Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Moshi District Council has completed a special operation to kill about 5.6 million quelea quelea birds which had invaded 2,135 hectares of paddy in three irrigation schemes in Moshi Rural District.}

Moshi District Council Executive Director, Butamo Ndalahwa, confirmed here yesterday that the exercise was successful despite some minor challenges. He said farmers were happy and they expect bumper harvest.

The government, he said, acted fast to avert loss of yield as the red-billed weavers had proved destructive. The Moshi council secured 325 litres of poison from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries in Dar es Salaam to contain the destructive birds.

On October 3, Ndalahwa consulted the coordinator of the Arusha Plant Health Centre as well as Kilimo Anga Arusha manager to get an airplane from Nairobi.

The world’s most abundant wild bird species have been destroying paddy at the 440-hectare Lower Moshi Scheme, the 270-hectare Mandaka Mnono Scheme and the 1,425-hectare Mawala Scheme. Agricultural experts had found out there were four beddings situated at TPC Company sugarcane plantations as well as in nearby places.

The birds were usually seen during the morning and evening hours feeding on paddy while spending nights at their beddings in sugarcane plantations. The red-billed diochs have an estimated adult breeding population of 1.5 billion pairs.

The overall world population is expected to be as large as 10 billion. They are found in sub-Saharan Africa but are absent from thickly forested regions and the southern reaches of South Africa.

{Kinshasa-The prosecution of over 600 police and soldiers for human rights violations has failed to curb widespread impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo.}

The violations were committed from January 2014 to date, a period marked by protests against President Joseph Kabila clinging to power beyond constitutional limits.

United Nations investigations indicate violations peaked last month when police, armed forces and the Republican Guard used excessive and lethal force during demonstrations in Kinshasa.

At least 53 people were killed over two days while some 143 protesters were injured and about 300 unlawfully arrested.

The figures might be higher as UN teams were denied access to records of some morgues, hospitals and detention facilities.

Of the 53 people documented killed, including seven women and two children, at least 48 were killed by state agents, including police, soldiers and armed government forces.

Perpetrators were not identified in the killing of four police officers and one woman.

Most victims, including a five-year-old girl, were shot in the head, chest and back.

Others died after being burned, stabbed, beaten or attacked with machetes.

The DRC Special Representative of the UN, Maman Sidikou, urged authorities to investigate.

“Strong political will is needed to ensure justice and reparation to all victims of serious violations.”

Polls were due in November but have been rescheduled to April 2018 with Kabila retained as president in a transitional government including some opposition parties. – CAJ News

{In 1999, Uganda hanged about a dozen civilians, including a famous activist of the Obote II government Musa Sebirumbi. Three years later, a court martial in the Karamoja region executed two soldiers for murdering a missionary — Declan O’Toole.
}

About 15 years earlier, in 1987, Kenya had executed its last death row convict, Hezekiah Ochuka for his role in the country’s 1982 coup attempt. Tanzania, too, had its last death row execution in 1994.

Several years later, Kenya and Uganda still have 509 death row inmates in custody — 300 in Kenyan prisons and 209 in Uganda. In fact, those in Kenya have even asked the president to sign their death warrants or change the sentence to life imprisonment.

What is the point in maintaining an inhumane sentence in the law books especially if the country has demonstrated reluctance to enforce it? That is the question the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), a leading human-rights organisation in Uganda, is asking authorities not just in Kampala but in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam case.

Uganda’s is an interesting one too. A 2005 Supreme Court ruling in the Susan Kigula case saved the death penalty for capital offences but gave the judges discretion. The ruling also commuted a lot of death sentences when it held that if the sentence was not carried out in a period of three years after completing the appeal process, it automatically commutes into a life sentence.

FHRI, the lead supporter of the Kigula case and a campaigner against the death penalty, held events in Kampala to commemorate the World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 12.

“As a country that seeks to deepen its democratic practices, it is important that it takes this decision seriously. Sometimes people commit these offences partly due to their backgrounds, injustices of society and the ineffectiveness of the justice system,” said Dr Livingstone Sewanyana, executive director of FHRI.

Uganda has listed in its laws 28 offences that attract the death penalty.

Though the sentence remains in the law books, many countries have been reluctant to carry out executions. Activists say the death penalty has lost currency and should therefore be expunged from the law books.

The activists also point to mistakes that sometimes have led to wrongful convictions to justify their push against the penalty.

One of the speakers at the World Day Against the Death Penalty was Edward Edmary Mpagi, who spent 18 years on death row as a convict and two on remand before for the murder of a person who was later found to be alive. He was convicted with his brother.

“We were sentenced to death. There was no probe in our case and we were sent to Luzira Maximum Security Prison to face death innocently,” Mr Mpagi said.

Justine Nankya, a beneficiary of the Susan Kigula ruling, spoke of the long term impact of the death sentence even on those who succeed either on appeal or those who have their sentences commuted. Nankya was arrested in 1992, sentenced to death three years later in 1995 and became one of the petitioners in the Kigula case. She was released last year after her commuted time expired.

According to Commissioner of Prisons Robert Munanura, fondly referred to as Commissioner of Hope by the convicts, some of the inmates are innocent. However it is difficult for most of them to afford lawyers to prove their innocence.

He also pointed to disappearance of files in the court prosecution and court system as a key facilitator of convictions.

{Police in Burundi arrested an American journalist and her Burundian fixer on Sunday, saying they had questioned both on suspicion of destroying criminal evidence before releasing only the journalist from custody.}

Julia Steers, a fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation, and Gildas Yihundimpundu were arrested in the Mutakura district north of the capital Bujumbura, police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye wrote on his Twitter account.

The media regulator “CNC and police interrogated them for attempting to destroy evidence of crimes committed by insurgents,” the tweet said. The government often uses the term “insurgents” to describe protesters.

Mutakura was hit by protests at the height of the unrest last year when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans to run for a third term in office, sparking weeks of protests by the opposition who said his bid was unconstitutional.

Nkurikiye said the journalist has subsequently been released and handed to the U.S. embassy, but her fixer remained under custody for further investigation.

Opponents accuse the president of violating the constitution and a peace deal that ended a civil war in 2005. The government accuses opponents of fomenting unrest, and accuses them of backing rebel groups, which officials call “armed gangs”.

At least 450 people have so far been killed in violence that first erupted right after Nkurunziza announced his re-election bid, rights groups say.

Western states have also criticized the government’s clampdown on free media, including the shuttering of private radio stations.

Burundi briefly arrested British and French journalists earlier this year, while other foreign journalists were expelled prior to that.

{Ugandans will access jobs in Jordan without having to undergo further training under a deal signed last week by the two countries.}

The Bilateral labour agreement signed between the government of Uganda and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan paves way for Ugandan migrant workers to start finding jobs in the West Asian Arab kingdom.

The government of Uganda through the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, signed the Bilateral Labour Agreement with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

According to the Gender and Labour communications’ manager, Mr Frank Mugabi, the milestone agreement was negotiated and concluded by a delegation from the Gender Ministry, led by Cabinet Minister Janat Mukwaya in Jordan between October 10 and 13.

Mr Mugabi said the minister held bilateral talks with her counterpart, the Minister of Labour of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Mr Ali Ghezawi, on strengthening ties between the two countries in the area of recruitment and employment of Ugandans in Jordan.

According to Mr Mugabi, the key features under the Bilateral Labour Agreement with Jordan are an employment contract that will be signed by the employee, employer in Jordan, recruitment company in Uganda and the recruitment company in Jordan.

{From outside, the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) looks impressive; neat lawns, huge workforce and a rented Sh500,000 a month office for its council chairman at the ACK Gardens in Upper Hill, Nairobi.}

But inside this pioneer polytechnic in the country is a story of an institution on the verge of bankruptcy — thanks to the mad rush to turn mid-level institutions into fully fledged universities and wastage.

With an estimated Sh2 billion debt, insiders at TUK are worried about the fate of the institution, which owes its workers, suppliers, pension scheme and other government agencies such as the Kenya Revenue Authority, hundreds of millions of shillings.

Documents show that TUK is struggling to keep its head on the surface.

It does not remit the statutory Pay as You Earn, pension, and sacco savings deducted from its workers.

Besides the contractors and suppliers, it has huge unpaid dues for part-time lecturers in addition to other management woes.

Chartered into a university in January 2013, TUK is a classic case of a failed experiment that threatens to sink Kenya’s premier polytechnic into financial limbo.

With a weak financial muscle to anchor its technical courses and sustain the increasing student population from the government’s central placement agency, the documents indicate that the debt could be above Sh2 billion.

A big chunk of the debt is owed to the pension scheme, where some of the members have died waiting for their lifetime savings.

The surviving pensioners, together with thousands of their colleagues currently employed by TUK, now risk losing more than Sh1.1 billion in pension contributions, as the administration runs out of options.

Established in 1961 to train laboratory technicians and technologists, the institution was the largest polytechnic in Kenya before it was turned into a university.

The Nation has since got documents showing how the institution has sunk into debt.

With a workforce of more than 1,500, the workers have only their pay slips as proof of statutory deductions – and it is only when they go to seek tax compliance certificates from the revenue agency that they find that their taxes were never remitted.

Those who seek loans from their sacco also meet the same fate.

THE GENESIS
TUK Vice-Chancellor Francis Aduol admitted that the institution was heavily undercapitalised, hence the survival tactics to keep afloat.

“Our financial woes started when the university transitioned from a college and was required to retain all the staff on new terms as well as hire more to offer degree courses,” Dr Ken Ramani, the director in charge of communications, said.

Apparently, the Sh40 million institution’s capitation from the government was not adjusted to measure up with the new scenario.

“We have been appealing for funding since then in vain. Our courses are also capital intensive and require specialised skills to teach and are less popular with the evening classes. We can’t offer art courses in the evening and sacrifice our core mandate,” Dr Ramani said.

This funding limbo has left the university on the brink of collapse.

Already, the TUK Staff Retirement Benefits Scheme, registered in 2013, has written to the Retirements Benefits Authority (RBA) chief executive, Mr Edward Odundo, seeking the winding up of the scheme over failure to recover Sh800 million in unremitted deductions from the university.

This letter is dated May and the scheme’s interim administrators, appointed in November 2015, have recommended so after failing to trace the lost cash.

“We have in our meetings asked for current contributions to be paid but the university does not seem to take this seriously. In our view, the university is not committed to honour their covenants under the Trust Deed and Rules.

“The more the scheme remains open, the more the members are losing out on their savings. We, therefore, recommend that the scheme be wound up to give the collection mandate to the liquidator who will have time to collect this debt,” read the letter.

The pension fund interim administrators describe the university management as “arrogant”.

Attaching any of the university assets to recover the funds will take between two to three years at best, according to the administrators’ report.

More so, the university is yet to comply with the required ration of contributions between the employer and the employees for the scheme and efforts to get an exemption certificate from the revenue body that would allow contributors some tax relief was also not successful, thanks to the missing remittances.

Mr Odundo told the Nation that the university’s assets will be attached once the pension fund is legally wound up and the money recovered to pay pensioners.

UNREMITTED DUES

At the moment, only the Sh133.5 million in assets invested in fixed deposits, corporate bonds and government securities may be safe.

“We will have to attach anything the university owns after we follow the due process,” he said.

Mwalimu National Sacco, which is owed to the tune of Sh170.5 million, is among the hardest hit financial institutions.

In a letter to the TUK vice-chancellor in August, the sacco claims unremitted payroll deductions for 17 months ending July. The sacco has suspended credit facilities to TUK members.

“Despite several promises, you have failed to remit these amounts. Without further reference to you, we shall escalate this matter for resolution unless urgent arrangement for settlement of the amount is arrived at.

“Members are not receiving normal sacco services as a result of these outstanding non remittances,” the sacco wrote.

Like Mwalimu Sacco, the Polytech Co-operative Savings and Credit Society Ltd has also had its share of problems as a result of unremitted deductions and loans.

The financial service provider has been surviving on an Agency Order procured with intervention from the Industrialisation ministry to recover the Sh55 million TUK owes it.

“We always have to get an agency order from the ministry to have money remitted to our account and the process is not an easy one,” Polytech Sacco chairman Festus Kihara told Nation.

The workers’ union officials said TUK owes them Sh11.5 million in unremitted dues.

“The university’s administration is quite arrogant and we see them doing everything to frustrate the case,” the administrators wrote to RBA.

Several lecturers, both part-time and full-time, have left the institution over unpaid salaries — some stretching from 2013.

An executive officer at the office of the vice-chancellor, Mr Cosmas Kanyadudi, said the university was trying to have the debts cleared by 2018.

“We want to begin actively recovering debt owed to us which is to the tune of Sh800 million. After that, the university will pay them,” said Mr Kanyadudi.

Ninety-four per cent of the students live outside the university, which is not only a unique “day scholar” tag for TUK, but also a huge cost relief, given that over 40 per cent are Module II students who pay higher fees.

Efforts to get a comment on the level of staffing, which is said to be bloated, was futile as the officials wanted copies of records the Nation had.

“Share with us copies of the dossier you have on TUK. Only then can we adequately respond to your questions,” Dr Ramani wrote in an email response.

{With an addition of two million children every year and with a fertility rate of about seven children per woman in rural areas, Uganda is likely to see its population rise to from 36.4 million in 2014 to 102 million by 2050, the 2016 projections indicate.}

KAMPALA- With an addition of two million children every year and with a fertility rate of about seven children per woman in rural areas, Uganda is likely to see its population rise to from 36.4 million in 2014 to 102 million by 2050, the 2016 projections indicate.

The majority of Ugandans live in rural areas and most women in these parts of the country are illiterate. Uganda’s literacy rate stands at 67.1 percent.

This according to a latest population report, will have surpassed Tanzania’s 99.8 million and Kenya’s 95.5 million by 2050. Currently, Tanazania has 53.7 million people while Kenya’s population stands at 44.5 million people.

The government released the projections on Thursday while launching a report that assesses the state of the country’s population, with a pledge to improve quality of health care of the population, improve incomes, improve survival of maternal and infant mortality rates and keeping a keen eye on the implications of Uganda’s high growth rate.

The report pledges further to ensuring universal access to minimum health care package, improving nutrition, health research, and provision on integrated preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitation services.

This announcement coincided with the timing of a global report which shows that the world population will also hit the nine billion mark on Thursday.

The State of Uganda Population Report 2016, launched in Kampala alongside the State of the World Population Report 2016, paints a distressing picture of a country whose rapidly rising population could have “negative impacts” for its per capita economic growth.

The report indicates that throughout most of that time, the majority of Uganda’s population is likely to be young – leaving a perpetually huge weight of dependence on a small number of productive Ugandans.

The report provides the latest trends and statistics on adolescent and youth populations in Uganda, how they are key to economic and social progress and what must be done to realise their full potential.

{{Promising results in urban areas}}

The report further points out that the fertility rate of Ugandan women (in urban areas) has reduced from seven to now 5.8 children per woman since 2014. The report, however, however shows that the figure is still above the sub-Saharan average of 4.8 children per woman.

However, the good news is that the life expectancy of Ugandan men and women has gone up to 58 and 63 years respectively and this is up from 54 and 55 years in 2011.

The State Minister for Finance in Charge of Planning Mr David Bahati said the government regards population as a crucial resource that can be harnessed for national development.

Estimates published in the report, whose focus this year was on quality health care for sustainable development show that if Uganda succeeded in reducing its population growth rate from the current 3.2 per cent to 2.4 per cent in the medium term, the country’s annual growth of per capita GDP could rise by 0.5 per cent.

“If we consider the impact of the population dynamics such a reduction would mean, per capita economic growth rising between 1.4 and 3.0 percentage points per annum as long as Uganda would be in the phase of the ‘demographic gift’ with falling population growth but still substantial labour force growth,” the reports adds.

The report says Uganda has an unusually large discrepancy in fertility between the highly educated urban (3.9) and the rural women with low education (7.8), which it says makes Uganda’s poor prone to poverty which widens inequality and reduces economic growth.

While analysing the impact of population growth on resources, the Executive Director African Centre for Global Health and Social Development Prof. Francis Omaswa said more than 80 per cent of Ugandans rely directly on land, agriculture, and fishing for their livelihood.

He said environmental indicators reveal trends of degradation of agricultural land, soil erosion, deforestation, drainage of wetlands, loss of bio-diversity, reduced range land capacity, and increased pollution.

“We must initiate a national dialogue on what type of health Ugandans should have, what type of environment they must live in and health should not be separated from the way people live. We must also revive the traditional rural system where chiefs played a big role in the hygiene and sanitation of the homes and ensured food security,” said Prof Omaswa.

He said the growth of the population in Uganda is placing stress on the current water and sanitation needs which are key in the quality health care of this nation.

“Do you know that we above 30 per cent of the people in Uganda lack latrine pits, in our urban areas there is flooding, there are poorly-constructed latrines and the resultant run-off of solid waste contaminate water ways and further exacerbate diarrheal disease outbreaks,” Prof. Omaswa said.

He said if the trend persists, challenges to future growth and structural transformation could emerge unless serious measures are taken to convert it into a population dividend adding that even in densely populated Kampala, 85 per cent of households rely on pit latrines.

The report compares Uganda’s socio economic indicators with those of other countries in Africa and Asia that have lower population growth rates and says Uganda’s high population growth rate exacerbates poverty and constrains the household’s and the government’s efforts to provide quality social services such as education and health.

“The problem with a fast-growing population is not the growth itself, but “rapid, unplanned growth,” concludes the report. There are still inadequacies that exist within the health infrastructure and medical supplies; these are attributed to increased demand to available resources; increases population and changing disease burden,” reads the report in part.

The reports recommends that improving the quality of health care therefore calls for fixing the gaps and extending coverage to under serves areas especially the rural communities, those walking more than six kilometers or those on the islands and in mountainous areas.

Various speakers at the launch said, the process of growth is determined by important variables, which include; age structure, sex and distribution, the decisions and policies we make today, and the options available to young people and that this will ultimately determine the quality of the population for Uganda in 2050.

However, the deputy country representative for UNFPA Ms Miranda Tabifor said the government should closely monitor the country’s population trends, “not only in numbers but also in terms of what implications such numbers mean to the provision of services such as health, education, housing, food, [and] employment.”

{The explosive court filings to counter Deputy President William Ruto’s defamation suit against activist Boniface Mwangi have set the stage for a dramatic case that threatens to lay open some uncomfortable details.}

This comes as the documents by Mr Mwangi’s lawyers on Friday showed that they had not only filed a defence to Mr Ruto’s allegations but had also included a counter-claim against the Deputy President, which presents a tricky legal challenge.

Mr Mwangi’s counter-claim is, in effect, an independent legal suit against the Deputy President.

The law allows a party that has been sued, and which also has a claim against the plaintiff that is related to the first suit, to file counter-proceedings at the same time rather than taking out independent proceedings.

In suing Mr Mwangi, Mr Ruto states that a post on the activist’s Twitter page last month was false and malicious.

Mr Mwangi, who had linked the Deputy President to the death of businessman Jacob Juma in May and questioned his integrity, declined to delete the information and apologise.

Through lawyer Kioko Kilukumi, the Deputy President also wants the activist to be barred from ever publishing or posting on social media any defamatory material against Mr Ruto.

“We want Mwangi to be compelled to retract and delete the said tweet and apologise in all print and electronic media,” Mr Kilukumi says in court documents filed on October 7, which also seek damages for libel.

But the defence, in its filings on Friday, describes Mr Mwangi as a respected public-spirited journalist focusing on governance, human rights and social justice, who seeks to hold government officials accountable through his print, electronic and online projects.

The defence claims that as a result of his work, Mr Mwangi has been targeted by state organs including the police, militia and gangs linked to the government.

Defence lawyer Gitobu Imanyara has taken an expansive line, pointing out that the plaintiff is the Deputy President as a result of a coalition agreement between him and President Uhuru Kenyatta and that in that agreement, “he is more than merely a principal assistant to the President but an almost equal partner in the government affairs under a political instrument”.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Mr Mwangi points out that by virtue of his status, Mr Ruto should expect public scrutiny — and the views expressed against or about the Deputy President constitute an exercise of the democratic right to free expression.

The defence points out that Mr Ruto is subject to the onerous strictures of the Constitution including good governance, integrity, transparency and accountability.

The defence asserts that the conduct of the Deputy President ought to be “irreproachable” and that Mr Ruto “is legally and politically subject to intense scrutiny” not only from the media but also the public.

The defence says that Mr Ruto’s suit cannot be allowed in a democratic society committed to free speech since it would have a “chilling effect” on the freedom of expression.

The defence also claims that whatever Mr Mwangi said about Mr Ruto constituted “fair comment, value judgement, opinion and justification” and was, therefore, not defamatory.

As he had first claimed in the letter through his lawyer, Mr Mwangi has included a full assertion questioning Mr Ruto’s reputation.

The defence then makes the claim that “no one is entitled to a better reputation than he actually has” and “that the defendant has no reputation that a court of law should protect”.

The defence avers that Mr Ruto’s reputation is the one he has created in his public life over the years, and then proceeds to describe that reputation under nine headings.

These include the fact that Mr Ruto was charged before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes committed during the 2007/2008 post-election violence.

The case in The Hague-based court against Mr Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang was terminated in April this year.

However, Mr Mwangi’s lawyers point out that the ICC found that there was sufficient evidence to establish grounds to believe that Mr Ruto may have been involved in the crimes in question.

They allege that the ICC case ended not because Mr Ruto was acquitted but because of a systematic disappearance of witnesses.

The second ground which the defence says disentitles Mr Ruto to the protection of the court is based on a claim that the Kenya Government has a reputation for extra-judicial executions and Mr Ruto is a senior member of the government.

The defence also alleges that Mr Ruto has been involved in corrupt land deals as a result of which his reputation does not deserve the protection of the court.

They cite a case in which the High Court ordered Mr Ruto to give Mr Adrian Muteshi back his 100 acres of land in Eldoret.

DAMNING STATEMENTS

Another example is the Weston Hotel in Nairobi whose ownership the defence says Mr Ruto has admitted and which is built on land allegedly taken away from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.

There is also an allegation that Mr Ruto was adversely mentioned in the grabbing of land belonging to the Prisons Department in Nairobi and also the land on which Processional Way in Nairobi is located.

Also cited in Mr Mwangi’s filings is a criminal case in which Mr Ruto, as minister for Higher Education, was charged with grabbing Ngong Forest land.

It is claimed that the case only failed because a key witness was compromised by being given a job in the ministry of Agriculture.

The fourth set of reasons why Mr Ruto is not entitled to court protection, according to Mr Mwangi’s lawyers, is that the Deputy President has not taken steps against similar allegations made elsewhere linking him to the death of Mr Juma.

It is claimed that former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo twice made allegations to this effect, first during the requiem Mass for Mr Juma and during his funeral, and that the fact that Mr Ruto has not sued Mr Jirongo means he has acquiesced to these allegations.

Other grounds are an opinion poll which the defence claims showed that the Office of the Deputy President was ranked as the most corrupt in the government; a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers linking Mr Ruto to a maize scandal in 2010, and the fact that the plaintiff calls himself “hustler” — a term that has an unflattering dictionary meaning.

Finally, there is an allegation of an alleged romantic involvement between Mr Ruto and a university student.

Mr Mwangi’s counter-claim is supported by details about his own supposed good reputation, evidenced by the fact that he has been the recipient of more than 20 merit awards and training opportunities.

His lawyers claim that Mr Ruto’s assertion during a television interview last month portrayed Mr Mwangi as “alcohol dependent”.

The fact that Mr Mwangi has brought a counter-claim may have a profound effect on how the proceedings are managed.

Ordinarily, the plaintiff in a suit is keen for a hearing while the defendant might seek to delay proceedings in the hope that the plaintiff will give up and abandon the suit.

Therefore, the initiative for setting a suit down for hearing rests with the plaintiff.

PLAN DESTROYED
Without a counter-claim, Mr Ruto would have been expected to exercise control of the speed at which the suit will move.

The fact that there is a counter-claim means that Mr Mwangi can also legitimately move to set the suit down for a hearing.

Given his busier schedule, and also the fact that the suit is not without possible political implications, Mr Ruto would have wanted a situation where he dictates the pace at which the proceedings will go — speeding things up, or slowing them down, according to where he sees the advantage.

The counter-claim gives equal opportunity to both Mr Mwangi and Mr Ruto to drive the suit.

Mr Mwangi could do so in a manner that hurts Mr Ruto’s interests.

Because the counter-claim is a suit of its own, Mr Ruto will now have to file a response to it before the suit can be ready for a hearing.

Mr Mwangi has provided a list of witnesses in which he has listed himself as the sole defence witness and indicated that other witnesses will be disclosed at the hearing.

In order to prove such an expansive defence, Mr Mwangi will have to rely on a large number of witnesses.

This means that the case is likely to drag out if it goes for hearing.

The defence has made wide-ranging allegations against Mr Ruto covering his entire career in public life.

Whatever else it is, the case begins to look like a trial of Mr Ruto, rather than Mr Mwangi.

By filing a suit against Mr Mwangi, the Deputy President has created a situation where Mr Mwangi is able to bring a counter-claim against him.

Whether relying on legal advice instead of having political considerations especially ahead of an election year in making the decision to sue Mr Mwangi is a matter that will be clear as the case progresses.

{KING Mohammed VI of Morocco is expected to arrive in the country today for a threeday state visit as part of a royal tour aimed at broadening cordial relationships, partnerships and opening up investment opportunities worth about 4tri/-.}

Reports issued by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga, said earlier this week that the king would be accompanied by more than 150 delegates, including government officials, businessmen and members of his family.

“This is the first time for Tanzania to receive a king from any other country. So it will be a visit of its own kind,” the minister pointed out, adding that all preparations for the special visit were on good footing. According to the minister, already about 100 Moroccan officials were in the country for the mission.

During the visit, he said, more than 18 agreements involving different sectors would be signed and witnessed by King Mohammed VI and his host, President John Magufuli.

Apart from holding talks with Dr Magufuli, the king is also expected to meet with Zanzibar President Ali Mohamed Shein.

Dr Mahiga said that it would be a great opportunity for Tanzania and Morocco to strengthen bilateral ties and create opportunities for the people in the two African countries.