Annan calls for new laws
Parliament will be required to legislate some proposals from the ongoing negotiation, former UN secretary-general, Mr Kofi Annan, has said. Annan, who is the lead mediator, said Parliament would be called upon to debate and entrench some of the recommendations into the Constitution once the negotiations are complete. Annan also challenged the private sector to join hands and ensure the proposals are implemented to create strong national institutions. “The issues cannot be tackled by political leaders alone. You must keep your voices high and loud,” Annan told over 200 chief executive officers during a forum at a city hotel, in Nairobi. “We have only one Kenya and we should come together and straighten it,” he said.
He called for a stop to violence that has rocked the country in the last one month, saying security was crucial for development. However, it was not immediately clear what proposals would be tabled in Parliament for legislation. The negotiating team has addressed issues on security and the humanitarian situation.
On Tuesday, the team started debate on the contentious presidential election, whose results sparked the violence that has claimed over 800 lives. “I hope we shall move expeditiously on this issue like we have in others,” said Annan. The Kenya Red Cross Secretary General, Mr Abbas Gullet, expressed concern that thousands of displaced people, mostly in Central Province, were sleeping in the open because the society cannot erect tents within the police stations.
Though most of them have asked for transport to western Kenya, Gullet warned that this raised moral and legal issues that the Government must address before the society can come in. “Though they voluntarily want to be relocated, we must be careful that it is not seen as ethnic cleansing,” he said. He also asked the Government to deploy the army to supplement relief efforts by the society, NGOs and volunteers.
Separately, Mr Jimnah Mbaru, the chairman of the Nairobi Stock Exchange, has said the stock market has lost over Sh70 billion due to uncertainty caused by the political crisis. He said the market has gone down substantially. “The index towards the end of the year was over 5,500, but right now it is about 4,600. This is a reflection of the negative impact of the political crisis. The share prices have also plummeted by more than seven per cent. The stock market is slowly recovering, but they (share prices) have a long way to go before they can come back to where they were before elections.”
Mbaru said the performance of the NSE was tied to the future of the country. “If we are able to come up with a proper political settlement, not just for the short run, but also for the long term to ensure this problem does not recur, then we are okay,” he told The Standard. He said the damage to the economy was devastating. “A city like Kisumu that took almost 100 years to build has been destroyed and it will not take less than 20 years to rebuild it. Other towns like Eldoret were doing well, but will take longer too to rebuild,” he said. Mbaru said the cost of living was likely to go up and consequently the level of savings will go down.
A Nairobi lawyer, PLO Lumumba, said nobody has been spared by the crisis. “As a lawyer many of my clients cannot afford legal fees. We should all reckon that if our country goes under it would take a long time to repair,” he said.
East African Standard
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