Pay-to-play? Bill Clinton with President Uhuru Kenyatta at Statehouse. The former US President only visits countries which pay millions of dollars to his foundation.
For those not in the know, the Communication Authority of Kenya together with local mainstream media, agreed to shut down “international news” segments on news, immediately after the Arab Spring, as in their genius thinking, they imagined that the spring would spread to Kenya. Meaning a vast number of Kenyans remain out of the loop from global news with the segment being replaced with mediocre local programming like The Trend, SlimPossible, Who Owns Kenya, and some Linguistic clown that comes on KTN.
Due to this unfortunate scenario, Kenyans have become completely dumbed-down with many not being aware of international news, except the keen ones who can afford decoders to watch BBC and CNN.
“Pay-To-Play” is a phrase coined by Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, who has accused Democratic Party’s Candidate Hilary Clinton for using her husband’s Clinton Foundation as a vehicle to extort money from wealthy donors, corrupt heads of state, autocrats and corporate firms interested to seek an audience with her, or do business with the US State Department.
But Kenyans should keenly observe the latest email dump which reveals that Hilary Clinton solicited for US$ 12 Million from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, in exchange for her presence at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting. King Mohammed VI of Morocco agreed to give the money to the Clinton Foundation, provided that it held a convention in his country in May 2015 with Clinton as the keynote speaker.
The king gave the money to the Clinton Foundation and underwrote the CGI summit with the quid-pro-quo understanding that Hillary would attend, and other dignitaries attending were led to believe that she would be there.
In the same month, Bill and Chelsea Clinton visited Kenya and according to a media release on the Clinton Foundation website, the visit to Kenya was meant to highlight Clinton Foundation work and impact in economic growth and development, climate change, empowerment of women & girls, and global health and conservation.
The big question is, did President Uhuru Kenyatta use taxpayer’s money to pay an “appearance” fee to the Clinton Foundation in-order to have him visit the country under the guise of inspecting development projects?
Coupled with his itinerary visiting development initiatives purportedly funded by the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton also addressed young Kenyans under Equity Bank’s “Wings To Fly” program at the Kasarani Amphitheatre, fuelling further speculation that Equity could have jointly co-funded Clinton’s excursion to Kenya, since it is clear that for anyone to secure audience with him, money had to be paid.
Like Hilary Clinton, Uhuru has perfected the art of lying and deflecting issues, most recently the comical show disguised as a StateHouse Corruption Summit, where officers who are supposed to be at the forefront in the fight against corruption, kept shifting blame in a script that seemed choreographed, and targeted at naive Kenyans.
But the truth is that corruption became a way of life in Kenya, after all state organs and agencies saw first hand, Uhuru protecting Anne Waiguru, the thief who embezzled billions of shillings from the Devolution Ministry. This is a President who has all the instruments of power, has a majority in parliament and still whines how “powerless” he is to tackle graft. What does he take us for?
President Uhuru Kenyatta has gone ahead to use his influence to intimidate constitutional office holders and agents from executing their mandate, especially with the case of two Governors, Mwangi wa Iria and Alfred Mutua.
Corruption in Kenya begins and ends at Statehouse.