Moral renaissance

In recent times there has been a major decline in donor funding for the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Majorly attested to the fact that most countries grossly mismanaged earlier funding and a feeling that the monies being chanelled to the third world is actually not doing what it is meant to due.

And truly so in the ground for anybody who cares to find out the NGOs are seemingly money making briefcase organizations. They are being used by individuals in order to make money more of business ventures than humanitarian. As long as they can draw action plans and collect data to confirm their activities which involves paying of the very confirmers they can continuously pipe the international funding into their pockets.

This has created another big corruption scandal as tax payer money from the developed states is grossly mismanaged from the very top echelons of the funding organizations to the man on the ground. This however does not mean that the NGOs are a complete failure. To give credit where its due, some of this organizations have achieved the unimaginable in terms of fighting the pandemic.public awareness has increased trifold times, while preventive measures have been made known and available to the vast majority. PLWHA have been able to access anteretrovirals at their remote areas and have been trained as ambassadors for change in the society. Holistic goals have been achieved and this can be credited to the enthusiasm of this very NGOs.

However since funding has been reduced and  running such organization has preemptively been a challenge all is not lost. I would like to urge the organizations not to relent as the fight against the condition is far from over. Let this time of difficulty separate the grain from chaff. Those who were solely around to merely make money will jump ship as ofcource. However those of us who truly belive in our cause to stop the pandemic should find other avenues that are less monetary to tackle the scourge.

Money as I maintain is overestimated especially when there are alternatives to it. I would sugest that instead of workshops that repeatedly year in year out teach the same thing about HIV/AIDS we can go for teaching morality which our society badly needs and is unimaginable in the scope which it might reduce AIDS prevalence in Africa.

Being a victim of immorality myself I understand how it single-hendedly contributes to majority of HIV/AIDS infection in the greater Africa. While I had predisposed knowledge on infection and prevention my inability to curb carnal desires put me in a great risk of infection. I realized that probably there were people out there who shared my own vulnerability due to this relaxed moral state that my society entertains in all garbs, civilization and modernity included.

Thus I thought that now since the money taps are seemingly running dry, we have the opportunity to realize what non-monetary and simle human elements can be harnessed in the fight against AIDS. We can experience lasting success by teaching morality to all the society. Purging tha wanton enslavement to our carnal destrauctiveness and releasing our society from the tight clasp of the AIDS scourge.

Everyone would rightly agree that the genral moral fibre in our society is wanting. We virtually have accepted that pre and extra marital sexual affairs are part of us. This should not be the case. Let us fight thi battle as it should. Openly castigate morality and increase social conscience on intimacy and true love. We can not accept ads that sell mapenzi bila regrets ni mapenzi na condom (condom love without regrets) as if we have forgotten what love is. condoms can only ensure sex without regrets and not love! This subliminal acceptance of weak morality even to the most ideal human notions like love is totally debasing.

We need to teach morality, truthful and non-comercial. Developed nations cannot fund our morals because money and try virtue and morals are incompatible. That is why I suggest that this are not difficult times but a golden opportunity for reinnasance especially in recalling morals that are lost to our true history as Africans.

Moral decadence

The Nambale MP argument that money laundering was not a crime in Kenya when he allegedly indulged in it decries the moral fiber in the country which the law is supposed to enforce.

Seeking to block his extradition to Jersey Hon Chris Okemo, former Minister for energy, said in court papers that the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2009, was not in force at the time of his alleged offence and so was not a criminal act in Kenya. He thus wants to absolve himself from trial on these and other grounds. The MP faces 15 counts of money laundering and misconduct in public office allegedly committed between February 1, 1998 and June, 28 2002, which he denies.

His defense is akin to saying that all crimes prior to enactment of law are not crimes and cannot thus be pursued legally. What of the fact that they are wrong? Should we let the people who took advantage of loopholes in the Justice and legal system to perpetrate crimes just because the then frame work did not consider their actions as crime?

This is not a too unlikely scene as it is far too evident in the common Kenyan psychomotor to indulge in the wrong just because there are no direct reparations to their actions. It calls into our attention thus that as we enforce the legal mechanisms in the country we should seek to uphold our morality and be guided by law rather than entirely depend on the law.

We are more like children being guarded by an iron arm and once the close supervision of our parent is veered off we are all too quick to go on the romp and the end is usually tragic.

The MPs is not an isolated case as there are several incidents that call this decrying trend into to the fore. Kenyans are known to over indulge in drinking and had to have Muthutho laws to keep them away from bars which they still try to avoid at all costs. Speaking to one drinker identified only as Onyango, it emerged that drinkers would hide in dark closed bars just to avoid Muthutho laws.  “We even go drinking in the bushes as there is no law prohibiting drinking in bushes thus beating Muthutho at his own turf,” he laughingly added.

This is in sharp contrast to our Uganda brothers just across the border who despite lacking direct laws prohibiting drinking do not engage in it till evening after work. A discipline which has lately been digressed from as the influx of Kenyans fleeing Muthutho’s law saunters across the border 

While we have successfully enacted a constitution Britain continues to depend on an unwritten one and is successful at it. They have deeply ingrained moral standards which are punishable when perverted written or unwritten. That is why when the law as per international standards was breached, Interpol issued a red notice against the Minister and Mr. Gichuru after a warrant by the Bailiff and Chief Justice of the island of Jersey, United Kingdom in April 2011.

On our account wrong can only be punished by law and those who can beguile the system can go scot free. We should have a strong code of conduct with the law acting as a guideline to enforce it rather than totally depend on the law without our own initiative to be good citizens.

This poses the question of whether the law is the answer to our dire criminal problem as a nation. It exposes the fact that our morality is wanting and that we might actually be incapable of any good unless we have a guillotine over our necks.

Brand exodus

By Bantaleo Muhindi/Otiato Guguyu

As inflation spirals and hits the 14.5 per cent mark Anne Khatenje, a secondary school teacher, walks into a super market in Busia town. With a list of items,  the 47 year old teacher makes for soap at a shelf.

Momentarily, she stares in space. Ostensibly puzzled and not believing her eyes, the mathematics teacher counterchecks what she has on her list of items as the price of the bar soap she has always purchased and used in her house has risen.

Upon learning that the price of the bar soap has almost doubled in the last two month, she goes round the super market only to learn that prices of virtually all items inflated. The teacher is lost for words but is compelled to adjust her budget.

Another shopper, Lucy Akundah, at the same supermarket, concedes that escalation of prices has changed dearly the brands she used to go for. “Tough times call for tough measures,” she says, adding, “I go for prices hands down.”

An avalanche of consumers are rushing for lower quality but cheaper goods by the day as attested by the rising trend of victims fatally succumbing to brews in Central Kenya and Nairobi.

The recent green light to millers to import GMO to help arrest the rising deficit in national cereals extrapolates the situation. Whereas the government allowed this on condition that they outrightly  indicate the maize is GMO the risk is that with the current market trend which is so centered on price may not put that into consideration.

The unabated shortage of maize, coupled with inflation which has, subsequently, contributed to high cost of living have driven some Kenyans into opting for alternatives of major brands.

They actually opt for lower quality and cheap items. While they do so, they are ignorant of how the products they purchase will affect them.

Whereas soap may not have an adverse effect on someone’s health, the recent revelation by Roy Mugira of National Safety Authority to approve importation of GMO to mitigate looming shortage should in itself be food for thought.

Should Kenyans purchase products cheaply notwithstanding the effect they have on their health?

Though the gains of the purchase may be immediate the long term effect on consumers of some of the products may be adverse. It could be debilitating.

The guidelines on importation of GM to be issued by Mr Mugira should be borne out of critical and analytical mind. They should not be the type that benefit millers who will buy the GMO maize at about 70 per cent of the price of the locally produced maize and sell it at exorbitantly.

Doubtless, it is the kill that millers are out to make which makes them support the importation of GMO immediately. No wonder chairman of Cereals millers Association, Diamond Lalji, says, “Bio tech is the way we should go and it will help us overcome shortages of maize.”

“GM maize is cheaper by about 30 per cent compared to the non GM and that is expected to bring down the price of the final product,” he adds.

It is on the premise that scores of Kenyans mire in poverty, are desperate, gullible and that ours is a man eat man society that rigorous sensitization should be conducted prior to implementation of some decisions.

Through education and sensitization stakeholders, consumers inclusive, will be empowered to look beyond prices and make informed choice instead of buying what is cheap today and expensive tomorrow.

Purchasing goods, especially those that may impact on health, calls for a second thought from consumers.  The price-consideration-only thinking should be discarded.

Safety of some GMOs is debatable. The status quo of the Kenyan economy is an eerie harbinger of tougher times economically and socially. This is why all GMO products should be re-examined by experts.

Brand exodus to poor quality alternatives also needs re-examination lest the nation slides to a health precipice. Though the economy mauls the consumers’ pockets the latter should not be exposed to health risks.