What the government is trying to do is buy votes from women too just it has done to the youth fraternity. Most of our challenges which our communities are encoutering is to see food on the table and these culmunates the 50% poor communities within urban and semi urban areas. With the hardship encoutered in our society the government is dangling with the kity while the common mwananchi doesnt know that the same cash being dangled to them is their own revenue being collected annually.
The Government is reaching out to the country’s crucial voting bloc by giving out Sh500 million under the Women Enterprise Fund, with a pledge to triple the kitty to Sh3 billion next year.
Gender and Sports minister Maina Kamanda was quick to distance the release of the first tranche of the Sh1 billion kitty from the electioneering goodies, stating that the fund was a commitment President Kibaki made to the women last year.
“This fund was set up last year by the President to empower women and today, we are giving out the first allocation of the fund to facilitate enterprise development among women. We are not doing this for political reasons,” he said.
But the leaders of women financial institutions who were present at the official launch of the fund at the ministry’s offices at NSSF Building declared at a victory for their gender.
The release of the Sh500 million, which would be disbursed through selected 12 micro-financial institutions and the fund’s committees in each constituency, comes only 13 days to the General Election in which President Kibaki will be seeking to defend his seat on the Party of National Unity (PNU) ticket.
His challengers, who have dismissed the women fund and the youth fund as ploys to attract votes, are Mr Raila Odinga of ODM and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM Kenya.
Mr Musyoka and ODM Pentagon member William Ruto declared that the emancipation of the women and youth needs a comprehensive program of timed targets and not short term measures.
“How can they claim to be empowering women by releasing cheques when we know very well that the Sh1 billion youth fund is still shrouded in clouds? The Government has been unfair to the women of this country and ODM Kenya will change that when we take over power,” said Mr Musyoka.
On his part, Mr Ruto said the Kibaki administration was engaging in meaningless short-term interventions that could not last long and stated that ODM has a clear program on how to uplift the welfare of women and the youth.
“Both the women and youth funds are gestures of tokenism which will not have any meaningful impact to the plight of women and youth in this country. To be able to create opportunities for women and the youth, you need a complete shift to a comprehensive program. Short term myopic gestures targeting patronage will not succeed,” he said.
The Youth Enterprise Fund was also conceived in June 2006 and President Kibaki launched it in February this year where a total of Sh1 billion was given out. It is meant to draw the country’s youth who are most hit by unemployment to engage in income generating activities.
As the two leaders dismissed the launch of the fund in separate phone interviews, Mr Kamanda submitted that the Government has, in addition to the Sh1 billion kitty, put in place measures to give women a prominent role in the development of the country. He cited the review of laws that criminalise discrimination against women, enactment of the Sexual Offences Act, ratification of a convention to eliminate gender violence and the setting aside of one-third of public service jobs for women.
“The President has shown his determination to empower women to take their rightful place in socio-economic development. What we are doing today bears the testimony to the Government’s commitment to integrate women in the process of national development,” he said of the women who form majority of the country’s 14.3 million registered voters.
Most of our women lagislators should encourage this or ignore it. Remembering that our current situation is to get something for our families on the table we should think before we vote we should not vote with our stomaches neither our voes be bought but we should vote wisely .Zachariah Ochieng
Mother and Child Mission Centre (Kenya)
Centre Director
