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Editorial: Bond over the Kitchen Table |
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Monday, 18 January 2010 |
After the aborted Grand Coalition ‘bonding session' at Kilaguni, two of Prime Minister Raila Odinga's statements stuck in my head: ‘We're not gay' and ‘The first item on the agenda was to agree the agenda'. Now the term ‘bonding session' has irritated me for the longest time since I have little patience for such emotional frailties from people who refer to post-election murder, rape and looting as ‘a legitimate, spontaneous political protest'. But other than that, this intriguing Nairobi Star headline predictably only sidetracked things into an uneasily tittering debate about entirely the wrong subject. It is the second statement that rubbed me up the wrong way entirely: So taxpayers pay for all these already expensive people to go on a retreat to discuss some things that they should have sorted out months ago, and they travel there without a mutually agreed agenda and an independent moderator? The contradictory presidential and prime ministerial conferences afterwards were an expressive, if unnecessary, confirmation that this Grand Coalition government may be doing a lot of things, but getting on with their jobs isn't one of them. Aside from the worrying political risk outlook – and Martha Karua's resignation just added an interesting new twist to it - I feel a niggling irritation with some people's apparent inability to do their work at their, well, work place. I'm tired of hearing all these sob stories about a ‘more conducive work environment' and ‘getting away from everything'. If you're serious about something, you can get it hashed out at your kitchen table, and in most conferences that I've been to, everyone constantly plays with their phone anyway, even at, believe it or not, upmarket coastal resorts. I got into an online debate with a staff member of the ICT Board about the perceived need to hold the Connected Government (or Con Government, as he helpfully abbreviated it) conference in Mombasa rather than Nairobi , where most of the participants were located. Intriguingly, the kind people from Telkom Orange provided a connection to link in those people IN Nairobi who were deemed essential and couldn't make it to Mombasa . Why not do it at the KICC and put the money saved on flights and hotels into, say, famine relief? My debate partner said that only 20% of the conference costs had been financed by government, but most starving people will tell you – every little helps. 28 April 2009
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