Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Judicary, the Police and Gilbert Deya




In the course of the week, Juja MP Hon. William Kabogo is said to have obtained Court orders barring the police from arresting him. The orders, issued by Hon. Justice Ojwang, also issued anticipatory bail to the Honourable MP.

Most surprisingly, the said MP has now been arrested, and has been behind bars.

Yesterday, the High Court is said to have issued Orders directing that the MP be produced in Court for the State to show cause why he should not be released.

It has also been reported in the Pressthat the Commissioner for Police Gen. Ali has been summoned before the High Court in the same matter.

If all the above goings on be true, then it is a sad day for this country, that the State would go ahead to arrest a sitting MP when a Court of law has ordered otherwise.

Perhaps this is evidence on the alleged tussle between Hon. John Michuki, Minister for the time being in charge of Internal Security, and the Judiciary.

Recently, the said Minister criticised the judiciary for releasing criminals who should be behind bars.

The Chief Justice then came out to state that the burden is on the state to ensure that cases are properly investigated.

Clearly, a most disconcerting situation.

Meanwhile, Mary Deya, the wife of London based televangelist Gilbert Deya, was yesterday found guilty of stealing an un-named child, previously purported to be a miracle baby. Hopefully, this extortion saga from women who have not as yet given birth, shall be brought to an end.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Lessons from South Africa - customs control, efficiency




Over the next few blogs, I shall be looking at some recent experiences that I had when I went to South Africa for the first time.

Please feel free to add onto any similar experiences you may have to share.

Naturally, I ( I was travelling with my wife, I did not want any chances of hitting it off with any South African beauties) flew Kenya Airways down South (South African Airways was actually a little cheaper, but KQ it must be) , it was a 767 flight, quite uneventful, but no entertainment at all provided for the almost 4 hour flight.

Got to Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg (called Jossy by the locals).

It was hot...hotter than Nairobi at that moment anyway.

Immediately I began to see white South Africans working at the airport....

Anyways, on board the flight, we had filled out a customs form which directed you to move to the green customs area if you had nothing to declare...

We got our visas stamped, they have many many officers serving various categories, eg South Africans, Comesa, Other Africa, other countries, etc...so there were hardly any queues.

A big lesson for Kenya which has only two (three if you are lucky) officers, so invariably a queue always forms at the customs desks.

Very efficiently, we obtained our backage and moved to the green customs area.

Most surprisingly, there was only one customs guy, and he merely picked our card, and we moved out into the receiving area of the airport where our contact was waiting to pick us up.
No questions asked!!! What a nice surprise.

This of course is contrary to our JKIA where some very rude customs officers will grill you, make you open your bags to see what you are carrying, seek a bribe if you are carrying stuff you should be paying duty on, etc..but the worst is the rudeness, absolutely no courtesy with our customs officers..

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Kenya Airways disaster in Cameroon - simple questions


The last few days have been agonizing for everyone but in particular family, colleagues and friends of victims of the unfortunate Kenya Airways crash in Cameroon.

But some questions must be put to KQ and to Boeing, the manufacturers of the aircraft, as follows:

1) The emergency transponder did not work as it should. It stopped functioning while it should have continued to function for a period of not less than 48 hours. Does KQ regularly check that all their aircraft have such devices, and that they are in perfect working order?

2) It has been reported that Cameroon's Douala airprot may not have all the required equipment necessary to operate as an international airport including proper radar facilities. There must be some truth in this statement because the aircraft was eventually discovered only 20kms from the airport, surely, surely, the control tower should have seen it returning via radar or other suitable manner!!! This would have avoided search parties moving 100 kms away looking for the airplane!!

3) If the statement in 2) above is correct, why would Kenya Airways be operating flights to Cameroon?
4) Does KQ provide parachutes for all persons in the aircraft? Could one have opted to jump out of the plane in full flight when the crash became imminent?
Our greatest sympathies to all!