W2B011K
Insight on joblessness
Unemployment
Nearly seven million Kenyans will be jobless by the turn of the century unless the growth of the labour force is checked. Unemployment is undesirable. It has bad effects on an individual, not to mention the community.
Joblessness leads to hunger and poverty. Some of the jobless may resort to such social evils as prostitution, drug abuse, <-/thuggery> and other criminal activities.
Kenya, like any other developing country, suffers from the problem of unemployment and underemployment.
Unemployment is a state of not being able to have a source of income despite one's skills. The problem is basically one of lack of access to income-earning opportunities.
It follows that many people who are otherwise considered to be employed, but whose productivity, output and incomes are unacceptably low, should in fact be considered as unemployed.
Every year, more than 600,000 Kenyans enter the labour market. Over 90 per cent of these are young school leavers and college graduates of ages 15 to 20. Only 10 per cent of these get the 63,000 jobs created each year in the modern wage sector.
Kenya's total labour force is approaching ten million. About 1.4 million are employed in the wage sector. Manufacturing absorbs over 290,000 and services about 670,000. The balance from the 1.4 million is absorbed in construction and other specialised sectors.
Three quarters of the 10 million labour force work in the rural non-wage sector mostly as peasant farmers. This is why agriculture is considered the most important employer.
A smaller number about 350,000 is employed in small enterprises, while urban informal (<ea/>jua <ea/>kali) employs about 450,000 workers. Another 50,000 are "unpaid" family workers.
Official statistics on Kenya's unemployment or underemployment are not published but some economists say that the unemployment rate ranges between 15 and 20 per cent. If those underemployed are included then this rate could be 30 per cent. These percentages are, however, disputed by the treasury which holds a conservative 12 per cent unemployed rate figure.
The rate at which jobs are being created continues to lag behind fast expanding labour force. The private sector which employs slightly under half of total modern wages sector workers has in the past five years experienced a slow growth of about three per cent compared to the public sector's 42 per cent.
The most promising sector is self employment including informal sector activities and small enterprises especially for professional young graduates. Self employment and informal sector employment has been expanding at a rate of over 10 per cent annually in the last five years. Since the government will not be a major source of employment creation because of budgetary constraints, it is expected that small-scale enterprises owned by either professionals (lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc.) or <ea/>jua <ea/>kali artisans will be the major source of employment.
But recent events by local government in particular the City Commission have cast doubts about the sector's (<ea/>jua <ea/>kali) continued expansion.
The eviction of hawkers from their places of work, demolition of kiosks in the last several months have left Kenyans wondering what the Commission was up to.
Informal sectors are basically non-structural <-_economic><+_economy> oriented in nature, characterised by low capitalisation, simple technology, labour intensive  and availability of raw materials.
Some <-_example><+_examples> of these are maize roasters, shoe shiners, kiosks wood-carvings and many others which can be seen as valuable modes of helping to reduce the hazards of increased unemployment.
There are 1,613,000 Kenyans in wage employment in the country and by the year 2000, Kenya's modern wage employment will have increased to between 2,060,000 and 2,330,000.
The number of people in the urban informal sector will rise to between 350,000 and 400,000 and rural non-farm activities will rise between 2,250,000 and 2,840,000.
The above figures show that unemployment in the country has reached alarming proportions. The ranks of the unemployed swell every year as students leave schools and universities.
Under-employment is a permanent characteristic of Africa while the African university "has become a factory for turning out skills which are not needed by employers."
Today, paper qualifications in the form of a degree, a diploma or a certificate are not tickets to jobs.
The first comprehensive study of Kenya's unemployment problem was carried out in 1970 by a select committee of the National Assembly. Two years' later, the problem was given further scrutiny by the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) mission to Kenya.
In 1983 President Moi appointed a Presidential Committee on Unemployment under the chairmanship of Mr Maina Wanjigi. Following the presentation of the report, the government published Sessional Paper No. 2 of 1985 on unemployment.
The Wanjigi committee was appointed to examine the problem of unemployment and recommend both short and long-term strategies for its alleviation.
Specifically the committee was required to consider and recommend measures which would stimulate growth both in public and private sectors, disperse employment opportunities to areas of greatest need, promote labour-intensive methods of production.
Other areas the committee was expected to look into was the reduction of the labour force and its migration to urban areas, the need to improve the relevance of training and education with a view to alleviating the school-leaver problem.
The committee was further required to examine the probabilities of initiating and expanding programmes with a high employment content and at low cost and to suggest measures which would enhance the contribution of public and private sector institutions to employment creation.
The committee completed its work and presented its report to President Moi in May 1983.
If Kenya's employment situation is to be stabilised, the economy needs at present to <orth>Create about 1,000 new jobs every day. That means 330,000 jobs per year.
By the end of this century it will required  approximately 2,000 new jobs per day to achieve this objective.
Mr Tom Owuor, the executive director of the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), said in a recent interview that unemployment was a serious problem in the country.
The FKE, he observed, had been trying to sensitise its members on the need to create more employment.
"We advise and try to assist our members when they have problems which are likely going to lead to reduction in employment but ultimately, employment is a function of the performance of the economy," said Mr Owuor.
If the economy performs well, the FKE boss stated, then you have a higher growth in employment," but if the economy is not performing well, then there is naturally no way in which you can create employment." 
What the government is doing
The government has embarked on major programmes aimed at stimulating employment outside the sluggish modern wage sector. It has promised to change its negative attitude and neglect in exploiting the potential of the small-scale and informal sector enterprises. It has shown national commitments to policies that will permit rapid expansion of small-scale and informal sector employment. The current 1989-93 Development Plan sets a five-year goal of creating the million jobs in the informal sector. This is quite ambitious considering the immense impediments that this sector faces.
One of the problems that self-employed workers cite is lack of positive recognition by the government. This is evident for example in the legal fraternity because of conflict of interests. The relations between this group and the government have been marred by negative pronouncements especially from senior government officials.
Whereas the relationship has radically changed for informal sector (<ea/>jua <ea/>kali) artisans, the problem remains for professionals. The conflict between the government and self-employers is on the belief held by the government that this group has little regard for the poor.
For example private land surveyors are often accused of being unnecessary middlemen who exploit the poor.
Long term credit is often not available to self-employed people, a matter which makes them rely heavily on meagre personal savings. In this respect, young graduates are disadvantaged. They say most of the credit institutions in the country do not have loan schemes for professionals. Lack of finance is notoriously one of the main reasons for the lack of expansion of the small business.
A recent move by Pan African Bank to provide credit to fresh graduates for starting business is yet to be emulated by most other banks. Generally, private banks shy away from financing risky ventures with little collateral.
The KCB has however joined the Pan African Bank providing such credit. 
Factors influencing employment
Factors influencing employment levels also affect the occupational structure. New technology and new services create a need for specialists skilled in the use of complex delivery systems. Fewer people are needed for routine clerical processes, but more are in demand for designing and maintaining control systems and for sales and marketing.
Another factor is the weakening of  time-honoured paternalistic management culture. The concept of lifetime employment is giving place to one based on merit and performance.
In terms of wages and working conditions, many companies, multinationals in particular, are good employers and are likely to remain so. While generous fringe benefits go mainly to career professionals, it remains true that employers generally get better deals than those in public services and public companies.
Again big companies tend to limit themselves to complying with legal or contractual obligations. They tend to prefer personnel policies based more on direct dealings with individual employees and selective promotion procedures linked to performance rather than collective negotiations.
In quite a number of cases, collective agreements are concluded mainly on the introduction of new technology and include measures to avoid redundancies (a good example being the Standard Bank).
Employers should however take into consideration the effects of structural adjustment and technological changes on staff and to negotiate solutions . That way employees will not continue feeling that their job security is at stake.
In sessional paper No 2 of 1985, the government stated its policy on employment creation. The essence of this policy is that employment is valued as a means of participating in economic growth in a dignified and productive way. The employment problem must be seen as an issue of increasing productivity - and hence the incomes of all workers.
So many people, so few jobs!
There is no doubt that Kenya is in the middle of  unemployment crisis. Thousands of young people from university graduates to Standard Eight leavers are out there in the streets looking for hard-to-find jobs. And those already in employment have no guarantee of their jobs' security.
As the economy stagnates and business activity shrinks, many organisations are being forced to slash their budgets. That further means that services are being trimmed to a minimum. High jobless rates cut right across the job market - from the unskilled, the untrained to the skilled and even university trained.
The best example is that of veterinary medicine graduates. Those who graduated in 1989 for instance, were jobless for close to a year and it was not until the Presidential intervention that they were absorbed into the civil <-/servive>. Those who graduated a year <-/latter> are still looking for jobs. Others have taken what is available irrespective of its relevance to their area of specialisation at the university.
No point
What all this amounts to is that there has either been no manpower planning strategy or it has been interfered with to the extent that it has no effect. The latter, we believe, has been the case.
There is no point in mass producing thousands of university graduates who will not get jobs. A parent struggles to educate his child because he knows that education will give him opportunities. Those who go for university education do it with the knowledge that they, after graduating, will have many opportunities open to them.
We dare say however that our legislators have not properly addressed the challenges of offering opportunities to not only a good number of university-trained Kenyans but also to those with middle level education such as "O" and "A" level graduates.
Our legislators have been paying lip-service to fiscal responsibility and elimination of waste in public service and public companies. They have condoned needless spending by politically appointed executives. 
W2B012K
No end in sight to suffering
In Nairobi and many other cities of the world, children suffer neglect in the streets and many of them turn to prostitution and drug abuse, while others are subjected to forced labour. This is happening decades after the UN declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1924 and the Universal Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1959.
After being adopted by a number of countries, the conventions led to the setting of universal standards to safeguard children's rights.
The international community under the auspices of the United Nations and its multilateral associates being aware of the abuse of children's-rights, thought of seeking global solutions to the problems faced by the unheard, ignorant and helpless lot.
Although adopted, the convention has, however, proved difficult to implement as the rules guarding it must go hand in hand with domestic laws and the well-being of individual countries.
Thus, children still continue to suffer exploitation and neglect. At a recent world summit for children in New York, Unicef reported that measles, whooping cough and tetanus, all of which can be prevented by inexpensive jabs kill 8,000 children everyday, diarrhoea and dehydration kill 7,000 children daily while pneumonia, which can be treated by low cost antibiotics kills more than 6,000 children.
Cases of child prostitution, violence against children, incest and other forms of sexual <-_abuses><+_abuse> have become prevalent in Europe with children aged between five and 12 years involved in prostitution. In the tourism industry, these children are forced to work by their pimps who in search of greater profits subject them to beatings to force them to "entertain" their rich foreign clients.
Thousands of children have been deprived of their rights to education and development and condemned to inhuman conditions which sap their youthful energy. Due to poverty, these children work long hours to make a living, usually in polluted environments which not only retards their physical development but also reduces their lifespans.
But these are just a few of the abuses children are subjected to by adults. And Kenya is not an exception.
Decades after it adopted the Geneva Convention, thousands of innocent children continue to suffer as a result of adverse economic performance and demographic changes which have greatly undermined their well being.
Economic constraints have forced the Government to reduce its expenditure on development of social services and infrastructure with the quality of services in existing public health and educational institutions also declining. Poor families, unable to afford these services in the private sector have been the most affected.
A country's inability to look after the welfare of children viewed against the context of the International Convention on the Rights of Child is a reflection of the economic constraints.
If Kenya is to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it must go further and enact a law to ensure effective implementation, including strengthening of the linkage between programmes to improve the chances of survival and development and legal arrangements for the protection of children's rights.
But the deprivation of children's rights is a major problem that the Kenya Government is trying to address itself to.
A Kenyan woman who spends most of her life trying to protect the rights of the child both in Kenya and internationally, Ms Joyce Ombima, who is also the executive chairman of the Child Welfare Society of Kenya, last week recounted to the Sunday Times some of the horrors some Kenyan children undergo.
She warned that unless checked, the repercussions of child abuse will not be confined to the immediate families but will have longer term effects on the society.
"Perpetuation of poverty and poor economic growth will include the fuelling of high birth rates, environmental pressures and the seeding of almost insoluble future problems including political and social turmoil, if nothing is done to improve the lives of the poor," she said.
"The needs of our children <-_calls><+_call> for our immediate attention and must not be left for tomorrow, if we are to <-/route> out the main causes of child sufferings," she said.
Kenya may soon join other nations like the Philippines and South America which are leading in incidents of child abuse.
Ms Umbima's efforts have been recognised by international child welfare organisations. She is the African representative to IFCO, an organisation running a network of foster care projects. She is also a founder member of the international forum for child welfare as well as founder member of the National Alliance for Advocacy on Children's Rights in Kenya.
Mrs Umbima believes that so long as the causes of poverty are not rooted out by Kenyans themselves, children will continue to suffer.
We all talk about children and want to be seen to care for them, organisations are formed for the benefit of children, funds are raised for projects said to be in aid of the needy children, from posters and advertisements, we meet the eyes of tormented children appealing for help, but this is not charity, what is important is recognising their rights and that needs more than sympathy, she says.
Mrs Umbima, in a moving speech on the rights of the child during a Young Women Christians Association annual council meeting at YMCA headquarters, challenged women to come out and fight for the rights of their children.
Sentimentality when dealing with children's issues has been a great obstacle, she said. It has led to unfortunate politicisation of their plight. Our first task should be to campaign for children's rights and to make them our personal responsibility and put them on our priority agenda, she said.
The other <-_problems><+_problem> affecting Kenyan children, she said, is environmental, abuse which has been a threat to their lives. Our future, she says, is threatened by our short sightedness which stops us from protecting the environment.
Without children, what does the future hold? She posed. Children are a common <-_features><+_feature>, children's rights are human rights, she says adding that to give Kenyan children their rights was everyone's responsibility.
On labour exploitation, she says, it has been evident that children between the ages of eight and 14 have been sent to work in coffee, pyrethrum, tea and sisal plantations. Other children work as <ea/>ayahs, touts and even sell <ea/>miraa.
A study conducted by members of the faculty of law and medicine at the University of Nairobi in 1981 revealed that children were mainly exploited in domestic and agricultural sectors. They found out from the nine districts they covered, that over 500 children worked as labourers with no protection against abuse. This number is expected to have shot up by now. Kiambu District was leading in such incidents.
The findings indicated that children working for wages were psychologically affected hence more prone to mental disorders than other children. They are also engaged in <-/deliquent> acts but overall findings showed that the exploitation is graver for children working as domestic hands, than in agricultural sector.
Mrs Umbima says children working in tea and coffee plantations <-/expecially> in Kiambu are in most danger as they are not protected against pesticide poisoning.
These chemicals slowly kill our children while their inability to cope up  with the heavy work due to their tender ages and efforts to feed their families or themselves put heavy burdens on their shoulders, she says.
Child workers <-_needs><+_need> as much protection as their adult counterparts but it is unfortunate that only those in the formal sector have laws to protect them, she said.
On sexual exploitation, Mrs Umbima called for a serious address of the issue before the situation got out of hand. Describing it as a form of child abuse where an adult knowingly commits sexual acts with a child or cases, where adults fail to guide children on sex related issues, she added that children are also abused sexually when they are exposed to pornographic materials, child-sex tourism, child marriages and sex trafficking. These acts include intercourse, voyeurism, rape, incest, <-/masterbation> and obscene language.
According to a survey done by the Children Welfare Society of Kenya in Mombasa, Malindi, Kilifi, Kiambu and Busia, Mombasa has the highest number of child prostitutes mainly in the tourism industry. Malindi was second with 500 cases, Nairobi 430, Kilifi 300 and Busia 200.
The children of both sexes are as young as 11 years.
In Mombasa, Malindi and Nairobi, the children are either introduced to the prostitution by their parents or are employed by pimps to cater for the needs of the tourist clientele. Boy prostitutes are a common sight in Mombasa and Malindi. Cases of child pornography carried out by rich people in Malindi and Mombasa have also been discovered.
Early marriage, which is another form of child abuse, is prevalent in Kisumu and Kajiado districts. Sixty-one per cent of children of both sexes are forced into early marriage by their parents, Mrs Umbima said.
The Kenya Government is trying to curb the practice by putting administrators on the lookout for such arrangements made between parents and would-be spouses.
Mrs Umbima says a recent study indicates that Nairobi is now leading in child prostitution with 85 per cent, followed by Kiambu 76 per cent, Malindi 72 per cent, Mombasa 57 per cent, Kisumu 39 per cent and Kajiado 27 per cent.
The problem, she said, is threatening to get out of hand as poverty is the main cause of the social ill. "In most cases, it is the children of the poor, prostitutes or those who are adversely exploited that run to prostitution as a means of livelihood," she said.
Abuses within families are even more serious and sterner measures should be taken against the culprits, she said. Projects dealing with fostercare and those advocating for the sexually exploited should be encouraged, she said. The society is trying to start small experimental programmes for young prostitutes to help them generate income. Cases of child prostitution in Kenya, she says, <-_needs><+_need> to be highlighted and she warns: "Do not think that your children are not affected. You could be exploiting your housegirl not knowing that she in turn sexually exploits your little boy at home."
On environmental abuse, she says unplanned families and the subsequent spiralling population deprived children of adequate shelter and sound environment.
Many parents can no longer afford good shelter for their children especially in urban centres thus exposing them to the vagaries of weather, which hinder their right to development, she said.
As the late Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Dr Robert Ouko said when addressing a national conference on promotion and implementation of the United Nations Convention on Children's Right in 1989: "A Child is the father of a man, all adults living today were children not so long ago and the children of today will be adults of tomorrow, it was therefore everyone's responsibility to clothe and educate the children. What will happen to this country tomorrow depends largely on how well we lay a foundation for building a happier Kenya."
Although the government has done a lot in providing affordable education and adequate health facilities which has seen the reduction of child mortality thereby providing Kenyan children with their rights to survival more still needs to be done by parents and the community.
According to Dr Ouko, parents have a clear responsibility to protect educate and guide a child to  the right direction.
Children have a right to grow up in a family, he said, adding that a child can only develop a unique identity in a family set up.
Dr Ouko said, although Kenya welcomed the UN Convention of Rights of the Child, more had still to be done to enlighten the society on children's right.
It is unfortunate that decades after the convention, very few people in Kenya know that children <-_needs><+_need> protection. They have a right to development and survival, name and identity, preservation of this identity, family unification, a right to participate and express their opinions, right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, association, privacy and access to appropriate information among many others.
W2B013K
Alcohol sows discord within families
One of the biggest delusions of alcoholics is that they only hurt themselves. Practical experience shows that nothing could be further from the truth.
The effects of alcoholism on non-drinking members of the family include suffering the shame of seeing their loved one stagger home drunk. The family also suffers the alcoholic's ill humour should the latter come home before having taken enough to knock him out. The process of excessive drinking that leads to alcoholism also drains the family's financial resources, and because of the hardship that results, there is the risk of the family breaking down.
Alcoholism, be it in the husband or wife, is a major cause of child abuse and neglect. As was pointed out in the last article, alcohol reduces the effect of the brain's control <-/centers>, leading to erratic and quarrelsome behaviour. While the couple may be tough enough to fight it out man to woman, children, who are weak, are likely to suffer mutely physical abuse.
But even where physical abuse is not the problem, sustaining an alcoholic lifestyle is such that it exerts a major strain on the financial resources of the family, especially when the alcoholic is the major breadwinner.
The result is that family members suffer different aspects of financial deprivation ranging from inadequate food, clothing, and even inability to pay school fees.
Although the effects of alcoholism are damaging irrespective of which partner is drinking, alcohol abuse by the mother presents its own unique problems.
These problems tend to be more devastating than when it is the father who is an alcoholic. The husband may put up with the drinking a while, but since men are less tolerant than women, the husband soon abandons his wife and children, exposing them to dire financial straits.
It is not surprising that alcoholism should lead to a marriage breakdown. Psychologists theorise that for the alcoholic, the drink takes the place of the marriage partner. The alcoholic's dependence on liquor, it is believed, destroys his or her ability to love another person, on whom they would depend for guidance and support. While alcoholics, like most of us, may have problems which they cannot solve individually, they, unlike most of us who would wish to discuss and share those problems, turn to alcohol as a form of escape.
Recognising the need to share problems, including that of alcoholism, is an important step towards overcoming alcoholism, a topic we will discuss next week in the final article in this series.
No one is in a better position to recognise the damaging effects of alcohol on the family than the alcoholics themselves.
At a gathering of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members, which I had occasion to attend, the alcoholics mentioned disorganisation as one of the problems arising from alcoholism. They also described themselves as being short-tempered, and attributed that to the mood-altering effects of alcohol.
"When you are drunk, many people suffer. A child may fail to go back to school because all the money was drunk," one of the AA members said.
Other effects of alcoholism on the family are more subtle. As already pointed out, physical abuse is common in alcoholic families. Children of alcoholic parents live in a permanent state of fear and anxiety not knowing what to expect when the alcoholic parents come home. A trusting relationship, which is essential for child formation, is replaced by one of distrust.
Similar stress is experienced by the non-drinking partner. As already stated, alcohol replaces the spouse, so to speak. The effect on the non-drinking partner is that he or she suffers feelings of guilt for his or her contribution to the spouse's dependence on alcohol and consequently to the instability of the marriage.
The majority of drinkers in the most societies do so in moderation and for social reasons. In people who drink to escape from boredom, or from anxiety of feelings of inadequacy, drinking becomes uncontrolled, thereby negatively affecting their health, their employment stability, their personal relationships and, ultimately, their families.
The health hazards of excessive drinking were discussed at the beginning of this series. Besides the physical ailments that the alcohol suffers, the able partner suffers as well by having to foot the medical bills arising from the damage caused by alcohol. This means that the sober partner is not only having to cope with less income as the drinker spends all his or her income on drink, but with high medical bills associated with the treatment of delicate organs, notably the brain and the liver.
And what about road accidents arising from excessive drinking?
Driving under the influence of alcohol is a major cause of road accidents that have become so commonplace in Kenya. An alcoholic who drives under the influence of alcohol risks his life, that of his passengers and that of other road users. Whether it is the alcoholic himself or herself who suffers serious physical injuries, or whether such injuries are caused upon  others, The family left behind after death or which has to nurse the permanently disabled is the ultimate sufferer.
Unless the alcoholic is determined to quit drinking and seeks assistance to do so, the alcoholic who lacks adequate financial resources to keep him drunk goes through recurrent withdrawal symptoms. These include feeling sick, weak, anxious, perspiring freely, cramps, vomiting, hallucinations and even delirium. In fact, it is widely believed that alcohol's withdrawal symptoms can be more severe than those of people dependent on narcotics or barbiturates.
The foregoing statements demonstrate just to what extent alcoholism is a problem both to the alcoholic and the family. Financial hardships caused by unemployment or excessive spending on alcohol, loss of friends, domestic violence, and breakdown of marriages are just part of the price that families have to pay for alcoholism in one of the spouses. Is it worth it?
Most alcoholics who have managed to overcome the disease are infinitely grateful for whatever help they got to achieve sobriety. In the next article on this major family problem, we will look into the available options to overcome alcoholism. 
A woman's dignity must not be linked to children
The last article in this series suggested active non-cooperation by women in new reproductive technologies whether such technologies are aimed at the achievement or prevention of pregnancy as the women's only weapon against technological expropriation of their most important attribute.
It is important to state that such non-co-operation need not be reactive against all new reproductive technologies. Indeed, as stated earlier in this series, most reproductive technologies have their positive and negative attributes. embryonic and foetal defects detected <foreign/>in <foreign/>utero can help <-/prospetive> parents seek early medical intervention including corrective surgery that will help the child lead a normal, active, healthy life.
But such early detection can also transform women into murderers of their unborn children if the aim is to destroy rather than treat the defective child. Whatever else one may say about the benefits of genetic screening, the danger of abusing the technology for racist, eugenic and misogynist (woman-hating) reasons exists.
A Swiss neurobiologist, Dr Renate Duelli Klein remarks: "It is a sobering thought to recognise that today, the `breeding programmes' of the Nazi period could be performed with much more technological sophistication ...
And as recent international developments show, racism, eugenics, and misogyny continue to be deeply rooted in our society as we move toward the year 2000."
It is because of this that women ought to refuse to co-operate in reproductive technologies that denigrate their womanhood.
Women, however, cannot refuse to participate in negative reproductive technologies unless they know in advance their dehumanising nature. If women knew in advance that amniocentesis would be used for selective abortion of female foetuses with the possibility of creating an imbalance of sexes, would they have approved the perfection of the technology.
However, advanced knowledge, is impossible to achieve without women's active involvement in technological development. "To place oneself outside of technology, to become hostile to it, is to confine oneself, and transfer the responsibility to others. The cure is knowledge, knowledge that comes from one's own condition. Without increased awareness about the impact of new technology on women's lives, women's concerns cannot be taken seriously," says Loise Walden as quoted in Women and New Technologies: An Organising Manual.
And yet, when it comes to sophisticated new technologies, women - and particularly those in the Third World - are often "the last to know."
"We hear about the possibilities, the dangers, and the popularity of different technologies. But how can we evaluate their potential until we have an opportunity to use and understand them?" the publication asks. The publication is a result of  "Women and New Technologies" meeting, which was held in the Netherlands just over a year ago.
Apart from making a conscious effort to interest young girls in issues relating to science and technology, it is important to create ways and means whereby women can have advanced knowledge of technological innovations that impact on their lives.
According to Dr Klein, such advanced knowledge calls for having, in as many countries as possible, women who collect facts and make them widely available through the mass media. This means translating the mystifying jargon of the scientific literature into a language easily understood.
Even more important, women need to understand the causes of infertility for which they often take blame and then submit to hostile corrective measures.
It is important for women to understand that infertility is fairly common and that male and/or female factors can be responsible. In the United States for instance, it has been determined that between 10 to 15 per cent of couples are infertile. In 35 per cent of these cases, male factors are responsible. In another 35 per cent, female factors are responsible. And in 30 per cent, combined factors are responsible.
An Irish missionary, Dr Leonie McSweeney, who has worked extensively in Nigeria, gives a similar breakdown in her book, Love and Life. The trouble lies with the wife in one-third of the cases, with the husband in another one-third and with both partners in the last one-third, Dr McSweeney, who supports family planning through the Billings Method, says.
Just like the method puts family planning responsibility on both the husband and wife, the Billings Ovulation Method succeeds because each partner presumes that the trouble can be either <-_partners><+_partner's>.
Only when women begin to understand how their bodies work, and why they must not take the full blame in cases of infertility, will they begin to live the dignified lives they ought to live whether they live in a fertile or infertile liaison.
Since this concluding series has been mainly concerned with the problem of infertility, it is important to mention what option there is for infertile couples. For one, it is important to realise that the first person in need of their time and love is the one whom God gave them specially, their spouse - wife or husband. "They should not be too busy to chat to each other frequently and very deliberately set aside time to be with each other, Dr McSweeney says.
If a couple can accept that marriage without a child can be complete, and their lives worthwhile, then they will stop blaming God and resorting to reproductive technologies, whose long-term effects can only undermine the dignity of not only the woman, who risks losing her motherhood role, but the whole human race, which stands to lose tremendously when the spiritual, psychological, and emotional aspects of motherhood are eliminated because reproduction has been transferred to the realm of cold, assembly-lines production. 
W2B014K
Insight on housing crisis
Housing crisis
Glaring contradictions in policy
Against the backdrop of the current housing crisis in Kenya, one would have expected the imperative need to bridge the gap between housing and demand. Unfortunately that is not so, owing mainly to bureaucratic attitudes by civil servants.
This is where improved mobilisation and allocation of existing resources is required if we are to meet the increasing need for housing in Kenya, or more specifically, how the growing need for housing can be satisfied by transforming this need into an effective demand.
An official in a private housing development agency confirmed that in the process towards the mobilisation and allocation of resources, the real mechanism which can best perform the expected transformation would be a greater <-/amphasis> on housing finance, and making that available to as many people in the country as possible.
His mobilisation programme assumes three forms: public sector, formal private sector and the informal private sector developers. In the public sector housing objective, it is the National Housing Corporation (NHC), the Local Government Loans Authority (LGLA), together with the Ministry of Lands and Housing, that are the operative agencies responsible for implementing the national housing programme.
A critical report on the public sector housing policy, made available to the Standard on Sunday by reliable sources, however, contends that in the recent past, there has been a tendency to emphasize mobilisation of additional housing funds - external as well as internal - rather than try and recycle already invested funds, faster and better.
That, according to authorities in property development, is a bad policy.
The report recommends that a process be devised that will speed up loan repayments of publicly financed houses as an appropriate way of recycling funds for more housing development. An illustration: if Shs 500 million loan over 20 years was recycled twice within that period, almost twice as many houses could be built.
Most of the blame is also heaped on a "series of weak links" in the chain of enforcements , particularly by local authorities. This contradiction only makes a strong case for leaving the administration of such loans to ironically, private sector institutions.
It is also argued that housing provisions by the Government from serviced sites to the most expensive houses for civil servants are generally made available for sale or rent at much below market prices.
The difference occasioned, represents a substantial subsidy which, again ironically, is higher, than the more costly accommodation. For instance, the high grade officers are entitled to a high cost house, i.e., one that would fetch rents on the market of between Shs 19,000 and Shs 15,000 per month. The rent chargeable for this kind of <-_houses><+_house> is normally between Shs 380 and Shs 400 per month.
Lower grade officers may occupy houses with a market value of between Shs 5,000 and Shs 7,500 but pay Shs 190 to Shs 200 per month. In percentage terms they are receiving the same subsidy, although not on monetary figures.
The report argues: "The ideal for the civil servants is to own a house,let it to the government, and then be allocated the same self  house. In this case, instead of collecting an owner-occupier house allowance of Shs 6,000 (for higher grades), he now collects Shs 15000 and pays Shs 400. This has always happened among senior officers.
The numerous examples which can be cited of public housing schemes, sold or rented at substantial windfall profits by the original <-/allotees> are Kimathi, Dandora, Umoja and Onyonka estates in Nairobi and the Changamwe civil servants housing quarters in Mombasa.
Because these new beneficiaries are not in a position to re-invest their profit in new housing, the funds they so raise from the substantial rental levy are considered "lost", according to the report.
Moreover, the Government like, any other large employer, has a system of housing allowance and house allocations that is an extremely costly affair. It is a system which not only distorts the housing market, but more importantly, creates an unfair and unmanageable environment on the general national housing policy, the report argues.
It is further contended that if civil servants were paid a unitary salary incorporating housing allowance, it would be possible to mobilise a great part of such salary for new housing projects. Except in cases of residence obligations (hospitals, police posts and defence establishments) publicly owned housing units could be sold to present occupants if they wanted to buy and to others, if they didn't.
This is done extensively elsewhere with the result that huge sums of funds become mobilised for new housing or for other public sector services. The public sector can simply do it, and in turn set an example for the private sector to follow suit.
As if that is not enough, the stark contradictions in the state's housing policy is also best exemplified through the technical monetary chains that have to be met. In Kenya, unfortunately, the housing market is far from being free in its manoeuvres to raise development money. The government, through the Central bank, regulates the price of money directly by directives to banks and building societies.
At the same time, the report continues, the Central bank is also the inspector of financial institutions, a role it is said to have played with much less vigilance than that of trying to enforce an ill-fitting interest rate structure. The result is a long and severe shortage of funds for housing, while non-bank institutions mushroom all over the place.
Some of these finance companies call themselves building societies, but this is more of a cover up for a property development activity. Strictly speaking, the report says, the sprouting of such institutions is in direct contravention of the Building Societies Act, but it was the only way they could make money in housing finance.
We hope there are lessons to be learnt from the agonising experience of yesteryears when recently, eight such financial institutions, masquerading as building societies were placed in receivership. What of the large amounts of <-/monies> belonging to the common man that went missing with their collapse?
Amongst the administrative constraints that require a brief mention here is the selection for and allocation of public sector-sponsored housing projects. If these schemes are meant for those most in need, then there can be no such thing as minimum-income cut-off point. A review of the present selection criterion should address the questions of how those most in need can be identified and best helped. How community participation can be enhanced from the start, through selection procedures, and how funds invested can be utilised much more effectively by the sponsoring agencies. 
Expectations frustrated
Year 2000 is only nine years away. It is the target year when Kenyans were told they would all be decently housed. The truth of the matter is many more will be without anything close to decent shelter as staff writer Bakr Ogle reports.
There is something mystic about the year 2000 now only nine years away. It is the year both national and international organisations have set as a deadline to achieve targets such as provision of clean water, basic education and decent shelter for everybody.
The truth of the matter is that none of these targets - clean and piped water, health for all, housing, literacy, etc will be reached by the year 2000.
On the housing scene, the majority of Kenyans are today without a roof over their heads. Ironically, hundreds of decent houses appear every day on the Standard Digger Classified either for sale or rental. Unfortunately, such houses are far beyond the earning capacity of the middle level income earners in Nairobi, Mombasa and other major towns in the country and definitely to the low-level income earners.
Is it by chance, fate, or destiny that vast majority of our society should be relegated for ever to hovels and dingy accommodation in Mathare and Kibera in Nairobi, or in Kondele in Kisumu?
In the Sunday Times of London recently, there was a news item which to everyone who cares to own a shelter (of course, everyone does), would be forgiven to think that God had finally answered their prayers to own one of their own. The report titled "An Ideal third World Home - For just 100 (Shs 4,600)" talked of possibly the most incongruous matter at a London exhibition on the Kenyan housing situation.
"That a modest dwelling house, consisting of two rooms - which carries along a clever design, <-_an> environment friendly features and use of materials that are plentiful and cheap, was being introduced in Kenya, for just Shs 4,600."
According to the report, local soils are processed and compacted by a levering device to create <-_a> durable and water-resistant blocks which can perform as well as <-_a> higher priced concrete blocks. It was purportedly the brainchild of experts with the Intermediate Technology, Warwickshire, which too, have offices in Nairobi. But when contacted, the local representatives of the Intermediate Technology, whose patron is the Prince of Wales, dismissed the idea as "not true, unworkable, and simply not practical."
Be that as it may, at least, the report gave one indication. That there is a <-/formular> of <-_a> more affordable housing. 
Unfortunately for Kenya, if we were to estimate the need for additional dwelling units required in the country per year <-/upto> "the end of the century," we would arrive at a rather daunting figure. A report by the Sub-Task-Force on Housing Finance in Kenya prepared for the then Ministry of Works, Housing and Physical Planning in November 1987, sums up the estimates of housing needs in Kenya thus.
"Regardless of the method applied and the reliability of the data used, the results are always scaring. If the figures for annual needs are then multiplied by an average cost per unit, we approach astronomical amounts: a total cost of Shs 10.5 billion per one recent estimate (Strmyk and Nankman 1986)".
That amount is enough to depress planners for all. There is to alleviate the acute housing crisis in Kenya . But the same situation excites those who produce building materials, those who build houses and those who have the money to lend. Whilst the common Kenyan income earner embarks on a strenuous struggle to save the little they can with a view to purchase some house, those with money, <-/literaly> cash in on the situation.
I recently posed the question to the Deputy Chief Valuer of the giant Housing Finance Company of Kenya (HFCK), Mr Githugu. His answer was reasonable and interesting by any stretch of imagination: "However amused you are, or would get carried away in the estimate for the need for houses, particularly land services and money, very little happens, unless there is effective demand for the houses themselves," he quipped.
According to him, housing finance has a very decisive role to play in creating the demand. And the equating factor between demand and supply in price.
<-/Nonethless>, the central issue in any housing policy in Kenya, is obviously expected to place stress on whether housing for those in need should be the main pre-occupation. But that is in as much as it is a matter of officialdom. There is no telling here that most of the housing development that takes place in Kenya today is covered by the private sector.
That could be an incidental factor which is responsible for that situation. The Government's own housing development Agencies, through the National Housing Corporation and the Local Government Loans Authority (LGLA), are largely moribund organisations. As a result of the now common parastatal disease of bureaucracy, theft and mismanagement, these two are now reeling under the weight of debt and related constraints. That in effect has reduced the Government to the unfortunate level of being just a spectator in the housing crisis that is slowly engulfing the Kenyan population.
That leaves the arena to the private sector operations. What is their position on affordability, collateral (that is normally a prerequisite in the acquisition of a housing unit), deposits and loan repayment <-/procudures>?
W2B015K
Acute water shortage
Residents have had dry taps for several months
<-/Jerri-cans> have become precious items in Naivasha where almost all residents own a few to survive a water crisis that has gripped the town for over six months.
Much time is wasted as hundreds of men, women and school children embark on a daily and rigorous search for water.
Tractors pulling water tanks, pick-ups filled with drums, donkey-drawn or <ea/>mkokoteni (handcarts) full of <-/jerri-cans> are a common sight in this dusty Rift Valley town.
Women and children, their backs groaning under the weight of water cans and pots have become a permanent feature on the town's streets.
"We have always had water shortages here but the problem worsened in October last year," Aliban Mayore, who works at Maela Lodge, said.
The shortage is as a result of a pump installed at one of the town's two bore-holes breaking down. The pump has gone unrepaired since then.
Residents attributed this neglect to a dispute between the Ministry of Water Development (MWD) who are the water "producers," and the Naivasha Town Council who are the distributors, over who should foot the bill to repair the pump.
A Nation team found Mayore at the town's Karati bore-holes, with four drums of water on a pick-up he had hired for Sh150 for a four-kilometre trip. To meet its daily necessities, his hotel needs two such trips a day.
Recently, Maela Lodge bought a Sh4,000 pump for pumping water into reservoir tanks on the hotel's roof.
Wang'ombe wa Mboi said he required 20 drums for his home, butchery and an on-going construction project every day.
"It's a time-consuming exercise," he said. "I have been in the queue for one hour now. Yet I cannot open the butchery until it is washed," he said during a brief mid-day interview.
There was also Robert Kinyanjui who said he had to temporarily <-/shelf> his other chores to draw water for domestic use. On top of his pick-up were four plastic <-/jerri-cans> and three others belonging to neighbours at Kabati.
The mood at the Karati boreholes was one of apathy. There was chaos as numerous people with vehicles and handcarts queued for water at the only functioning bore-hole. Residents have to do with unpurified water.
"Ever since water taps ran dry, Naivasha people wake up early or leave work and school early to fetch water. In the evenings, the queue stretches beyond our gates," an attendant at the MWD boreholes said.
The other oasis in this "desert" are two bore-holes at the Pan African Vegetable Products Limited. Here, <ea/>wananchi were paying SH1 for a 20 litre <-/jerri-can> of water and Sh10 for a drum of water.
Handcarts and trucks kept moving in and out of the vegetable processing plant.
"We are merely trying to help alleviate the problem," factory manager, Destria Oriaro, said. "But of course we have to charge a token fee to maintain order."
<-/Jerri-can> dealers, hand-cart pushers, pick-up, truck and bore-hole owners are cashing in on the crisis.
Kennedy Waka, who pushes a <ea/>mkokoteni, was at the bore-hole with his two assistants. They had brought 16 <-/jerri-cans> to the factory. He said he was going to sell the water at Sh6 a can in town.
The man, who at other times carries goods from the bus terminal and marketplace, said business is brisk while the crisis lasts. "I expect to do five trips by evening," Waka added.
Pick-up owners are charging an average of Sh130 per trip while tankers are charging Sh700. Some <ea/>matatu operators have switched to the more lucrative trade during off-peak hours.
"I make about Sh100 a trip drawing water for homes," said David Kundai as he loaded containers into his <ea/>matatu.
Sources at the Naivasha Town Council say although water rationing was common in the town for much of the late 1980s, the taps had never remained dry for days as is happening now.
They blame it on the breakdown of the bore-hole pump which is supposed to pump 1,000 cubic metres of water daily.
The only functioning pump produces only 600 cubic metres against the town's estimated consumption of 5,000 cubic metres.
The broken pump and its motor were taken to Nairobi for repairs. But sources said the motor is beyond repair. It needs a replacement which is not available locally.
The bone of contention appears to be who should foot the repair bill - the MWD or the town council.
A senior council official <-/mainained> that the Ministry should meet the repair cost as it "owns" the bore-holes, pumps and main pipes. The council, he said, can only maintain the installations and the water distribution network.
However, a source at the local MWD office who wished not to be named, said the council owed the Ministry over Sh4 million in water bills.
He was of the opinion that the council should meet the cost of replacing the broken installations.
The council says that it has for years maintained the MWD supply facilities. "The main pipes are made of poor PVC material and were planned for a much smaller population. They could not last more than 10 years," J.M: Mwangi, the council's acting building superintendent said.
The official added that due to the overload, the pipes kept on bursting and the council always repaired them.
Other council officials felt that the Ministry should meet the repair cost as the council has already spent a lot maintaining the water system. They claim that the council has been paying for water which the ministry never delivered as it is spilt during the bursts.
Other sources said the row over the repair bill is a tip of the iceberg. They termed the "real war" as being over who should ultimately control Naivasha town's water supply.
But as in the case of the proverbial two "bulls fighting and the grass suffering," it is the common man in the town who is suffering as the dispute rages.
Local health authorities are concerned about possible sanitary hazards.
Recently, the authorities threatened to close down business establishments mainly hotels and butcheries which could not provide acceptable sanitary conditions.
"We do not have slums in Naivasha hence we do not fear cholera, diarrhoea or <-/dysentry> outbreaks," a senior administrator at the Naivasha District Hospital said. But he disclosed that the hospital's health staff has been put on the alert.
The administrator also confirmed that a few public institutions have been temporarily closed with instructions that they introduce appropriate sanitary measures.
James Mahiaini, the manager, La Belle Inn, a leading Naivasha hotel, said he was often forced to close the hotel at 8 p.m. due to water shortage. The hotel spends a lot of money daily fetching water from the bore-holes at the Manera Estate.
A notice in the hotel rooms reads: "There is an acute shortage of water in Naivasha. In case there is no water, do not flush the toilet. Use the water in the bucket in front of you."
The manager quipped: "At this rate, we might soon be putting up another notice saying: Save water, bathe with a friend."
Naivasha, which is located in a fairly dry zone with few permanent rivers, relies mainly on underground water. The waters of Lake Naivasha are mainly used for irrigation.
Fortunately, the water table is reasonably close to the surface, says T.G. Kigori who has been drilling water in the region.
Many farm, hotel and factory owners have sunk private bore-holes.
Malewa river, currently being harnessed to supply water to Gilgil, Nakuru and adjacent areas may not benefit residents of Naivasha until the proposed phase two of the Greater Nakuru Water Project is operational. 
The over-utilised Karati river, which like Malewa, originates from the Aberdare ranges, dries up before reaching Naivasha town.
This is what prompted the Ministry of Public Works to develop the bore-holes at Karati n the late 1970s. The bore-hole project had the capacity for future expansion as the town's population increased. This has not happened although the population has more than doubled.
Of the four bore-holes initially sank at Karati, one serves Naivasha Maximum Prison, while the other three are supposed to serve the town.
For a few years, all was well with the water supply until sometime in the early 1980s when a pump for the major bore-hole broke down. It used to pump 1,800 cubic metres of water daily. Water has been rationed ever since.
"We would daily supply the commercial sector during daytime, fill up the town's reservoir tanks at night, and on other nights, supply the residential areas," says the Naivasha Town Council water foreman, Joseph Wahome.
The other one which was pumping about 1,000 cubic metres of water daily, broke down last October triggering the current crisis.
When operated for 18 hours a day, the pump gets over-worked and its chances of breaking down are increased.
Since the crisis began, the council has <-_sank><+_sunk> two bore-holes at Kabati. One of them, although producing only 10 cubic metres an hour, is already supplying Kabati and the adjacent Naivasha Mixed School. The school previously spent Sh600 daily fuelling the council's water tank.
The two bore-holes are among 12 sank by the Nakuru Catholic Diocese in the area since last July.
The diocese brought the rigs following requests by the Karai, Cindano and Mara Igucu communities. The rigs, part of equipment owned by a German non-governmental organisation, were being used in Lodwar.
Father Paul Nyakono of the Naivasha Catholic Parish appealed to the communities to provide 30 per cent of the drilling cost. "The diocese will foot the rest of the bill," the priest pledged.
The costs include drilling, installation of electric or diesel pumps, building of reservoir tanks and developing a water distribution infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the tug-of-war between the Ministry of Water Development and the town council over the control of the water supply system continues, leaving the helpless ordinary <ea/>mwananchi in the town to continue to suffer. 
Rising pollution scares residents
Like an ill wind from the sea, it drifts across the town leaving behind a nauseating and repulsive smell akin to that of rotten eggs. It gets worse in the evening and at night.
Residents of Thika hate the smell and they have even sought licences to stage demonstrations against it and other forms of environmental pollution.
With about 22 big industries, eight coffee factories and over 100 smaller industries in the town, the issue of pollution has been a major concern to the local administration, politicians and residents of this town of about 100,000 inhabitants.
A recent study of the Thika-based industries indicated that 90 per cent of them discharged huge quantities of raw or partially-treated toxic wastes into the atmosphere.
One of the firms, a sulphuric acid manufacturing company, Kel Chemicals, was recently closed down by the authorities because of a leakage of toxic materials from the plant.
This came in the wake of a warning by the Kiambu District Commissioner, Mr Samuel Oreta, that the Government would take stern action against firms violating environmental rules.
"I think we have been tolerant enough... Those concerned, wake up and rectify the situation before it is too late," he told participants of a district environment meeting which included representatives of the 22 major industries at Thika.
D.K. Mundia, mayor of the town, then ordered a stop to the dumping of harmful solid wastes at Kang'oki, the municipality's main refuse disposal site to the east of Thika.
Mundia instructed tannery and tobacco processing plants to manage their waste materials within their resources. Medical institutions and private clinics were also told to dispose their toxic and infectious waste without polluting the environment.
Many other industrial concerns were also given a stage by stage anti-pollution implementation timetable, especially for effluent treatment plants lasting about one year.
With the good communication links and closeness to Nairobi, good climate, adequate water supply and ample land for industrial development, Thika has been lucky to attract industries. But with this has also come negative impact on the environment.
W2B016K
Law and Society
Law, the individual and the state
... and how its historical role remains the same
Common-law tradition is unsuited as an effective agent in the much needed change in many of the legal, economic and political structures in the country.
The common-law tradition, with its idiosyncratic modes of thought and reasoning, that  its capacity for change muzzled by the past in the shape of precedent and out-dated judicial attitudes, seems increasingly awkward <-/an> unsympathetic in the development process.
If there is a bias within the legal and political structure, or a reluctance to take into account the experiences of inequality of many sections of the country's population, these faults do not always take the form of overt repressiveness. More often than not, they take on more subtle guises: the frequent restrictive interpretation by the courts of the constitution visa-vis civil rights and liberties, for example, with results tending to whittle down individual liberty; the frequent presentation of highly complex phenomena such as crime in terms of simplistic "law and order" politics through the utterances of politicians and some sections of the press.
If individual and collective freedoms and genuine equality between sections of the population are to be pressed for and protected, then the law has an important part to play. Its use as an ideological weapon must be exposed, but its force as a limitation upon power must be recognised.
There is a popular notion of government by law, not people. According to this view, law is depicted as separate from - and "above" - politics, economics, culture, or the values or preferences of judges. This separation is supposedly accomplished and ensured by a number of perceived attributes of the decision-making process, including judicial subservience to a Constitution, statutes, and precedent; the quasi scientific, objective nature of legal analysis; and the technical expertise of judges and lawyers.
Conflicts
Of course, there is an increasing number of lawyers and trends in legal scholarship in Kenya that repudiate this idealised model. This is, no doubt, a progressive move, and it is as if should be. This is so because traditional jurisprudence largely ignores social and historical reality, and masks the existence of social conflict and oppression with ideological myths about objectivity and neutrality.
However, magistrates and judges are not robots <-/thaat> are - or need to be - <-/mysteriouslly> or <-/conspiratorily> controlled. Rather, they like the rest of us, form values and priorities conflicting considerations based on their experience, socialisation, political perspectives, self-perceptions, hopes, fears, and a variety of other factors. The results are not, however, random; their particular backgrounds, socialisation, and experiences result in a patterning, a consistency, in the ways they categorise, approach, and resolve social and political conflicts. This is the great source of the law's power: it enforces, reflects, constitutes, and legitimises dominant social and power relations without a need for or the appearance of control from outside and by means of social actors who largely believe in their own neutrality and the myth of legal reasoning.
It must, however, be stated that law is, on some occasions, just and that it sometimes serves to restrain the exercise of power. But the historical role of the law remains the same.
One might be tempted, for example, to think that the American Revolution (the usual term for War of American Independence) brought about fundamental changes in the legal structure in the United States. It was not so, nor were there structural changes in the legal framework in France after the Revolution of 1789.
During the disruptive and potentially radical period that immediately followed the American Revolution, elite American jurists devoted themselves to re-establishing authority. As the embodiment of reason and continuity, law seemed to offer the only source of stability in a nation that otherwise threatened to dissolve into the chaotic, levelling passions of a people now so dangerously declared to be sovereign. 
In a flowery vocabulary drawn largely from the natural-law tradition, late eighteenth - and early nineteenth-century legal speakers made extravagant claims about the role of the law and lawyers. Law was routinely described as reflecting here on earth the universal principles of divine justice, which, in their purest form, reigned in the Celestial City. For example, the single most popular legal quotation, for rhetorical purposes, was taken from the Anglican theologian Hooker: "Of law no less can be acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God; her voice harmony of the world."
Similarly, lawyers portrayed their own professional character as the embodiment of republican virtue; ideally, within each well-educated lawyer reason had subdued the unruly passions, and that triumph rendered the lawyer fit to consecrate himself in the service of law, as "a priest at the temple of justice." Indeed, leaders of the bar often described lawyers as sentinels, placed on the dangerous outposts of defence, preserving the virtue of the republic from the specifically democratic threats of irrational legislation and mob rule. Not surprisingly, many nineteenth-century jurists cited with satisfaction de Tocqueville's observation that the legal profession constituted a distinctly American aristocracy, providing order in an otherwise unstable democracy.
The universal principle that seemed to require the most zealous protection was the sanctity of private property. With something approaching paranoia, leading American jurists explained that the redistributive passions of the majority, if ever allowed to overrun the barrier of legal principle, would sweep away the nation's whole social and economic foundation. Thus Joseph Story, upon his inauguration as professor of law at Harvard, announced that the lawyer's most "glorious" and not infrequently perilous duty was to guard the "sacred rights of property' from the "rapacity" of the majority. Only the "solitary <-/citadal>" of justice stood between property and redistribution; it was the lawyer's noble task to man that citadel, whatever the cost. "What sacrifice could be more pure than in such a cause? What martyrdom more worthy to be canonised in our hearts?"
These words by Professor Story were uttered in 1829 but not much has changed as regards the role of the lawyer in a capitalist system. The United States inherited the basic tenets of capitalism from the "Mother Country", that is Great Britain; Kenya similarly inherited the same political and economic structures. This is the same as saying that we have inherited the same basic legal tenets with the enabling environment to, amongst other things, protect private property. If we grasped this point, it would then become clear that far from being destructive elements, lawyers in the country are in effect obliging midwives within the existing capitalist system. And, incidentally, there is no ideological wall separating Kenya from the United States; the crass rhetoric one hears about United States' evil ideological machinations "in the country is, therefore, not just some hot-air stuff but a glaring illustration of paucity in rigorous political analysis.
Struggle
This brings us to the notion of hegemony which postulates that the most effective kind of domination takes place when both the dominant and dominated classes believe that the existing order, with perhaps some marginal changes, is satisfactory, or at least represents the most that anyone could expect, because things pretty much have to be the way they are. It is through this belief-system that law effectively functions to legitimate the existing order. Thus, law, like religion and television images, is one of the clusters of belief that convince people that all the many hierarchical relations in which they live and work are natural and necessary.
One way of trying to struggle against being demobilised by our own conventional beliefs is to try to use the ordinary rational tools of intellectual inquiry to expose belief-structures that claim that things as they are must necessarily be the way they are.
One way of accomplishing this is to show that the belief-structures that rule our lives are not found in nature but are historically contingent; they have not always existed in their present form. Another useful exercise is just simple empirical disproof of claim of necessity. When it is asserted that strict, predictable rules of private property and free contract are necessary to protect the functioning of the market, maintain production incentives, and so forth, it can be shown that the actual rules are not all what they are claimed to be, that they can be applied quite differently in quite different circumstances, sometimes paternalistically, sometimes strictly, sometimes forcing parties to share gains and losses with each other, and sometimes not at all.
It is vital that our understanding of law is not reduced to a definition of law as merely as a reflection of inequality within the overall social order; and that our conceptions of justice and equality are not confined to cynical acknowledgements that these terms may be and often have been defined in ways which bolster the dominant ideology of the powerful, and thus maintain their social and economic interests. The analysis of law and the legal system, and their role in society, should rather include the task of exposing the instances where the use of the law is merely rhetoric; the identification of those issues where individual rights can be extended and protected by means of challenging orthodoxy and negotiating advances; and the continuing struggle to establish social, political and legal institutions through which equality may be better attained and individuals better protected. Given the existing legal and political structure, such analysis and criticism is the positive and proper function of all who stand to be affected by law in our modern society.
Appreciated
It is now almost a century since the reception of British law in Kenya and the transplantation of an imported court structure and professional institutions. These are reinforced by professional contacts abroad, flows of legal literature and the tendency to Kenyan judgment and legislation still to be influenced by legal developments in Britain. Much as it is appreciated that such influences are uncomfortable in an independent state, of more importance is the close alignment of the courts and legal profession with the national state, economy and class structure.
Of course some of the more glaring "colonial webs" like the colonial laws discriminating against the non-European population have been removed from the statute book; still the fact remains that while decolonisation ended the formal supremacy of British law in our country, it had relatively little effect on the actual shape and content of the legal superstructure through which state domination continued to be exercised. The legal structure basically remains the same to date.
The upshot of the above is that the individual in Kenya cannot readily rely on what is ideally referred to as equal protection of the laws of the land. Indeed, decisions favouring equality cannot be expected to be readily forthcoming unless basic changes are made. This is so because the class interests of decision-makers, dependence on foreign capital, trade and technology, and pathologies in public administration (such as corruption, social biases and organisational defects) create powerful forces influencing inequitable allocation.
What emerges, then, is that structural changes in the political and economic structures in the country have to come first; the law will automatically change to accommodate such changes, so that if the changes are aimed at equality, the law will protect such equality. 
Law and society.
Legal rights of civil servants
Now and then cases of harassment of civil servants at their place of work come to light. Unreasonable or unjustified dismissals are not uncommon. In most of these cases, no recourse is made to legal remedy as there seems to be a belief, an incorrect one at that, that the government cannot be, questioned on how it treats its civil servants.
As our civil service, or at least its foundations, was established by the British, it is worthwhile to be familiar with the status of civil servants under the English legal system.
At common law civil servants have no security of tenure and they can be dismissed at any time by the Crown without notice. This applies even if it was agreed at the time of appointment that the civil servant would be employed for a fixed term.
W2B017K
Reforms needed in higher education
Radical reforms in higher education system in sub-Saharan Africa are necessary, if the sector is to take a leading role in industrial and economic development in the region, which has continued to lag behind in comparison to that of developing countries of Asia.
Dismal performance in economic development in the countries in the region have persisted despite massive expansion in higher education. By last year, there were about 500,000 students in the universities in the region, about twenty-five times more than in early sixties when most of <-/thesse> countries became independent.
However, over the decades, higher education in the region has been characterised by an unplanned growth with the system churning out many graduates with qualifications that have been difficult to integrate with economic development. This has been a blow to parents and students who still hold the belief that `education meant realising a modern society and its economic foundation.'
Limited allocation of funds to the system have been a key factor to the deterioration of the education in Africa. Universities and other institutions of higher learning have been forced to operate larger classes with inadequate academic facilities. Shortage of laboratory facilities, journals and vital course text books have been a general feature in all African universities.
In addition to lack of academic facilities, student-lecturer ratios have worsened over the years. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) such ratios have risen to 1:50 for science based degree courses, while the ratios are even higher in arts-based courses.
There seems to be no chance of improving the rise in enrolment figures due to population increase which has been another negative feature in economic development of the region. The pressure of increasing enrolments will no doubt divert funds for research and postgraduate studies into undergraduate programmes.
This trend has been going on for sometime, where universities have expanded the arts based programmes as they are less capital intensive compared to science based courses.
For instance at the University of Nairobi, the biggest institution of higher education in Eastern and Central Africa, there are about 1585 postgraduate students and over 13,700 undergraduates. The university also serves as a reservoir for teaching staff for the other universities in the country.
The outcome had been production of graduates with doubtful qualifications and need for more training if they were to be absorbed into the few existing jobs. This paradox of unemployed African university graduates is rather perturbing since sub-Saharan Africa has the largest concentration of expatriates in the world today.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has been worried by the large number of <-_graduate><+_graduates> in agriculture and other related courses who are jobless, although the sub-region imports food from other countries. This paradoxical situation have also been area of concern of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) who would like to see the region become self-sufficient in food. The utilisation of African graduates in food production process has been ranking high in their agenda.
While there has been reported cases of overproduction of university graduates, there is need for curriculum review to avoid duplication of courses or mass production of popular courses.
Recently, there has been cases of some countries having unemployed graduates in medicine, engineering and finance.
Faced with unemployment crisis, African experts have been seeking employment opportunities in other countries. It has been estimated that between 1984 and 1987, about 30,000 university graduates from about 40 sub-Saharan countries left Africa, while in 1988 there were about 80,000 expatriates. Therefore, it is <-/non-chalantly>  to argue that there has been over production of high level manpower requirements in the continent.
The brain drain seems to be exacerbated to alarming situations by adverse conditions of service in the sub-region. According to Prof S. W. S. Kajubi, the vice-chancellor of Makerere University, over 50 lecturers left that university between 1986 and 1989 to join private sector and United Nations specialised bodies due to lack of proper <-/renumeration> at Makerere.
Prof Kajubi claims that at Makerere professors are paid under Shs 4,500 per month. Such <-/messengerial> wages, according to Prof Kajubi, have caused an exodus in many universities in sub-Saharan Africa.
In a report entitled, `Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization and Expansion, the World Bank has urged the affected countries in the region to re-define their higher education priorities. The report has called for attempts to be made in raising the standards of education as well as lowering the number of graduates in disciplines that are not strictly related to economic growth. 
Identify the gifted
The gifted and talented people have always been an enigma in conformist societies, whose governments sideline the establishment of education facilities for such categories of persons. Wachiro Kagitho examines the situation of the gifted and talented in Kenya.
Since Plato, the Greek philosopher, issued the Republic, a blueprint on theories of education, more than 2.000 years ago, planning of education the world over has never been the same.
Plato had little respect for men of limited intelligence who, he argued, should only be trained as soldiers and artisans, as it was improper to entrust such cadres with lofty positions of managing state affairs. He directed that "men of probity" should be taught logic, mathematics and astronomy, subjects then regarded as superior disciplines.
Such prescriptions, however, had no place in Athens, a city-state that prided itself on adherence and practice of democratic principles. Plato's central ideas on education were interpreted to contain totalitarian principles, which led to their rejection.
That notwithstanding, governments and organisations have often identified people who are gifted and talented in their societies. Certain countries have programmes for the specially gifted and talented persons, whose high intelligence is regarded as a national asset which would contribute significantly <-/o> the development of those countries.
There have been difficulties on how to identify the gifted and talented from the rest of the average and below average persons. To overcome this dilemma, achievement and aptitude tests have been designed and structured for this particular use.
Achievement tests measure present attainment, or what a person has learned after completion of a course. In Kenya, such tests would include terminal tests, and national examinations like the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
As for the aptitude tests, they attempt to predict the success in some kind of performance not yet attained, as in judging how much an individual will profit by training before the training is undertaken. Since it is important to identify the gifted and talented at an early age, psychologists recommend the heavy use of aptitude tests to help in designing the curriculum for them in early stages of their mental and physical development.
In many developing countries, no credible aptitude tests have been designed, and educators have been compelled to use foreign structured tests, which are often inadequate and biased. 
Most of intelligence tests are riddled with cultural biases and using them to predict the intelligence of children from other countries has been disastrous. In United States, where many of the tests have been designed, there have been academic arguments as to the suitability and applications of such tests to different social groups.
One major contention is that blacks are disadvantaged in the existing intelligence and personality tests and attempts have been made to modify the <-/Weschsler> Intelligence Scale for Children so that it could be used in a large cross-section of social groups in that country. Educational psychologists at University of Minnesota have been working on the famous Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), so that it can meet the challenges of current education principles.
Both rural and urban children are known to react differently while subjected to the same achievement and aptitude tests. The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) had been at pains in the past to explain why urban children performed better in the former Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) compared to their rural counterparts. To democratise the examining process, the government restructured the examination by adding other examinable areas.
The debate on performance in that examination continues. After the announcement of last year's KCPE, the City Education Officer, Mr Elias Njoka, lamented that Nairobi schools performed poorly in agriculture since they had no farms to carry on their practical education. What Mr Njoka was saying was that as long as the city schools continued having no school farms, children would continue performing poorly as they had no exposure in agriculture.
In Kenya there are no intelligence tests designed to distinguish the gifted or talented children from others. As reported elsewhere, in these pages, these are children at risk, as they are ignored in our education planning practices.
It is not clear why such anomaly exists in a country that has programmes for the visually handicapped, mentally retarded, deaf and hard of hearing groups. Attempts have also been made in identifying some more than 800.000 children with learning disabilities. While the country has made commendable progress in setting up of Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), a training and research centre for various disabilities, there are no visible programmes for the gifted and talented.
The government has been using the national schools as centres of excellence. But these are not sufficient since the majority of children taken there are average. The use of quota system in selection of candidates to the 17 national schools, makes it impossible for the schools to boast of having admitted the best candidates in KCPE.
Another problem with identification of the gifted by using KCPE as an intelligence test is the age factor. Some of the candidates sit for the examination at age 16 while the examination is meant for younger children. In such a situation, older children tend to perform better as they have enjoyed a wider experience compared to the younger groups.
However, such older children fail to excel and even disadvantage the gifted who feel frustrated in following an "inferior curriculum" below their expectations. In their attempts to put many of their pupils in secondary schools, some primary schools have been forcing their Class 7 candidates to repeat so that they could perform better in Standard 8. Such a trend is disastrous to the identification of the gifted and talented.
To-date there have been contradicting arguments as to whether home environment contributes to the gifted by ways of both heredity and environment. But research carried by Lewis Terman indicate that in United States 1/3 of the gifted children come from homes of professional people.
About 1/2, Terman says, are from the homes of the top business community and only less than 7 per cent are from homes of semi-skilled labouring masses, who constitute a higher proportion of the population.
In terms of their physical make up, the research by Terman showed that the gifted and talented children were usually taller than the average pupils in elementary school. Their birthweights were also above average. He also found out that they talked and walked early.
Although this research was done in United States, it seems to relate with preliminary surveys conducted by KEMRI medical researchers and elsewhere that tend to interlink good health and social adaptability with higher intelligence scores.
Nevertheless educational psychologists at Kenyatta University, caution that there is need for more research, although they say it is definite that environment contributes largely to the mental development of the children. They attest that gifted and talented children adjust themselves properly compared to the average peers.
In all the available data tend to support the view that a higher IQ is positively related to a healthy personality adjustment within the gifted. It also points out that programmes for the specially gifted and talented are overdue in Kenya.
This need has been felt by President Daniel arap Moi. Recently he pointed out that there was need for an establishment of an institution that would cater for such children. If it becomes difficult to establish an institution like that one in primary schools section, no doubt it would serve a noble purpose at both secondary and tertiary levels. 
W2B018K
Fees: A `monster' parents in Kenya have to live with
Barely six months after the introduction of standardised fees for high schools, headteachers of the schools are now demanding adjustments in the fees structure "to reflect the
increase in prices of commodities".
At an annual conference of the Kenya Secondary Schools' Heads Association held at the Kenya Science Teachers' College last week, the headteachers said the fees structure should be revised - a euphemism for increase - to enable them raise more money to run their schools.
But this is the last thing that Kenyan parents want to hear. Revising the fees upwards would add to the financial burden that the parents already bear in meeting the cost of educating their children.
Because of the increase in the cost of living and poor earnings from agricultural products, most low income people are finding it extremely difficult to pay the current fees.
Under the guidelines in force low-cost boarding schools are supposed to charge maximum fees of Sh4,450 a year; day schools, Sh1,650 and high cost schools, Sh7,300. Any charge above that has to be sanctioned by the Permanent Secretary, in the Ministry of Education and only after it has been passed by the schools' parents' associations and boards of governors.
Before the guidelines, headteachers were free to charge any amount of fees which sometimes topped Shl2,000 in some low cost schools.
However, it appears parents are still paying fees above the stipulated figures in some schools. Some of the extra charges have been approved by the Ministry especially for schools that had started development projects before the circular on standardised fees was issued.
In some instances extra charges are not sanctioned by the Ministry at all. Parents are told to pay the extra fees or withdraw their children from school. For example it costs about Sh9,000 to enrol a child at the Nairobi City Commission's Bidii Primary School in Buruburu for Standard One.
Unauthorised extra fees have been a subject of protests by parents as exemplified by the numerous letters to the Press and the Ministry. In some cases students have rioted when headteachers charge the extra fees.
The riots have occurred in Meru, Chania, Kijabe and other schools. Students in these schools went on strike to protest decisions by boards of governors to charge fees above the ministerial guidelines.
Most headteachers who adhere to the Ministry's guidelines are not happy with them. The guidelines, the teachers say, do not take into consideration inflation.
Oil prices, for instance, have gone up by about 40 per cent since the guidelines were issued. The prices of foodstuffs have also risen and continue to do so.
But if the fees were adjusted annually to cope with the rate of inflation, it would mean, for example, an increment of 20 per cent - the unofficial inflation rate.
The teachers also complain that approval to levy extra charges takes too long making it difficult for them to deal with hungry and angry students.
The headteachers, through their chairman, Mr Daniel Rono, said that there should be a new policy that would allow them to raise funds urgently required by their schools.
They recommended that district and provincial education officers be given powers to allow schools to charge extra fees.
But the Minister for Education, Mr Peter Oloo Aringo, rejected the request. He said to do so would defeat the purpose for which the fees' guidelines were set.
In this regard the Minister was right because one of the reasons that made school fees to skyrocket in the past was the failure by field education officers to control expenditure in the schools. It is also feared that District Education Officers and their provincial bosses might misuse those powers and collude with headteachers to charge higher fees.
It was pointed out at the conference that many education officers were junior to headteachers, in rank and were, therefore, unable to control what the teachers did.
But for Government-aided schools, the main problem is the delay in the provision of financial grants. The grants are used to pay non-teaching staff, boarding and other expenses.
The delay has resulted in schools accumulating huge debts. In some cases the schools' properties have been attached by creditors.
What can a headteacher do when faced with such a situation? For most the only solution is to raise fees. This often sparks riots by students and angry protests from parents.
Mr Aringo promised that the schools would get their grants on time although he cautioned that the Treasury was insisting on education expenses being reduced from 40 to 30 per cent of the national budget.
Boarding facilities have turned out to be money guzzlers. This has been a big problem to headteachers of boarding schools. There have been suggestions that the schools be converted into day or that the PTAs be responsible for the management of boarding facilities such as hostels.
The lack of a clear-cut policy on how to deal with fees defaulters is another problem headteachers have to deal with. While there are many needy pupils who cannot afford to raise the fees, there are others whose parents simply don't want to pay.
Many headteachers are sympathetic to the plight of poor but brilliant students whom they allow to continue with education.
Although there is a Presidential Bursary Fund for such students it does not have all the money they need to pay for their fees because of the large number of applicants.
The headteachers suggested at the conference that the bursary be given to only the very needy. They also suggested that PTAs be encouraged to establish a bursary fund for the students.
Chinga Girls High in Nyeri has such a fund to which pupils and teachers contribute money for students from poor families.
Another suggestion by headmasters was that they be allowed to charge extra money for sciences and practical subjects because the subjects require expensive chemicals and apparatus that have to be constantly replaced.
Most schools already charge students as much as Sh1,000 each for every practical subject taken.
To help solve the financial crisis, the Permanent Secretary, Mr Benjamin Kipkulei, has given headteachers powers to take appropriate measures to recover outstanding fees.
This includes sending pupils home. But this can be counter-productive, especially when it involves very needy pupils who may be forced to drop out of school.
However, Mr Kipkulei told the headteachers that the current fees structure would stay. He is convinced that if the headteachers managed the funds efficiently, they would be able to survive on the money available. He said he was not happy with the way school accounts were being maintained and said every cent spent by the school must be <-/acconted> for promptly.
The financial problems, he said, were partly caused by schools that had initiated ambitious and expensive projects that were of little educational value to the students. For example there were schools that wanted to have two or three buses. Others wanted new office buildings that cost well over a million shillings whereas a building that would cost half that amount would be sufficient.
The Permanent Secretary said the schools' priority should be development of teaching facilities like laboratories and libraries and the purchase of teaching equipment and books.
He cautioned against the habit of initiating projects year after year. To avoid financially over-burdening parents, Mr Kipkulei said schools should undertake one project at a time, "otherwise education will be too expensive for the ordinary Kenyan to afford".
Unfortunately education is already too costly and the Government should think of ways of bringing the cost down so that children from poor families are guaranteed of high school education.
To deal with the perennial problems caused by the 8-4-4 education system, Mr Aringo promised to hold a national workshop to deliberate on how the curriculum could be reformed which the teachers said was already overdue.
The teachers said one reform they wanted implemented was the reduction of the number of compulsory subjects from 10 to eight to enable them and the pupils to cover the syllabus adequately. This, they said, should be done without sacrificing the basic principles of the system which aims at offering a broad based curriculum.
The headteachers said they were appalled by mass failures in subjects like economics and biology in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). Curriculum developers appear to have merely transplanted the former "A" economic syllabus to the 8-4-4. system.
The headteachers said they did not understand why students scored high grades in much more difficult subjects like mathematics and physics but failed massively in economics.
These arguments indicate that there is an urgent need to streamline the 8-4-4 syllabi <-/form> Standard One to Form Four.
On another front, the teachers said students were demanding more participation in affairs to do with their welfare such as teaching, better accommodation and food. Problems in these areas have led strikes and wanton destruction of property.
But there are, of course, other causes of strikes in schools. One of them is student/teacher politics. In other cases external political influences have been the cause. Some politicians have <-/incite><+_incited> students <+_to> strike if they do not like the headteacher so that they can replace him with one of their cronies.
There are also cases where self-styled student leaders incite their colleagues to go on strike while others involve students disinterested in school life and who would  to cause chaos so that they can home.
In some cases strikes have been caused by mismanagement and corruption like in a case where a school head embezzled students' examination registration fees.
However, the headteachers said strikes could be averted through effective communication between the management and the students. At the same time if the heads closely followed the mood in student politics they would able to deal with situations before they explode into strikes.
The headteachers' conference is held every year to review problems that their schools had in the previous year. 
Varsities expansion yet to meet demand 
Only seven per cent of the candidates were admitted 
With 40,000 students in local universities and another 15,000 studying overseas, many people think we have too many people taking degrees.
The crunch came last year when the State universities had a double intake of 20,000 undergraduates, about a third of them taking education.
This followed the 1987 double intake of 10,000 students.
This year's intake of 10,000 students will just add on to an explosive situation, critics argue.
But are we really producing too many university graduates?
The number admitted this year only presented 7.5 per cent of the 133,063 of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates which still makes university education elitist, contrary to what critics say.
The problem is compounded when one considers that all the candidates who have scored a C plain in KCSE - about 40,000  are actually university material.
So, we are far from producing too many graduates when the problem is looked into from that perspective.
But compared to other African countries, Kenya has one of the highest university enrolment.
Uganda has only 5,000 students in the once famous Makerere University while Tanzania has the same number at Dar es Salaam and Sokoine universities.
However, when most people talk about over-production of graduates, they have the problem of unemployed graduates in mind.
The job opportunities for graduates have been dwindling which, to the layman, is a manifestation that there are too many graduates around.
To the laymen, university education is supposed to be a ticket to a good job due to the skills it gives its holder.
However, unemployed graduates is also a reflection that the economy cannot support the number of graduates being produced by our universities and other tertiary institutions.
That is the critical issue that educational planners have to address themselves to.
They have to decide whether universities enrolment should be pegged to employment opportunities available or not.
University dons would dread an admission policy that pegs admission to job opportunities for it would reduce universities to mere training institutions.
W2B019K
Road of shame: Kisii - Kilgoris
Between Kisii and Kilgoris stretches a 50-kilometre nightmare which every occasional and frequent traveller on the road must live through. It is a horror story of a road that was intended to be, and the scandal it became. Driving on it is an experience that only those adventurers who have taken the outback route to the Turkana wilderness through the severe Samburu terrain can relate to.
Only that the Kisii-Nyangusu-Kilgoris road enjoys a C17 (because it is a main road linking two districts) classification, and traverses some of the most picturesque, exceedingly fertile tracts of land in the country. <ea/>Wananchi who use it daily remember that it was opened to public use about 10 years ago. My immediate impression was that maybe the colonialists had earmarked the road for development but abandoned before completion because the pace towards independence became too rapid.
No one seemed to remember whether it was officially commissioned, although a reliable source confided that it was not. Its completion was reportedly controversial and the authorities seemed to have had a quarrel with the construction company over the workmanship.
But that did not stop the firm taking the money and getting away with what is truly a deplorable slur against public faith. The road is a patchy matrix of highs and lows, of huge potholes and loose gravel, of gullies and mocking stretches of smooth tar - bizarre reminders that what one is actually travelling on is macadamised road. Huge sections of the road are merely tracts of either sand or large gravel.
The effect of cars repeatedly moving on one side to avoid potholes has been to create two distinct tracts, with the fault dividing the two rising about six to seven inches high. It is definitely not a road for cars with a low clearance.
"I feel like crying every time I look at this ... this useless road," said one motorist emotionally.
"And to imagine that a lot of public funds actually went into creating that shameful road!" he lamented.
A <ea/>matatu operator we bypassed as we <-/weaved> on the platform of holes, loose sand and gullies stopped to let us pass. In response to a question about what he thinks of the road, he said: "Look at this. Does it appear to be six months old." He was pointing at his Toyota Hilux pick-up displaying a KAA number-plate series, but which looked more like a battered, hard-driven pick-up run for five years by a maniac.
His was not the only one in that state and we did not need any further elaboration.
"I have to change the shock-absorbers of this car every six months or so," he lamented.
The road has hardly any guard rails even at places where it passes through sheer valleys; no markers of any sort, nothing.
A passenger in the car we were driving wondered why the people living adjacent to the roads had not scooped away the loose gravel to use in building or making building blocks. "They do not want to be accused of spoiling the road. They want to leave the evidence as it is, for anyone who is interested in seeing it," an escort answered in a grim and telling jest.
The difficult task of keeping to your seat or negotiating the car over the yawning gaps means that many people miss the enchanting beauty of the area they are travelling through. The undulating landscape is almost always green as one leaves Kisii town and heads towards Ogembo. Tea jostles for the limited space with maize, bananas, pineapples, sugarcane and assorted vegetables. Cattle tethered to zero-graze attest to the fertility of the land. Further confirmation comes soon after, when a bewildered traveller used to paying anything up to Shl5O for an average-sized bunch of green bananas, is offered a prize-winning one at Shl5.
Between Ogembo and Nyangusu, the road is somewhat smoother and the traveller enjoys a bit of relief. He can appreciate the gradual change of landscape - from the typically hilly relief of Kisii to the softer, flowing plains of Transmara sub-district. It is the land of the Maasai, keeper of cattle. It is a beautiful place, extremely fertile. Except for the road.
A knowledgeable source in Kisii told me that the road has been somewhat controversial, for reasons he would not divulge. However, he was willing to explain what could have contributed to the state of the road.
He said that the problem stems from an engineering mistake, in that the contractor chose to use the crusher run base - for 18 kilometres out of Kisii - rather than the stabiliser base. In the former, ballast is placed on the smoothened surface and a single seal used to firm up the top. In the latter, a double or triple seal is used. After Ogembo, the stabiliser base was used.
"This was not done for the entire road and that is the problem," he said, and added that its state of disrepair rules out any possibility of maintenance.
"It is beyond maintenance repair and it now needs to be redone," he said.
The source said that when such roads are being constructed, the Ministry headquarters attaches a consulting engineer to the project. This engineer must certify that the road meets the standards before it can be accepted by the Government. Also, the contractors must provide a post-completion guarantee period of one - two years.
Incidentally, for readers who may recall, it is a section of this road - four kilometres out of Kisii - which caved in a couple of years back. Apparently, even that problem was caused by an oversight of the contractor. The local authority has funded a by-pass at the site but it is not open for use yet.
The Chief Engineer Roads, Mr Otonglo, said that the Government was aware that the road was giving people there a lot of trouble and that something was being done about it.
"We have already invited tenders from contractors to undertake major repair exercises on that road. We are now at the pre-qualification stage and we hope to scrutinise them (tenders) soon," he said.
The engineer was reluctant to apportion any blame, saying only that the state of the road was a result of "a combination of factors which we are aware of".
Whatever those are, it is evident that the initial contractor has a lot to answer for the present shameful state of that road. Hopefully, a better job will be done the second time round, and that those responsible for monitoring such works will not let the Government and <ea/>wananchi down by accepting sub-standard work.
Strangely, the only tarmac roads in Kisii and Nyamira Districts now are the main roads passing through from Kericho to Migori and beyond, and the Kisumu-Kisii road. Well, you could mention the Kisii-Nyangusu road but I doubt many local residents will agree with you.
Stranger still, an envisaged vital road link between Kisii, Nyamira and Chemosit in Kericho District (measuring 66 kilometres) is yet to take on any semblance of reality seven years since a contractor took up the job.
I learnt, that construction initially started in 1985, but was discontinued when some controversy over tender allocation arose. However, this seemed to have been straightened out by 1988 when another contractor took over the job. Now, the real surprise is that since 1988, only six kilometres of that road have been done from the Chemosit side.
That pace does not conform to the pace with which roads are built elsewhere.
Should we assume that different contractors do their jobs differently and that the Government has no say over the pace of the work? Do we assume also that the amount of money contracted for does not change?
Such, and others, are the questions
which pass through the minds of local people even as they continue producing and reproducing to add to the wealth of this land. 
Health and Environment Forum
Suffer no more, patients
Hospital begins to give care cheaply
To fall sick in this country has become an expensive and frustrating exercise. An apparently uncontrollable credit squeeze has liased rather wickedly with the Government policy to spend less on public welfare programmes to make the end-user cost of buying health privately extremely expensive. Seeking it in public hospitals is, on the other hand, a painfully disappointing experience.
I am sure you know what I am talking about. Remember when you needed a medical examination and the general chest X-ray cost you between Shl8O and Sh250? If you were sick and needed a more specialised X-ray scan, it must have hit you for up to Sh850.
You will be lucky to find a clinic in which the consultation fee is less than Shl50. It is more likely to be over Sh200. A very fair surgeon or doctor is likely to ask for Sh3,000 to perform a straightforward operation, but it is more realistic for the patient to expect a quotation of over Sh5,000. For the hysterectomies of this world, expect to pay a princely sum of Sh60,000 and over.
And so it goes. Pay to consult the doctor, pay for the drug, the gauze there, the urinalysis elsewhere and the culture too. Separate hospitals have their own rates which they charge on the use of their facilities, mainly theatres and laboratories. One thing the hospitals have in common, however, is the level of cost which is, for the common Kenyan - the category in which you and I probably belong - invariably high.
In the public sector,  whenever a patient visits a hospital they walk into a mini-disaster. Non-existent, poor or available but unserviceable equipment litter the premises. Drugs and other services - like consultations and examinations - are "free" when they are available, which is very rare indeed. The President was appalled recently by what he saw at the mother of all hospitals in Kenya, the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). But what he saw was a sneak preview of what is a daily nightmare for patients. It is routine for medical examinations not to be done and preliminary diagnoses confirmed because the mixtures or chemicals used are not available. Even a slide can hold up an examination for typhoid or malaria, both dangerous diseases.
The unfavourable situation in hospitals deteriorated further recently - particularly in Nairobi  when adverse reports about the goings-on at a major health institution discouraged patients from going there. This, in turn, put a great strain on the facilities  particularly beds -available in the other hospitals. One of them reportedly increased its already prohibitive costs to turn away the patients.
Such were the gloomy thoughts running through my mind when I recently stumbled on to what should be the latest addition to Nairobi's shrinking health facility - the Masaba Hospital. This imposing four-storey structure stands authoritatively on the junction of the Kilimani-Kirichwa Roads, just off Ngong Road, a couple of metres before Adam's Arcade.
Its presence is so obvious as to be ignored, a fact not helped any by the fact that someone felt it necessary to remove the hospital's signpost from Ngong Road.
My surprise led me there and the kindly hospital administrator, Dr G.J. Momanyi, graciously agreed to show me around after I expressed my misgivings about what the "unknown" hospital had to offer to the suffering Nairobi patients.
Well, it is an impressive layout. On a half-acre of land, the daring investor, a true local entrepreneur, has put up a complete hospital unit offering among other things, a 200-bed in-patient capacity offering private, fully self-contained rooms, a two-bed and six-bed general ward, and a 18-bed emergency casualty wing. The beds cost between Sh3OO to 600 (private rooms), all-inclusive.
The maternity wing has an incubator in which premature babies are kept.
Patients enjoy a wide selection from a choice menu and those who can sit up can while away the hours watching television in recreation rooms provided on the two floors holding at the wards.
W2B020K
Lakeside beauty has gone to seed
Hope shone bright with council's exit but now the town is back to 'normal'
Imagine the frustration of a fog-shrouded motorist fighting in vain for clearer visibility and you have a rough picture of what happens in Kisumu where over 700,000 residents grope about in the night.
They have resigned themselves to this and other frustrations. Like the fog-bound motorist, their vista is impaired and they can hardly see beyond their noses.
All the residents can do is hold on to hope for a brighter future. That future seemed to have arrived with Mayor George Olilo's exit. But four months later, the streets are still dark. The euphoria that greeted the commissioners on May 3 is dying down. For their coming was like drops of rain after a prolonged drought. They were looked upon as redeemers and people breathed a sigh of relief.
Relief, because there was clean water at last to replace that tainted with rot. For once, Kisumu residents were enjoying wholesome water. We are told the quality has remained wholesome.
But people's expectations went beyond water. There were roads too, endless stretches of potholes and craters that had consigned many vehicles to the scrap heap. Yes, roads that had denied residents the efficient services of the Nyayo Bus Corporation and left them at the mercy of exorbitant <ea/>matatus.
And the dark  nights? For how long were people to grope their way along unlit streets?
A new order. New image. That is what residents expected. Not dirt and degeneration. Not the refuse that lies scattered along roadsides, in alleys hither and thither in mounds decomposing into foul-smelling factories of disease.
The decay chokes; it strangles. But wait, go to the bus park, one of Kenya's busiest and you are in for a shock. Puddles ... pools of murky water and sludge combine into a nauseating sight of smelly, greenish and slimy filth that churns the contents of stomach.
Flies here are big and fat. Dirt abounds, having become a byword of this crammed and overused facility where a trip to the two toilets - divided into compartments for men and women - must be prompted by severe urgency and can cost a whole day's appetite.
Come the night, and the busy bus park becomes as dark as Hades. The only light, that blinks like a solitary beacon in the distance, services to intensify the darkness. Fire flies and glow worms flash their cold lights in this once-bright terminus as though in some remote jungle.
Call it a dark embrace. That probably portrays better what it feels like to be in Kisumu town at night. For darkness is not confined to the bus-park; the streets have no lights either.
Exaggeration? Take a stroll down town in the main bazaars... Oginga Odinga Road, Jomo Kenyatta Highway, Ang'awa Avenue, Otieno Oyoo Street, Paul Mbuya Road. Name it. You need a torch with strong batteries to pick your way along at the risk of spraining your ankle in the open gutters or falling into uncovered manholes.
Lamps hang over the streets all right. But these are mere bulbs, dead and cold. Some are mechanically faulty, others are blown out and unreplaced. Lamp posts are falling, or have fallen in some places, a clear sign of negligence.
Out there in the suburbs, things are worse. Unlit thoroughfares form numerous niches for thugs who take up position in uncompleted buildings or in the many door-less kiosks put up by vegetable and fish vendors.
Some of the unlit areas, like the stretch of the Kakamega road between Kondele and the Donna Hotel, or down the Kibos road from White Gate to Car Wash, have heavy night traffic. Batterings are common.
Between Kicomi and Otonglo Market on the Busia road, all bulbs are blown out as are those on Jomo Kenyatta Highway between the New Nyanza General Hospital and Kondele. In fact, the whole of this road from town has no lights. Patients are forced to hire taxis where they could otherwise walk and save money to buy drugs. Examples abound.
Back to roads. Nothing better illustrates their hopeless state than the Kibos-Kondele stretch which has turned into a series of wide holes that make driving a nightmare. It is ridiculous that the road is classified under the Ministry of Public Works which employs legions of workers drawing tax payers' money to maintain roads.
Council roads serving residential areas are just poor. No wonder the Nyayo Bus Corporation decided to pull out of the estates to eliminate repeated breakdowns, leaving only <ea/>matatus to ply the damaged roads. Residents pay excessively high fares, but they would rather dig <-/dipper> into their pockets than walk in the scorching heat. School children suffer a lot despite the fact that Nyayo buses were brought in mainly for them. What a shame!
The corporation's Kisumu depot manager, Mr S. M. Matthiah, says the buses will be back in Manyatta, Arina, Migosi, Obunga and other population centres as soon as the roads are repaired. But when will the roads be repaired?
I put the question to the acting Municipal Engineer, Mr Nicholas Nyariki, who opted to call a spade a spade. "I am sorry, but the <-/commision> has no machines at the moment to repair these roads," he said.
Neither does the commission have the resources to purchase equipment. Mr Nyariki said a one-tonne roller was recently acquired through the service charge. But it is only used for patching up where road damage is not extensive. Estate roads are invariably seriously damaged. The small bits of tarmac need grading out, but the commission has no grader.
Says Mr Nyariki: "The commission has 150 kilometres of roads within its jurisdiction and to maintain them to any standards requires at least a grader, a pick-up to carry workers around, a D6 shovel and two tippers."
The engineer says the commission has a tipper that keeps breaking down and a 12 tonne roller that is out of order. So what plans are there for the roads?
On lights, Mr Nyariki has limited hope for residents. He says blown out bulbs will be replaced and new ones probably fixed on power posts maintained by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.
"The commission is not in a position to undertake any capital projects," the engineer said, in regard to fluorescent tube lamps that went dead almost three years ago on Oginga Odinga Road and Jomo Kenyatta Highway. He explains that these particular lamps need complete recircuiting to revive them, a project that he reckons may require much capital. He dismisses claims by the dissolved council that the lamps were vandalised, saying they were more probably affected by rain water leaking into their inspection chambers.
Asked why a simple thing like replacing blown-out bulbs takes so long, Mr Nyariki passes the buck to the defunct council with a reminder that the commission came onto the scene "only the other day".
"But you have been around since May, Mr Engineer".
He smirks and wipes a thin line of sweat from his brow. "We have already started replacing them. Rome was not built in a day". "How come, then, that the major streets are still dark? Even near New Nyanza and Aga Khan hospitals?"
"Just give us time".
The acting Town Clerk, Mr A. O. Oyalo, says elaborate plans are on the drawing boards for the bus park. "It will be rehabilitated and expanded. The <-/delapidated> toilets will go and in their place will spring up modern, well-equipped ablution blocks." 
He looks confident and smiles as "the modern bus park" of the future flips through his mind. "We expect work on the proposed project to start in about two and a half years' time," he says with a straight face. According to Mr Oyalo, the toilets would not be so bad were it not for vandalism and wanton <-_breakages><+_breakage> by hooligans and lay-abouts who hang around the bus-park. Besides, he says, the population has overtaken initial plans and the toilets just cannot cope.
Mr Oyalo adeptly hands the issue of refuse and filth to the Municipal Medical Officer of Health (MOH), Dr Dan Wendo. Like Mr Nyariki, he is still new in his perch at the Town Hall and does not beat about the bush in his answers.
He says the refuse menace and what it entails will remain with Kisumu residents "for a long time" unless miracles happen.
"It is beyond our capacity to cope with. The town's daily refuse discharge exceeds 500 tonnes, yet we are capable of collecting only 50 tonnes daily, and even that at a stretch," Dr Wendo adds.
Hear his shocking revelation: Kisumu town has no dustbins to facilitate the disposal of refuse. What an omission for a town that is the country's third largest!
Dr Wendo says it is the absence of dustbins that has compounded the refuse problem to impossible proportions. "We must not lose sight of this problem while pointing a finger at reckless dumping" he cautions.
Says the MOH: "When you see empty milk packets, potato peels, bread wrappers and other <ea/>takataka scattered all over, dustbins are a contributory factor." He estimates the dustbins requirements of the town and its suburbs at more than 12,000. That would cost the commission a staggering Sh6 million.
Kisumu's dustbin shortage is, according to old timers, the making of successive municipal authorities who failed to replace them as had been the practice. Yet residents continue paying a fixed levy for the absent service. According to Dr Wendo, their reintroduction is not yet envisaged given the prohibitive costs that the commission can ill afford at this time.
Dustbin apart, Dr Wendo singles out the lack of refuse disposal vehicles as the other major cause of the garbage heaps. He says the commission would have to purchase 12 seven-tonne refuse disposal lorries at roughly Shl8 million to tackle the problem effectively.
"We have only one operational seven-tonner a present which, together with an articulated tractor, have been going around reducing the rotting heaps," says Dr Wendo.
The MoH has also to see to the emptying of septic tanks with only one exhauster at his disposal. Four more such machines are required to do the work thoroughly.
The mention of septic tanks conjures up memories of a tragic incident: the death of schoolboy Victor Otieno who fell into one and drowned last February. Muses the MoH: "The boy would be alive today if the tank was regularly emptied."
Most septic tanks in the estates have no covers and overflows are inevitable. The sight of children dabbling in effluent flowing like a small river is sickening. I say sickening because the reeking liquid is filled with faecal matter. It is the cradle of typhoid fever, a killer disease endemic in Kisumu.
Remember, it was a typhoid epidemic that flushed ex-Mayor Olilo and his cohorts out of Town Hall.
What is typhoid fever? The bacterium that causes it (<foreign/>salmonella <foreign/>typhi) thrives in faecal and decaying matter. The deadly bug abounds in the innumerable mounds of putrescent garbage and the sewage that flows unchecked into rivers, ponds and Lake Victoria.
Dr John Opar of the New Nyanza Provincial General Hospital says most cases of typhoid fever recorded in Kisumu have been traced to water contaminated with faecal matter. Yet ex-Mayor Olilo once asserted: "Water consumed in this town is treated to international specifications."
The former civic leader was wrong as later proved. Tests carried out on the water showed the presence of faecal matter. Dr Opar confirms this but acknowledges the "good work" done on the water since a task force was formed in May.
Dr Opar, who doubles up as the Nyanza Provincial Medical Superintendent, warns of the risk of drinking raw water from rivers, ponds and the lake in and around Kisumu because of the high rate of pollution.
He says the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital alone handles over 2,000 cases of typhoid annually. The incidence has dropped some what since May, thanks to concerted efforts to improve the quality of water.