Constitution Second Anniversary: What the Media Reported

Below are snippets of what the fourth estate featured to commemorate our constitution's second anniversary;
K24

GBS

Daily Nation

Daily Nation gave prominence to Kofi Annan Statement that he released on the eve this anniversary. His statement noted;

The adoption of the Constitution on 27 August, 2010 was a watershed moment in the history of the country; the product of a decades-long struggle to reform the way in which Kenya is governed. It also marked the most significant milestone in the implementation of the reform agenda of the Coalition Government, which both partners had committed themselves to when the National Accord was signed in early 2008.

Kofi Annan's statement also goes ahead to note the missing gaps that we should have implemented at this junction.

There are still some gaps in key areas of constitutional implementation. These include the areas of police reform, in particular the creation of the National Police Service Commission and the appointment of the Inspector-General of Police; and the conclusion of the process to appoint commissioners to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. It is also critical that the issue of gender representation within the National Assembly receives the attention it deserves and is authoritatively concluded before it affects the electoral preparedness timetable. We are confident, however, that these and other outstanding tasks will be completed.

However, he does NOT point out some of the outstanding issues which they pointed out rightly after 2007/8 disputed polls 'famously referred to as Agenda 4' which in my opinion are the reason we still not out of the woods yet. Some of this are; 

1. Unemployment, particularly among the youth
2. Land reform
3. Poverty,inequality and regional imbalances

As we go ahead we hope the other items below will be addressed before the March 2013 poll

1. Institutional reform: The Police
2. Institutional reform: The Civil Service
3. Institutional reform: The Parliament
4. Consolidating National Cohesion and Unity
5. Transparency, accountability, impunity

My eye catching event of this day is when the Prime Minister Raila Odinga led the second liberation brigade to Nyayo House [former torture chambers under Moi’s government].

The PM with other 2nd Liberation Fighters. Source PMPS

However, the sad thing to note is that on this day we had a daylight assassination in Mombasa which has left the coast province reeling with violence

Recommended

Watch Mutahi Ngunyi on the bench as he gives his views;

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Political Cafe (Sarova II) On Harmonized Draft Constitution on 08/12/2009

Youth Agenda Organized another session of Political Cafe on 8/12/09 to discuss the harmonized draft constitution (HDC) so as to come up with a memorandum to present to the committee of experts on the views of the youth who participate in youth agenda forums.
This is what I would refer to as Sarova II and it was organized because it was felt Sarova I did not exhaust the issues at hand to be discussed. Therefore, this cafe was convened from 1300hrs and took the better part of the afternoon.
The agenda of the cafe was to validate the recommendations of the previous cafe (Sarova I) and to discuss on the following chapters;
• Judiciary (Lead by Priscilla Nyokabi)
• Public Finance (Lead by John Mutua)
Priscilla Nyokabi from Kituo cha Sheria and John Mutua from Institute of Economic affairs was at hand to assist us run through these chapters. This is after they gave brief presentations.

Judiciary
A suggestion of pegging a certain percentage of our revenue (GDP) to be allocated to judiciary was raised.
The issue of structure of courts was queried especially Court of Appeal and Constitution Court. It was in our opinion that the HDC has no clear cut distinction as to which court is superior of the two.
Some members had problems with Kadhi's courts. However, I am of the opinion that they should be entrenched in the constitution as is the case in HDC. However, requirements of a degree either in law or Islamic studies should be added to strengthen them.

Public Finance
John Mutua advised us that one of the things we need look at when considering this chapter is aspect of cost benefit analysis. That would be when we decide to get rid of our current structure and come up with 74 counties as proposed in the HDC.
Although, no one has come up with the cost figures of devolved government as proposed in the HDC. In my view there is need to do this so as to debate this chapter with facts. We could borrow from what the US is doing when they are overhauling their health care system. They work with figures.

Political Café: Deliberations on harmonized draft constitution under the auspices of Youth Agenda

I had the pleasure of attending the above forum to discuss the harmonized draft constitution. From my perspective, it was a meaningful endeavor to spend my Monday evening discussing the harmonized draft constitution in the presence of one member of committee of expert Bobby M. Mkangi (Whom I must thank for being so nice as to give me his copy of the preliminary report), Hon C. Mbarire (My M.P., I must point out that it was something to be proud. It is not everyday our legislatures do anything to write home about!), Cyprian Nyamwamu, Kepta Ombati, Pastor Gowi, Rita Shiko, Collins Otieno and Nemuel Machuki.
The deliberations were to look at what the harmonized draft constitution holds for the youth but it was not exclusively about youth interests as six major points of the harmonized draft constitution we discussed. Among this were;
• Executive
• Legislature
• Land
• Bill of rights
• Decentralization

This months political cafe was full house given the big shots who attended this months meeting. Thus, I was able to gain lots of insights and now am reading the draft constitution in a better informed position.
For those not in the know the political cafe is organized by Youth Agenda monthly (subject to availability of funding) and in most cases it is held at Goethe Institute because one of the major sponsors is PLDP (Germans). It seeks to discuss youth issues in an informal forum come up with recommendations to this issues.
Am informed the deliberations of this forum will be published in the dallies in the course of this week. We can all look forward to see the final draft recommendations that we adopted at Sarova PanAfric