#FRONTROW: To the 11th Parliament I say, good riddance!

After spending too much time doing too little, the 11th Parliament ended its run on Thursday with a shamelessly poorly attended sitting, an ironically fitting ending to a shameful tenure. They passed 180 laws and left another 49 in the pipeline but couldn’t be bothered to enact the truly important legislation, or even pretend to act honourably.

“Indeed, this Parliament will go down in history for performing its legislative role exceptionally well,” said National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi in one last alternative fact.

“When the history of this Parliament is written, I would like it to be remembered for its legislative footprints in the sands of time,” added his Majority Leader, Aden Duale, a man whose refusal to acknowledge inconvenient truths is already well established.

We all remember how this crop of parliamentarians increased their salaries,  just like their predecessors. Despite protests and muted intervention by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, they bulldozed a doubling of the Sh535,000 monthly pay to become some of the highest paid lawmakers in the world. In a country with some of the poorest people and hovering near the worst inequality globally, this unconscionable greed should have embarrassed even the least self-aware of people. With that move, they cemented the dubious tradition that an election to the House is a ticket to instant, life-long riches. If you see current aspirants spending more in campaigns than they stand to make in five years combined, you should be wary of the monkey business they will be up to if they win.

“There is no member here who can claim that he has not eaten anything, we need to be honest,” Sirisia MP John Waluke told NTV’s Andrew Ochieng’ last week. “They give at least Sh100,000 to each member or Sh200,000; it depends. There is nobody who can refuse money, it’s only God. If I’m given free money, why should I refuse?” This candid confession is problematic on so many levels for a leader that I won’t even attempt to unpack it. Corruption and cash-for-votes scandals have long been rumoured to be commonplace within the halls of the August house but never has someone been so brazenly unapologetic about it. Cabinet secretaries, heads of parastatals and other interested parties routinely bribe MPs and senators to drop investigations, change recommendations of reports or generally influence outcomes of parliamentary activity. It must be nice to wield that sort of power.

FORGING DOCUMENTS

A firm in which Waluke is a director was accused of forging documents to demand Sh200 million from the National Cereals and Produce Board. His colleagues demanded Sh56 million and he openly admits that he gave Sh5 million, which they considered too little. In March 2015, several members of the Agriculture Committee accused their colleagues of having been paid off to alter their findings on Mumias Sugar to exonerate the culprits. Members of the powerful Public Accounts Committee are also alleged to have received inappropriate favours in Hyderabad, India, as well as at a Nairobi hotel where a senior government official handed out large sums of cash to be absolved of blame in the misuse of Sh2.9 billion by the Office of the President, no less.

That Kenyan legislators are called honourable is something of a running joke because they exemplify the exact opposite, but never before has the integrity of our elected leaders been up for sale for such pitiable amounts. That is partly the fault of the voters who insist on electing men and women of such low standing that they wouldn’t ordinarily trust them to run the local cattle dip. When they arrive in our nation’s capital, they then set off a petty turf war between the National Assembly and the Senate that benefits precisely no one but consume the nation’s attention with third-rate arguments over it.

When the important work of law-making and speaking for the millions of people they are supposed to represent comes up, these bands of misfits are nowhere to be found. The number of times the two houses suffered quorum hitches are too many to count but it shows their contemptuous attitude to their employers - the long-suffering people of this republic. An average MP is expected to have spoken about 500 times on the floor of the House but some, like Kisii MP Mary Sally Keraa, contributed only 16 times, or Daniel Wanyama Sitati of Webuye West’s 23 times.  As soon as a foreign trip came up, they all flocked to it, collected per diems several times larger than the national annual average income and lived it up on our dime. Despite the self-congratulatory assessments on the last day of the 11th Parliament, that is the true legacy of this out-of-touch, deluded and disrespectful people we had the great misfortune of representing us. Good riddance!

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America denies granny, 90, visa

“I’m sorry, you’re not a qualified applicant at this time. Thank you for coming in today.”

That’s what they tell you at the US Embassy when they deny you a visa. If you try to explain your case after that statement, there is a canned response as well. “Sorry, this is no negotiation.”

I sat uncomfortably through countless such conversations last year when I applied for my current visa. Little did I know that the same fate would befall my 90-year-old grandmother like it did last week.

“Afisaa amesema hujafaulu’ (the officer says you were not successful), she was told through a translator. The said officer had not asked her a single question. In the pink slip that is supposed to explain possible reasons for denial, it claimed that she had no “strong ties” to Kenya. This is a woman who raised no fewer than 11 children and has more than 50 grandchildren who still live in this country. In perfect health, she still lives in the same home she was married into when she was just a teenager. We have never convinced her to be away for no more than a couple of days yet the Americans think she might disappear forever in those United States?

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On the move with Macron’s moment

The man of the moment on the international stage is new French president Emmanuel Macron. Over the week I spent in the European country early this month, many Frenchmen seemed genuinely proud of their new leader and wanted to know what we in the rest of the world thought of him.

“French President Emmanuel Macron won a large majority in the lower house of parliament on Sunday, freeing his hand to implement far-reaching reforms,” reported Politico. The man’s sense of purpose, charm and youthfulness are all giving off some serious Obama-style memories. Not to mention that he’s got an Internet-breaking bromance going with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and he has embraced scientists working on climate change when Donald Trump rejects them.

Winning elections as well as hearts and minds is one thing but the true test for the 39-year-old will be governing in the months and years ahead.

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FEEDBACK: On why rich Kenyans should help start-ups

Larry, your column truly spoke to me. Unemployment among the youth is  high and rising. And it’s not because the labour pool is not full of smart people. It is true that  rich in Kenyans rarely/never invest in start-ups. While this is unfortunate, I can think of a couple of reasons. One of these is the fact that these start-ups hardly ever go to market. They seem to be more interested in winning this award or being recognised in that forum. Investors will always look for returns.

Two, there is this obsession with IT. A tech start-up in Kenya is almost always an IT start-up. There are other branches of technology which your ilk could champion.

Three, IP and copyright protection is a conversation that needs to be had. During a Ready Business Club forum on intellectual  property late last year, hosted by Safaricom, Steve Chege, the company’s Corporate Affairs director, acknowledged that the technology on which M-Pesa is built was lying on a shelf in the UK before Safaricom adopted it for the local market. Kenya can take credit for innovating M-Pesa and making it work for our circumstances, but we did not create it. Perhaps more corporates should be out there shopping for patents that would make business sense in an African context. One other thing Africa’s corporates need to do is provide a home for invention and/or innovation by bolstering their R&D departments and adopting a start-up mentality. IBM owns the most patents globally and continues to be a billion-dollar business. There’s no rule book that says you need to be a 20-something drop-out who is cash-strapped to be able to ideate. You can run a successful business and still invest in research.

Jimmy