Why Is The Country So Lenient to Vandals?

[Omollo]

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Just cross the border to Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia or South Sudan and see the difference. You will know you're out of Kenya because of road signs. Each and every village  you pass will have a sign showing before you enter it and when you have left it. You will at regular intervals know the distance to the next major town. Directions to take will be clearly marked so that you really need not stop to ask anybody for directions or keep staring at the screen of whatever electronic instrument you may need to employ.

In Kenya though the story is different. The road signs put up around the county have been vandalised and sold to scrap metal dealers.

NAIVASHA, KENYA: Over 80 per cent of street lights installed in Naivasha have been vandalised.

The situation has been worsened by the county government's failure to pay pending bills for some of the lights.

As a result, major streets have been plunged into darkness. Most affected by the vandalisation are solar-powered lights as vandals target the solar panels behind them.

In Viwandani estate, none of the solar lights is working while in the neighbouring Lake View ward, only two lights are in use. MCAs from the affected wards are now blaming poor workmanship that has cost the county millions of shillings.

According to Lake View MCA Simon Wanyoike, the vandalism began soon after the solar lights were installed. He blamed the vandalism on a well-organised cartel.

Viwandani MCA Eunice Mureithi admitted that none of the solar-powered security lights strategically placed near homes or government facilities in her ward was working.

[Kadudu]

and we can continue......

"[They] destroyed trees and monkeys' habitats with the selfish intention of creating visibility for the billboard without due regard to the environment," he said.

"The numerous indigenous trees destroyed have a combined centuries' old life - all destroyed in a day to erect a billboard."

Other areas where trees have been cut include King'ara Road, James Gichuru Road and Prof Saitoti Avenue in Westlands.

The rampant tree cutting has led to an online campaign to force the county government to stop it.

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/03/22/kidero-orders-arrest-of-people-cutting-trees-for-billboards_c1529379

[Omollo]

Kadudu

I have always wondered about the laziness exhibited by our law makers. That it is willful has never been in doubt. What I still have to understand is whether it is 1. selfish 2. part of the eating culture 3. Ignorance.

Kenyan laws are 60 years behind reality. The destruction of such trees should have not happened without one facing long prison sentences and fines calculated to bankrupt him and his descendants.

Wherever I look, I find a huge deficit in legislation while a parliament sits for three days a week with long holidays which are often cut short just so that MPs can draw sitting allowances. All parliaments around the world are working around the clock to keep up with technological advances and often end up playing catch up.

I was in Tanzania and spoke to the guys in mobile telephone regulation. They basically proved to me that Tanzania was way ahead of Kenya in mobile telephony. For starters they had brought down the price so anybody can own and use a phone. They achieved this through strict application of the law and regulations. In mobile money they laughed at Safaricom sending money to TZ when it could not send to Kenyan mobile companies in a way that does not create problems for the receiving companies.

However allowed Safaricom to send money abroad before it allows money exchange between local networks is part of this problem. However parliament could have long got rid of this instead of allowing Ndemo to get a post dated bribe from safaricom.

PS: I predicted that Ndemo would eventually work for Safaricom years before it happened.

[Omollo]

Driving on a road in Central Region a few months ago, I hit a police roadblock. They claimed I was driving too fast. The speed was , well , rather high. They claimed it was a fifty Km zone. I did not recall any such sign. So I demanded that they show me the sign. Two got in to my car and we drove back. Well there was no sign. The officer remarked that it was the fifth they were losing to bandits.