By Bruno Aero
Kongamano La Mapinduzi wishes to express its position with regard to the prevailing political and economic situation in the country, and by extension – the state of the nation, which, as many of you are aware, is in dire straits.
In June 2024, Kenyans rose up against an anti-people and punitive Finance Bill 2024 that sought to impose taxes on basic commodities such as maize flour, cooking oil, menstrual health products etc. This bill further sought to tax burden the common mwananchi was only defeated through the collective voice and actions of the Kenyan masses who forced the state to withdraw it in its entirety.
Despite the grievances raised in June 2024, the Kenya kwanza government has continued to sneak in sections of that very finance bill into law thereby raising the already high cost of living beyond the reach of most Kenyans. This situation is further compounded by a bleak economic outlook that arises out of government wastage and corruption instead of additional investment in the social sector such as health and school. A clear case in point is the 10 Billion shillings invested by the Kenya-Kwanza government without the approval of the people of Kenya to support Raila Odinga’s campaign for the position of the African Union Chair.
Parliament has been totally captured by the executive and everyday churns out pieces of legislation that are anti-people and anti-life. The land amendment bill 2024, the Seed and Plant act that prohibits farmers from sharing or exchanging seeds, the assembly and demonstration bill and other absurd bills that seek to suppress Kenyans.
The Kenya-Kwanza government also recently introduced the Social Health Insurance Fund(SHIF) to replace the previous public health insurance scheme, the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). Instead of helping to improve the quality of healthcare across the country, SHIF has instead locked out millions of Kenyans from healthcare services such as dialysis, surgery and etc that they were hitherto able to access under the old public health insurance scheme. SHIF remains a poorly-conceived and poorly-executed idea whose only beneficiaries are the billionaire class that already controls the insurance sector, and which now seeks to control the health sector.
In 2024, Kenyans have witnessed an alarming increase in the number of abductions and enforced disappearances since the wave of protests. Abduction squads driving in unmarked Subaru cars, alleged to be under NIS and answerable only to statehouse are prowling the country implementing the law of the jungle in an attempt to reset the country to the lawlessness we had of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
On 12th July 2024, Kenyans woke up to shocking news of bodies dumped in a quarry few meters from Kware Police Station in Mukuru slums. The recently launched “#KwareTheAftermath Report by the Mukuru Community Justice Center has pointed out the numerous failures from the government to local institutions, including the religious institutions which have failed to support the families of victims of this great tragedy (add femicide – there has been 97 documented cases of femicide in the past three months.)
The political elite, meanwhile, have coalesced under a ‘broad-based’ government that only serves their self-seeking interests. Instead of focussing their efforts towards bettering the material conditions and lived realities of Kenyans, they have focussed their attention on settling political scores that are of no significant value to the Kenyan masses. The politicians are also currently engaged in a process of ethnic balkanization that seeks to reverse the gains made by the June protests that were largely tribeless. The current crop of leaders in Kenya remains a great social cancer and a stumbling block to the process of nation-building.
Kenyans must smell the coffee and know that they are on their own. That this country can only change for the better if they come together to speak truth to power, and especially if they join progressive organizations such as Kongamano la Mapinduzi.
Finally, as it stands today, we have a parliament that does not represent or serve the people who elected them as envisioned in the Constitution. It has been completely captured and become a rubber stamp for the executive. This must not continue unchallenged. Kenyans must as a matter of life and death rethink representation especially when it comes to the current national assembly, which needs to be dissolved for not meeting the ⅔ gender, meaning this parliament is unconstitutionally constituted.