Alphonce SHIUNDU

The news filtered in from the courts during the day that the new tax by the nationalhealth insurer had been suspended, albeit for the time being. In my not-so-humble opinion, I think, the National Health Insurance Fund was becoming greedy. For the last three years they have been taking in my Sh320 per month. Now, all of a sudden, they sit in a boardroom somewhere and decide that I ought to pay more so that I can access the outpatient cover. What I didn’t understand was why they went for the inpatient cover, then wait for us to get the private medical schemes to charge us highly for outpatient cover, and now when we have managed to squeeze in whatever we have to the private medical schemes, then they show up with this new deal in the name of the poor. Yes, they say they’ll improve the hospitals, raise the standards of the facilities and all that flimflam, but then I have my doubts. If all along the government’s official excuse has been “the hospital has not been built because there’s no...

Hey. If you are reading this post and you wondering what the fuss is all about, then perhaps you haven’t experienced the get-out-of-my-face attitude. Well, I was at Maseno University today. And I am shocked beyond words at what I saw. Well, for a campus, where people go to read and grow, it’s not such a bad place. The people, right there, were well organized, they served the freshers rather quickly, that by one o’clock, a good number of the fellows were already settled. So, as I took a stroll to go for lunch, a decent lunch, kind of a send-off (what guys in Nairobi call ‘a treat’), for my small brother. I saw this signpost: “Snr Staff Guest House.” Knowing “Guest Houses”, I figured that they’d serve all guests, because in any case, my brother was there at the invitation of none other than the Registrar of the University. So, we sauntered in. There was a Volkswagen Passat with the blue number plate, (definitely some university big-shot), then there was a Toyota (two of t...

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU, EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA and OLIVER MATHENGE At exactly 8.40pm on Thursday night, August 5,2010, the national electoral agency declared the proposed Constitution ratified. The Interim Independent Electoral Commission declared that 5,954,767 Kenyans had given the document a thumbs up in the second referendum to be carried out in Kenya. A total of 2,687,193 voted to reject the document. The total voter turnout,according to IIEC chairman Isaac Hassan was 71 per cent . “The constitution has therefore been approved by more than 50 per cent of all votes cast and has also been approved and received support of over 25 per cent in all provinces of Kenya. The proposed new Constitution is hereby ratified,” Mr Hassan said amid cheers from the retinue of ‘Yes’ supporters in the audience. He added: “This is not a victory for any group. It is a victory for Kenya. It is now very important for the country to move forward and unite the country.” He alluded to amendments as the only reaso...