DIGITAL REGISTRATION

DIGITAL REGISTRATION TO START IN NOVEMBER

File: BVR in use. The government will start registering citizens afresh by November.

The government of Kenya will start registering its citizens digitally by November this year. This exercise will take off despite the heated debate between the opposition and the government which started some months ago when the Deputy President, William Ruto, announced that the Jubilee Government was to register Kenyans afresh in order to address the security challenges which hit the country and cases of fake identification documents.

The government said the registration will start with government employees in order to test whether it can work. The machines to be used will not be procured since the Biometric Voter Registration equipments, which were purchased from France in the year 2012 to be used in last year's general elections, will be used to register citizens of Kenya.

The opposition feared that, that was a strategy which Jubilee Government wanted to use in order to rig votes come 2017 elections.

File: manual identity cards: soon will be useless.

The government realized that there were several intruders in the country who have acquired identification documents illegally. The current issuance of identity cards are only based majorly on the current place of residence, the parents of whoever wants the identity card and one is allowed to apply for an identity card after producing the birth certificate which literally contains all the information about the birth of an individual. This method, according to the government, has not worked well and it has resorted to embark on digital registration. This means that the current manual identity cards will be rendered useless as soon as the digital registration is complete.

The registration, however, will cost the taxpayers approximately 8 billion shillings if it is carried out for a period of six months. The government said it will compress the process so that it can be done within three months and that will cost only 5 billion to be complete. The cost seems to be high, but at the end of the day some Kenyans will get jobs and everyone above 18 years of age will also be registered.

Other countries like Rwanda adopted digital registration some years back and it has acted as role model to Kenya. Several digital processes have been adopted in Rwanda. For example, registration of businesses online started long ago in Rwanda while in Kenya the government launched it about three weeks ago. Such digital migrations are paramount in growing the economy in the developing countries.

Polling station. BVR machines failed in 2013 elections.

The government of Kenya made a tremendous move in acquiring Biometric Voter Registration which worked marvelously during registration of voters which was carried out between 18^th November and 18^th December 2012. The problem arose only during March 4^th, 2013 elections when BVR machines were reported to have failed to transmit the votes to central tallying centre which was staged at Bomas of Kenya. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) decided to use manual voters list to carry out election after the failure of BVR machines to work.

The current move by the government to have voters registered digitally is, therefore, crucial in that the government will have an easy time detecting criminals and the foreigners who may enter the country illegally.

ELECTRICITY IN KENYA

File: KPLC workers connecting electricity. About 68% of Kenyans do not have electricity.

 ELECTRICITY CONNECTION IN KENYA IS TOO LOW

Power, particularly electricity, is a very important factor of production across the world. Electricity is paramount to human life just like water. One can agree with me that almost 90% of the foods we consume pass either directly or indirectly through a source of power. Food can either be cooked using fire (made of wood), gas, electricity, petrol or any other source of energy.

Of late, people prefer electricity to any other source of power because it is considered the cheapest. In Kenya the government has be championing for rural electrification which started about three years ago. Surprisingly, over 68% of Kenyans are not connected

with power. This number is shocking due to the fact that power is the only tool which can be used to alleviate poverty and grow the economy in developing countries like Kenya.

In developed nations like United States and United Kingdom, power is an essential commodity and everyone must have. Power in such developed nations is as mandatory as the clothes we wear in Kenya: mandatory in the fact that one cannot do without. We may be having other source of energy like natural fire in Kenya, but that cannot fully supplement the source of power we can get from electricity. This is because we cannot use natural fire to propel the machines in the manufacturing industries. One cannot use generators or gas power to run an industry.

One other thing to note about the power we produce in Kenya is that, the machines we use are procured. This means that we only own the source of power, but we lack the equipments we can use to produce it and we are suppose to urge developed nations to give us their machines so that we can use to produce.  We are supposed to pay in form of dollars the machines we procure from other nations. In that case, therefore, producing power in Kenya is tantamount to importing it since we pay expensively to produce it.

File: Pipeline. Oil is yet to be drilled in Turkana.

About three years ago the Kenyan government announced that the oil had been discovered in Turkana County, but up to date no one has shown any effort to start drilling it. The poor people of Turkana thought that the discovery of oil in the region would assist them to alleviate the poverty they have been enduring for centuries. The good news in Turkana County lasted for few days and the government forgot about it. The ministry of Energy and Petroleum in Kenya said they are waiting for a pipeline running from Lamu to Uganda in order to start exploiting the oil in Turkana County. The pipeline is expected to be complete in about three years to come: to mean the people in Turkana will still languish in poverty over those years.

There are several regions which have been found to contain a high source of power in Kenya. The discovery of natural gas in Wajir is one of the many places which have been found to contain a huge source of power. Natural gas is one of the powerful sources of energy just like electricity generated in a river (hydro electric power). The report from the ministry confirmed that there are 22 international companies trying to discover the sources of energy in Kenya. These companies are foreign and in an event they discover the source of energy in Kenya they will be the one to benefit most. This is because they will be in charge of production and in that case they will decide which price to charge Kenyans.

File: A steam in Olkaria. 1000MW of electricity can be produced in this region.

The geothermal power in Olkaria hot water steam in the Rift Valley has not been exploited fully. The Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has recently managed to produce approximately 200mw in the region. However, the power which can be produced in the region can be as high as 1000mw if the government of Kenya would accept to support the generation. About four years ago I heard the then vice president of Kenya, Kalonzo Musyoka, telling Kenyans that the government had planned to generate about 500mw in Olkaria hot water steam. That was a blue lie which the then vice president wanted to just use to win the votes of the people of Kenya.

 The cost of power has been looming over the last few years with the ministry

of Energy and Petroleum blaming the low rainfall which had been received in the country. This reason is not justifiable; however, the cost of electricity has been high due to the fact that the machines we use to produce electricity are hired from other countries. Since we use dollars to pay the hired machines, the inflation of Kenyan currency has been one other factor which has caused the rise in the price of electricity.

Jubilee Government promised to have over 78% households across the country connected with the power by 2017. This promise may not be realized since there is no effort now to connect the electricity to rural homes in Kenya. Kenyans do fear that the electricity will cost them much and they opt to use the existing natural source of energy (fire made of wood). To connect electricity to one home in Kenya cost the consumer approximately 35000 shillings and this have made many people not to access electricity and yet they have electric wires passing their homes.

I would suggest that the government should pay connection of electricity to every home if it wants to have more than 70% of Kenyans access electricity by 2017. The cost of paying the electricity should be left to common citizen to pay after being connected. That way, everyone will accept to have electricity since the cost of paying consumed electric energy is lower than the cost to be paid when one wants to be connected.

EBOLA: AFRICAN DEADLY DISEASE

File: Medics carrying an Ebola victim. The disease has killed close to 1000 people in West Africa.

THE WORLD LARGEST EBOLA OUTBREAK IN HISTORY

The recent outbreak of the most deadly disease, Ebola, in West Africa has rekindled a heated debate among the medics around the world with World Health Organization (WHO) is yet to declare it a world epidemic. The disease, which its history is routed in Africa especially among the countries at the Sub-Saharan region, has claimed approximately 1400 people since it was first reported in 1976.

Ebola was named after Ebola River in Zaire (the current Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1976 it killed approximately 500 people in both Sudan and Zaire.

Of late, the countries which are highly affected by the disease have reported approximately 1000 people dead and close to the same number infected. Among the countries which are highly affected include Sierra Leon, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

The disease is spread via a body fluid or blood. The disease, in the way it is spread from one person to the other, is almost the same as the way HIV virus is spread. It is proven that monkeys can spread to human beings just the way they spread HIV.  Fruit bats can also spread and surprisingly, they do spread and they are not infected. There is no specific treatment for the disease; efforts to help persons who are infected include giving slightly sweet and salty water to drink. The effort to develop the vaccine is ongoing.

File: a person suffering from Ebola.

Back to the main story, several countries across the world have issued travel advisories to their citizens who intend to visit West African countries where the disease has been reported. However Kenya airlines are still flying to the region despite the global warning by World Health Organization that the Ebola status in the West Africa currently has surpasses any other outbreak in Ebola history.

Kenya airways officials say they have put measures in place to gag the entrance of the disease to Kenya, however, it is important to note that Ebola virus can enter the body of an individual and cannot be detected for a period of three weeks and one can easily fly and land in Kenya and later on infect the people one is living with. Though the medics are saying one can only be infected when he/she comes in contact with the blood or fluid of an infected person, the risk of exposure by the infected person to unaffected individual is high especially in Kenya where people are ignorant of the disease. It is, however, not easy to contain the spread of the disease whose cure has not been established.

The best way to prevent the spread of the virus is imposition of quarantine. This will disadvantaged the infected people because at the end of the day they will die. It is estimated that the disease can kill 85% of the people infected and one can only be saved if one is found to have contacted the disease within the past few days. In a scenario where someone is bedridden, one has a zero chance of surviving.

In Nigeria, one person was reported to have died some few days after landing on the airport and the Nigerian government had put the measures in place to prevent the entrance of the disease in the country. If Nigerian government could not control the entrance of the disease to its country and it is the current Africa’s largest economy, how about Kenya who lacks even mechanisms to use to prevent physical catastrophes like terrorism, drugs, fire? Kenya should not be lead by greed of money to an extend it can sacrifice the lives of the people. The health personnel working in the airports should be vigilant and anyone who intends to fly from West Africa to Kenya should produce his/her health records of the past three weeks and that will help to prevent the disease from entering Kenya.

It is also important to note that the disease, since its first outbreak in 1976, has affected only African countries. The disease has never been reported in other continents of the world other than Africa. Could it be laboratory-made disease to reduce world population especially African population by European? The scandal mongers said the rationale behind less effort to produce medicine or vaccine for HIV/AIDS, is the disease to reduce world population. Aids infection is widespread in African countries and of late the European and Western nations have reported few cases. Remember HIV virus is a laboratory-made. It is the same thing with deadly Ebola: it has killed Africans alone.

NATION CENTRE

NATION CENTRE: A MAGNIFICENT BUILDING IN THE CITY

An overview of the Nation Centre at Kimathi Street, Nairobi.

Nation Centre, is a landmark 17-storeyed twin tower building situated in the central business district of Kenya's capital city, Nairobi. If you thought Nation Centre building is just a mere storey building like any other skyscraper within the city, then you are wrong.

Yesterday was a red letter day for the second year second semester journalism students of the University of Nairobi who aspire to major next semester in either print media or broadcast media. I hope you will enjoy reading the anecdote below.

It all started in the morning. We were around twenty students from the School of Journalism, University of Nairobi who were allowed to attend that academic trip. I myself, I woke up in a chilly morning and tip toed towards Nation Centre. I met Beth, my classmate, outside Lyric House working towards Nation Centre which was approximately 50 metres away. Beth is the most beautiful lady I have ever seen in this world. Since I joined the University last year, I have been admiring her a lot and I had never had a knack to say even hi to her despite she and I being in one class for 365 plus days!

So you can guess that I would not miss yesterday’s opportunity to extend my hand to her to even say hi alone. I did not know she was very responsive. She responded my greetings and gave me a smile I thought it was the best I have ever seen in this crazy world. It was then when I started chatting with her academics as it normally happens when two school going guys meet.

I asked her what she would major in come next semester. In School of Journalism there are four areas of specialization; print, broadcast, development communication and public relation. So I was just asking Beth what she would major in otherwise at the back of my, after seeing her awesome face which people like to watch in the television screens, I had the answer but surprisingly she told me she would major in public relation and not broadcast media. It was then when I told her direct about her beauty and the connection of that beauty and broadcast media, but she said she was shy and she could not stand in front of a camera to anchor news.

We were standing outside Nation Centre and people were just passing by and I could see dozens of them staring at her and they could not recognize my presents either. Though she was casually dressed, since the trip was not official, she was looking marvelous in her outfit. Her long hair was amazing and anyone would feel like touching it. Her shinning eyes and brown face matched nicely. The voluptuous and curvaceous body she has could attract attention of everybody. And that was Beth my classmate who accused me of being too silent in class. I responded her by saying I only participate in serious topics and not jokes. She told me, guys who like writing are always silent, but I denied that assumption by telling her a journalist should be sanguine in character.

Back to the major story of the day, outside Nation Centre were school of journalism students standing waiting for someone to pick them and take them inside the building. We stood outside for close to 30 minutes and a huge middle-age woman came to pick us. She gave us instructions on how to behave inside the building. The foremost instruction was no taking photos either inside or outside the building because of security reasons.

So we followed the normal security search which happens almost in all the buildings in Nairobi because of the risk brought about by al-Shabaab terror group. On our way to the lift which we were told it would take us to second floor, we were told to queue. We were like sheep waiting to be driven into a cattle dip. I was in front since some students were a bit scared to lead the way. Luckily, there was a commissionaire who assists forks in pressing the lift button. So he pressed ascending button and within few minutes the lift opened and he instructed us to enter in. We were about five students inside the lift to second floor where we would start our tour. Inside the lift I could not see where the second floor button was. It was not my first time to use a lift, but the design of the lift in this building is utterly different from the one I have ever used. The walls inside the lift were coated with a mattress-like cloth. So the buttons to different floors were not visible and one was required to be a good observer to locate them. Fortunately there was Freda, my classmate, who looked familiar with those things and she assisted us to check and press the button to second floor. Unlike other lifts I ever used within the city, that lift was so faster that we used only less than three seconds to reach second floor.

At second floor, as we were told, we waited for a lady who would take us round from second floor to sixth floor. Within a minute she arrived and instructed us to follow her to sixth floor direct using the stairs. At this second floor I could see a hall which contain approximately 200 desktop computers with some occupied by people while others are just vacant.

At sixth floor, we stood at the reception. This sixth floor at Nation Centre is where the Qtv, the Nation Television (NTV), Nation FM radio and Q fm are located. The lady at the reception who had short hair told our guide that the televisions and the radio stations were busy and we could go down stairs (second floor) to look at editorial room/hall for the Daily Nation and Taifa Leo newspapers.

At second floor our guide took us to the chief-editor’s desk so that he could instruct someone to take us round the hall. He called Stella Cherono, who is a health sub-editor, and instructed her to orientate us around different departments within that second floor.

The lady was talking in a low tone and we could hardly hear her talking. The only thing I saw her showing us at the chief-editor’s desk was the book containing the names of the reporters against the cameramen assigned different duties.

From that desk, she showed us the editorial department for the East Africa Newspaper which is published weekly (every Thursday). We headed to Daily Nation Sport Desk where we found Golf Game sub-editor who told us what the sport news entails. From there we proceeded to Sunday and Saturday magazine sub-editors, where we found only two guys since there was no much work for them on Thursday and we were told some of them were in the field. We then advanced to the health sub-editing desk where Cherono is working. We also saw guys who write features. We were told those people read the newspaper critically everyday in order to come up with the features to be published.

To my utter amazement I saw a computer I had never seen in my entire life. We were told that computer has software which the ordinary computers we use do not have. Those applications contained in that computer are only designed for newspaper layout before it is printed.

We proceeded to the final part of the newspaper editorial room where we found so many busy guys working on the Kiswahili newspaper, Taifa Leo, which we were told it is the first paper to go to print. We were also told of the four categories of the Daily Nation newspaper. It is segmented according to the regions. There are Nairobi edition, Coastal edition, Western Edition and the current digital edition which is viewed worldwide via an online platform.

That was all about the editorial newspaper department where we found to be a highly equipped floor in the whole building.

We went back to sixth floor to where the televisions and radio stations are located. We went to Nation FM where we found funny Munene, the radio producer, seated in the studio. He explained to us how the radio studio is operated using the most funny and simple language. There is nothing much at the radio studio and I learned that one can purchase radio equipments at hardly one million shillings.

We went to another studio connected with the studio where Munene was and we found a Kiswahili news anchor at NTV, who is on leave, seated at the studio. He talked to us about his career and education as we were waiting for a certain programme to end at television stations.

He took us at around 11:10a.m to Qtv newsroom where we saw a highly equipped room full of computers. He explained to us how news is done in the newsroom and how different clips are played. He then took us to the Qtv studio where he showed us studio equipment. Surprisingly, lights were turn on and I was shocked about the kind of lights they use at the studio. That news anchor admitted that lights are too much and they can have some effects on the studio users. He said when they are inviting people to attend interviews, they normally advise them on what they should wear. He said blue shirts are not allowed in that studio since its walls are blue. He showed us the autocue and I learned that an autocue is not board-like display of words. It is actually a small device mounted together with the camera.

He then took us outside the studio and showed us dressing room where they change their clothes before they go on air. He took us to gallery department where they edit the pictures/ photos to be played during news bulletin.

We then proceeded to NTV newsroom where the news directors are situated. Inside NTV newsroom there were several big computers. We found one director who explained to us how news is run in an autocue. We could not ask much at NTV newsroom since most of the equipments it contained were more less the same as that we saw at the Qtv newsroom. We could not be allowed to go to advertising studio which we were told it runs for 24 hours. We could only eavesdrop through the window and see some guys wholly committed inside. We were told that advertisement studio is a very paramount part of the media enterprise since the media house survives mainly on the advertisements.

He then motioned us to the NTV studio where they conduct interviews and read news. There were two parts of the studio. In NTV, the walls are smart and one can wear any dress he/she feels like wearing since all the colours are allowed unlike in Qtv where blue colour is prohibited. The lights at the studio were not too much. There were two people, news anchors, lingering in the studio. I could recognize one as Nimrod Taabu: a Kiswahili news presenter. We were showed different screens and their functions and that was the end of our tour inside the building.

What I adored most in the building is the organization of studios and different news departments. I really long for the day I will work there. It is an awesome place to be in.