With most of the ministerial appointments in the Cabinets of all the regional governments filled with both tribal and political cronies, what Kikwete did is really against the ‘spirit’ of what has come to be known — to the detriment of our regional economies — as ‘consultative politics’ where thieves of public coffers are kept in their jobs to protect and maintain tribal voting blocs.
EAC leaders may be considering Kikwete’s action a ‘very bad’ example, but, it must be noted that the voting pattern in Tanzania is not the same as those of all other EAC countries where tribal chiefs are appointed to the Cabinet to appease various tribes and interest groups.
In Kenya, sacking, for example, a corrupt Mijikenda, Maa or Arab minister would mean that the groups are targeted for political extinction.
The corruption allegations against the sacked Tanzanian ministers would pale in comparison to the billions of shillings lost in graft cases of Goldenberg, AngloLeasing, De La Rue, NSSF and now NHIF. Ironically, most individuals mentioned in these scandals are still holding government offices.
Kikwete’s ‘abnormal’ act is welcome and would go along way in reshaping the regional politics and governance.
{Emmanuel Ngala, Malindi}
Preserve value of honorary degrees
Without necessarily referring to Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s award of honorary doctorate degree from an American university, there is a worrying feeling that world universities have embraced a disturbing culture of dishing out the degrees to senior government officials, politicians, businessmen and the moneyed as opposed to the original purpose: Honouring achievement.
The prestige of doctorate degrees is being washed down and soon will lose its significance. Going by recent happenings world over, doctorate degrees will soon be seen to be a preserve of the affluent at the expense of the deserving.
{Justin Osey Peter, Mombasa}
I join other Kenyans in congratulating Raila on being honoured with a doctorate degree from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in the US.
I, too, commend local and international universities for recognising leadership talent among our politicians. For long, politicians had been left out in these honours.
