its EU membership talks over the response to failed coup bid.}

    Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has dismissed a European Parliament vote calling for a temporary freeze to Ankara’s membership talks with the EU as “insignificant”.

    Of the 623 politicians present for Thursday’s vote in France’s Strasbourg, 479 were in favour of a halt in negotiations over Turkey’s “disproportionate” crackdown following July’s failed coup attempt. Thirty-seven abstained against and 107 abstained.

    Yet, the vote is non-binding and EU governments are unlikely to take heed.

    Shortly after, Yildirim said the outcome had no value and urged EU leaders to speak out against what he termed a “lack of vision”.

    “The EU should understand and decide whether it wants to shape its future vision with or without Turkey,” he was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

    Mehmet Simsek, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, also criticised the decision, describing it on Twitter as “populist” and “counter-productive.

    Meanwhile, Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, said the vote showed a “populist short-term rather than strategic long-term approach to relations which Turkey”.

    The decision comes amid heightened tensions between Turkey in the aftermath of the coup bid on July 15 – since then, almost 37,000 suspects have been placed under arrest, and tens of thousands have lost their jobs.

    Politicians voting in Strasbourg said the parliament “strongly condemns the disproportionate repressive measures taken in Turkey since the failed military coup attempt”.

    Last week, top EU politicians cancelled a visit to Turkey after Ankara refused to see one member of European parliament because of her criticism of the government’s response to the coup attempt.

    Ankara blames US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally who has been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, for the coup – a charge he denies.

    Gulen’s movement, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to as a “terrorist” organisation, runs schools, charities and businesses internationally.

    In comments published last weekend, Erdogan said Turkey should not be fixated on joining the EU and floated the idea of joining up with Russia and China in a Eurasian security group.

    Erdogan has suggested joining ranks with Russia and China in a Eurasian security group instead of the EU

  • Burundi says will not cooperate with U.N. investigation into violence

    {The UN released a report in September identifying government officials suspected of ordering political opposition to be tortured or killed.}

    NAIROBI, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Burundi’s government refused on Thursday to cooperate with a U.N. inquiry into months of political violence, saying accusations of abuses by its officials were part of a political plot.

    The United Nations announced the inquiry this week to identify perpetrators in the central African state, which has been riven by clashes and killings since protests erupted in 2015 against the president’s decision to seek a third term.

    “We are not involved in the investigation to be carried out by this commission,” Burundi’s human rights minister, Martin Nivyabandi, told journalists on Thursday.

    “We are not refusing to cooperate with human rights institutions (on all matters) … we will continue to cooperate on other issues but will not be part of the investigation.”

    The United Nations released a report by independent experts in September identifying government officials suspected of ordering political opposition to be tortured or killed .

    The allegations infuriated the government, who banned the three experts from Burundi.

    Nivyabandi said on Thursday that the September report was “politically oriented” and warned “there are some international organizations whose goal is to destabilize some governments in Africa.”

    The International Criminal Court said in April that political violence had killed about 450 people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.

    Burundi last month began the process of withdrawing from the global tribunal which was set up to try the most serious crimes when local legal structures fail.

    Opponents said President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term violated the constitution and the terms of a peace agreement that ended a civil war in 2005.

    The opposition mostly boycotted the 2015 election and Nkurunziza won a third term.

  • Putin invites Museveni to Kremlin

    {The statement did not state if President Museveni accepted the invitation and, if so, when it would happen.}

    The Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited President Museveni to visit the Kremlin, according to Russia’s new Ambassador to Uganda, Mr Alexander Dmitrievich Polyakov.

    A State House statement issued on Thursday noted that the envoy delivered the invitation on Wednesday while presenting his credentials, and he described Mr Museveni as a “renowned leader on the African continent.”

    The statement did not say if President Museveni accepted the invitation and, if so, when it would happen.

    Bilateral Uganda-Russia relations have increasingly strengthened, with prospects of a Russian firm building Uganda’s planned $4.5 billion oil refinery. UPDF, the Ugandan military, a few years ago bought a squadron of Sukhoi-Su 30 fighter jets from Russia continues as well to supply other military hardware.

    State House said Mr Museveni proposed to the new Russian Ambassador that Moscow should consider establishing a shipping line that would link the Eastern African Region with Russia.

    This, according to the President, would promote the export of food and other items from the eastern African region to Russia.

    On Wednesday, six other newly-accredited ambassadors presented their credentials to President Museveni during a function at State House, Entebbe. They include Egypt’s Mai Taha Mohammed Khali, Dmitry Kutel of Belarus, Indonesia’s Soehardjono Sastromihardjo, Palestine’s Nasri Abujaish, Ralph Heckner of Switzerland and Mr Raza Bashir Tarar as the new Pakistani High Commissioner to Uganda.

    President Museveni asked the Egyptian government to protect wetlands to save the shared River Nile.

    A file photo of Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (2nd L) at a Victory Day parade

  • Museveni blames shifts in UK, US politics on foreign aggression

    {Mr Museveni said such attacks were “wrong and unjust”, citing attacks on Iraq and Libya.}

    President Museveni has explained the recent shifts in global politics that saw business mogul Donald Trump defeat the former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton in the just concluded US presidential elections.

    In his latest missive titled the “Casualties of Western neo-imperialism and African weakness,” the chairman of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) also explained why former British Prime Minister David Cameron lost the referendum where Britons voted to quit the European Union.

    In the article seen by Daily Monitor, President Museveni said: “In recent months, two western ruling groups have suffered defeat in the elections. Although it is not the culture of Africans to talk about other people’s “houses” (internal affairs of other people), I feel compelled to comment on the events in the USA, Britain and Hungary in recent times because they are somehow connected with Africa and the Middle East.”

    “Although there are other reasons that we outsiders cannot easily know, there is one factor that has turned into a curse for the perpetrators. This is the factor of conducting wars of aggression against sovereign states that are, moreover, members of the UN,” Mr Museveni added.

    Mr Museveni said such attacks were “wrong and unjust”, citing attacks on Iraq and Libya. He questioned the double standards of the western powers wondering who was allowed to have weapons and who was not, like in the case of Iraq which was attacked for having weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological and chemical).
    The President also called on the US and European countries not to complain about Africans and Arabs flooding into their countries as refugees since it is they that have invaded these countries as imperialists, and therefore created refugee situations.
    “Be that as it may, the promoters of attacks in the Middle East and North Africa, provoked a human exodus that has caused the backlash bringing down Mr. Cameron and Ms Clinton. Although immigration is not the only reason that brought down those groups, it is certainly one of them. The question then, is: “Were these deliberate imperialist designs or were they just mistakes?” The Western countries and Africa need to scrutinise this issue and come up with correct answers,” President Museveni’s article reads in part.

    Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni.

  • Kenya:Govt using IFMIS to steal public money, says Raila

    {Opposition leader, Raila Odinga Tuesday evening arrived in Mombasa for a four-day day tour, days after deputy president William Ruto was in the region on a charm offensive.}

    Mr Odinga, in a brief stopover near the Moi International Airport in Changamwe, tore into the Jubilee administration accusing it of being behind a cartel interfering with the integrated financial management information system (IFMIS) to steal millions of public money.

    “They have now brought something called IFMIS which they are using to steal. That is why we are telling Jubilee to keep off corruption because it has now become their other name,” said Mr Odinga.

    He added: “When they were done with the National Youth Service (NYS) scandal, they got into the health ministry and now they have brought Ifmis to continue stealing money through it,” he said amid cheers from his supporters.

    The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader further accused the government of swindling public funds saying “their time is now over”.

    His tour comes just a day after the Deputy President William Ruto concluded his four-day tour in the coast.

    Mr Ruto completed his tour with a public rally at the Tononoka Grounds where he declared that the party had made inroads in the region.

    His rally ran parallel with another one organised by Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho and his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi where the two leaders dared the Jubilee administration to emulate Mr Kingi on his action of naming those involved in corruption scandal.

  • Angela Merkel to seek fourth term as German chancellor

    {Merkel expects race to be “more difficult than any before” as she announces re-election bid after 11 years in office.}

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced her intention to seek a fourth term next year despite losing support over her refugee policy.

    Merkel, who has already served 11 years as chancellor, said on Sunday that she was expecting the upcoming general election, probably in September 2017, to be “more difficult than any before”.

    “I thought about this for an endlessly long time. The decision [to run] for a fourth term is – after 11 years in office – anything but trivial,” she said after a meeting of senior members of her Christian Democrats.

    Merkel is widely seen as a stabilising force in Europe amid uncertainty after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, and as a bastion of western liberal values after the election of Donald Trump as the next US president.

    However, her decision last year to open Germany’s borders to about one million refugees, mostly from war zones in the Middle East, angered many voters at home and dented her ratings.

    The 62-year-old conservative said she faced “challenges from all sides”, stressing that pressure from the right was particularly strong.

    “We have a strong polarisation in our society,” she said.

    The nationalist Alterative for Germany, or AfD, could prove one of the biggest stumbling blocks to her re-election.

    The populist party, which is now represented in 10 state parliaments, has aggressively campaigned against Merkel’s decision to welcome so many refugees into Germany last year.

    In elections in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania earlier this year, Merkel’s CDU party came third behind the Alliance for Germany.

    According to recent polls, the AfD would win about 10 percent of the vote if general elections were to be held now.

    An exact date has not yet been set for the elections, but they will take place sometime between August 23 and October 22.

    ‘Pillar of stability’

    A physicist by training, Merkel became chancellor in 2005. She is the first leader of a reunited Germany to have grown up under communism in the former East Germany.

    If she wins next year and serves the entire four-year term, Merkel would match her one-time mentor Helmut Kohl’s post-war record of 16 years in office.

    Nearly 60 percent of Germans surveyed in a recent poll said they wanted Merkel to run for office again, said Manfred Guellner, the head of the Forsa polling agency.

    “In these difficult times, Merkel is a pillar of stability,” Guellner told The Associated Press news agency. “People have the feeling she represents German interests well abroad.”

    While she has never been described as a visionary or earned much praise for stirring speeches, Merkel has won respect for being tough and shrewd in doggedly tackling problems.

    Since becoming chancellor, she has dealt with several international crises, including the eurozone debt crisis in 2008-09, for which she brokered compromises among fractious European Union leaders.

    She has been a strong advocate of efforts to combat climate change, and in 2011 abruptly accelerated the shutdown of Germany’s nuclear power plants following the meltdowns at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima plant.

    Unresolved diplomatic challenges include Europe’s relationship with Russia, the future of Ukraine, autocratic developments in Turkey, the ongoing war in Syria and negotiations over Britain’s exit from the EU.

    Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said Merkel will stress to voters that her steady hand over the past decade is needed on the reins of Europe’s economic powerhouse.

    “From her perspective this election will be about showing to Germans why it’s so important they vote for somebody they can recognise as being a leader both in their country, but also someone the world sees as a person of real stature – who has been in charge of Germany, who has played such a central role in Europe, and indeed across the world,” Kane said.

  • Mali holds long-delayed polls amid security fears

    {One candidate is kidnapped and ballot boxes torched in elections two years overdue and denounced by the opposition.}

    Ballot boxes have been burned in Mali’s Timbuktu city and one candidate was kidnapped elsewhere during the first local elections since al-Qaeda-aligned fighters were driven out from several northern towns in 2013.

    The election – held two years later than scheduled – coincided with the first anniversary of an armed attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in the capital Bamako that killed 20 people, many of them foreigners.

    “We have already delayed these elections four times so that they can be inclusive and four times is enough,” President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita told reporters after voting on Sunday. Mali’s constitution bars further delays.

    The opposition Union for the Republic and Democracy party denounced what it called fraud in the vote preparations, which it said would benefit Keita’s government. A government spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the allegations.

    {{‘No elections here’}}

    Opposition candidate Saibou Barry was kidnapped on Saturday morning in the central town of Koro, with his party saying that his car was found burned and he had been driven to “an unknown destination”.

    Polls were cancelled in at least seven districts for security reasons in elections widely criticised by opposition parties as well as armed groups participating in a UN-led peace process, pointing to the ongoing fragility of the former French colony three years after the war.

    “The current situation is not right for elections because the majority of our population are scattered in different refugee camps,” said Amgar Ag Yehia, a Timbuktu resident who boycotted the vote.

    On a main road near the outskirts of the northern town of Gao, locals gathered stones and arranged them to read “No elections here”, although voting proceeded inside the town and crowds gathered at some polling stations.

    In Kidal, 250km to the north in a region that Tuareg separatists call “Azawad”, Tuareg women draped in colourful cloth marched in the streets for the second day.

    “No elections in Azawad before the appointment of intermediary authorities,” said one of their signs, referring to a timeline they say was previously agreed as part of the UN-led peace process.

    Voters are electing 12,000 councillors across Mali as the government wrestles with implementing a peace deal and warding off the stubborn threat from armed groups in the north.

    French troops were deployed in 2013 to repel al-Qaeda-aligned fighters who had overrun several northern towns, joining forces with Tuareg-led rebels.

    About 11,000 UN military and police followed, but the armed group was never defeated, merely displaced.

    President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita votes on Sunday in Mali's long-awaited elections

  • Uganda:Activists renew campaign against MPs’ tax exemption

    {In February last year, the commercial court ordered MPs to pay taxes on their allowances and emoluments dating to 2004 following a petition by concerned citizen Francis Byamugisha who questioned the rationale of MPs not paying tax. The MPs run to court appealing the ruling which is yet to be heard.}

    Civil society organisations have renewed a national campaign to support President Museveni’s original stand against the proposal of exempting Members of Parliament from paying taxes on their allowances.

    Addressing journalists at their offices in Bukoto yesterday, Mr Julius Mukunda, the coordinator civil society budget advocacy group, said taxation is the price citizens pay for service delivery and development but the proposals by MPs to exempt themselves from paying taxes is detrimental to the national budget which raises 68 per cent of its resources from domestic taxes.

    “All citizens including medical workers, teachers and private citizens pay taxes on their allowances including lunch allowances for medical workers and sitting allowances for district councillors,” he said.

    He explained that with the current size of Parliament, if the Bill becomes law, the country stands to lose Shs49 billion yet this is money could be distributed to pay science teachers, start the national health insurance scheme, hire health workers and revitalise cooperatives.

    “It sets a wrong precedent for other civil servants whose allowances are taxed. The private sector and other Ugandans will try all means possible not to pay tax,” he said.

    In February last year, the commercial court ordered MPs to pay taxes on their allowances and emoluments dating to 2004 following a petition by concerned citizen Francis Byamugisha who questioned the rationale of MPs not paying tax. The MPs run to court appealing the ruling which is yet to be heard.

    As the term of office for the 9th Parliament came to an end last year, President Museveni sent back the Bill to the speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga warning the house that MPs have no ‘moral right’ to exempt any of their emoluments from taxes and doing so, “would send a dangerous message” to the rest of the country.

    Even as the CSOs get up in arms, last week the legislators unanimously passed the Bill which is supposed to be endorsed by the President arguing that they are already paying hefty taxes on their salaries and allowances.

  • Congo authorities block opposition demonstration

    {Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo blocked an opposition demonstration in the capital on Saturday aimed at putting pressure on President Joseph Kabila to step down next month at the end of his mandate, witnesses said.}

    The rally was banned and heavily armed security forces and large police trucks blocked off key streets. They also prevented activists approaching the house of veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, witnesses said.

    “The sites where the meeting was to have taken place have been isolated,” police spokesman Pierre Mwanamputu said in a statement. Police shut down a similar protest on Nov. 5.

    Kabila named opposition figure Samy Badibanga as prime minister on Thursday under a power-sharing deal that allows the president to stay in office until at least April 2018.

    The main opposition bloc denounced the choice as a provocation but its attempts to stop the government’s agenda are struggling to gain traction.

    The general secretary of Tshisekedi’s UDPS party on Saturday announced a new protest against Kabila to coincide with the official end of his term.

    “The … (main opposition bloc) invites all Congolese … to a mass rally to kick off the countdown to the end of Kabila’s mandate on Dec. 19,” said Jean Marc Kabund, reading a statement. It did not spell out what action the bloc would take.

    International powers fear the impasse could lead to violence in the giant Central African nation, where millions died in regional wars between 1996 and 2003. At least 50 people died in anti-government street protests in September.

    Security forces arrested 17 people on Saturday in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi for wearing yellow shirts, intended to signify that Kabila was being given a ‘yellow card’ or caution, said Jose Maria Aranaz, head of the U.N. human rights office in Congo.