Friday, January 27, 2006

Rescue Mission - Israel to the Rescue




Is there a reason an Israel flag is hosted on the site or is a sign on patriotism or is to trademark the area. Imagine if all the countries that came to help in ground Zero hosted their flags on the site ?okay stop critizing Irena..these men were of great help..

Concrete strategy
"Our lethargic and reactive nature, as opposed to being pro-active, was evident during the rescue operations at site of the collapsed building in Nairobi. The public, who were the first to arrive at the scene, did their best, using their bare hands, to save those trapped under the rubble. You have to give it to them for working tirelessly with minimum supervision. The rescue efforts were so uncoordinated that no one even thought of the much-needed basic equipment.

Enter members of the Israeli Defence Force's Home Front Command, nearly 20 hours later, and we we saw what is possible — if we are organised — as they first got the drawing of the building, set up their equipment and asked for "simple advanced equipment", according to public works assistant minister, Joshua Toro, like sledge hammers, pickaxes, spades, and may be even pairs of pliers.
When the President Mwai Kibaki visited the scene over 24 hours later, he later declared that Kenya would buy from the Israelis "the rescue equipment they used". Mr President, are the Israelis selling brains? That is what they used. "
http:///www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=31&newsid=65961


Now that Mr. Clay has beat me to it (he always talks about issues that I have in mind but never get to blog about, but I'm a huge fan of this Kenyan articles'), lets talk about this. A blogger pointed out to me the other day and asked why Kenya does not have a rescue Disaster Team and it seems whenever there is adisaster it takes an Israel ,US and UK team to do the work.

Fine, not to harshly criticize the government for lack of one but as Mr. Clay has pointed out it requires organization. As he cites above, the Kenyans public with their goodwill and the human compassion did a good job of using their bare hands and coming to the rescue.

However, truth be told, if we had at least a disaster team that responds to such who in turn coordinates with the Kenyan police to keep wananchi at bay and allow the ambulances, Kenya Red Cross and other disaster response teams and organized volunteers to quickly get to work , then perhaps more lives can be saved in such an event. I'm sure there is time wasted when such a disaster happens and I know it first hand for I was there in August 1998 ; the chaos that be fell the bomb site then was unimaginable.

We do of course need Israel but again the tools needed to break the concrete and to dig the trapped do not necessarily need to come from Israel because the response time "a flight away" is a lifetime for someone trapped underneath the debris. This is yet another rescue mission lesson 101 that kenya is learning the hard way but these are issue that need to be discussed as well and maybe when World Bank is busy giving cash left and right, they can save a buck or two and channel it to such areas "Disaster Response Fund"?. For Example the funds can be sub granted towards a jua kali project where all those shovels , wheel barrows, pick axes that Clay talks about can be made.

By the way do we have a mayor in Nairobi? Should he have been the first at the site like Giuliani was the face to reckon with in New York.........?




Thursday, January 26, 2006

Ultimate Sunday Ritual ---- Pure Delight!!!


Yaani relaxing music ..delightful


There can never be a better chocolcate than this! I'm totally obsessed!


The scent and the hue around the bath tub ...mama mia!


A total bath without this dunno.....the fragrance inaweza toa Nyoka shimoni:-) Yum!

This is a ritual I enjoy tremendously better than S@#####.... oops maybe not ..........:-) even that handsome young man that I wish for (wink) cannot replace this......:-)))

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Loan to Fight Corruption -Huh?

The World Bank' World Bank said on Wednesday it had approved a $25 million loan for Kenya's fight against corruption, but urged authorities to discipline ministers linked to a graft scandal that widened this week.

"The anti-corruption loan will go to the agriculture, trade, finance, planning and local government ministries to strengthen financial management and auditing of public funds to improve transparency and accountability in government expenditure"

Am I the only who do not get the sense of why we need a$25 Million to fight corruption? Exactly why are we getting a loan that we shall pay hefty interest on, to fight something when we already know who the culprits are and how they do it?.


What education does one need to catch a thieve? or what kind of equipment or mechanism that are not in place that we need to get a billion for?and then have to pay it back. Will this be a guarantee that there will be no more corruption after the billion is spent ?

Does this make sense ? Isn't this a simple matter of proper bookkeeping and audit trails to ensure transparency and accountability? What kind of accounting/financial softwares and human resources ( CPAs, CMAs CFA, Audit Committee) do we need to monitor these ministries. Question is, how were the finances of these ministries monitored before? Were they not in place in the first place, only that they have not been utilized properly ?

Should we be burying ourselves in more debt?

Please someone , help me get this?