Educate and Involve People in All Decisions and Processes – Press Statement
June 9, 2015
Educate and Involve People in All Decisions and Processes
Press Statement
Preamble
The Regional Conference of the NCCK Nairobi Region is meeting here at Jumuia Conference and Country Home, Limuru, from7th to 9th June 2015 under the theme Shining the Light of Christ (Matthew 5: 14 – 16). The Regional Conference is the supreme governance organ in the region and meets once every three years. More than 300 delegates from the Membership of the NCCK are participating in this Conference where we are considering matters of concern to the nation and specifically to our counties, which are Nairobi, Kiambu, Garissa, Wajir and Mandera. During our deliberations, we are inspired by the word recorded in Isaiah 60: 1- 3
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears to you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”
This is our prayer and desire for all the counties in our region and the entire country. And in this regard, we wish to share the following message with all our people and especially our leaders:
1. Engage the Community to Eradicate Corruption
This Regional Conference celebrates the devolution of power and resources as defined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010, but is saddened that corruption also got devolved to the counties. There have been witnessed cases of tribalism, nepotism and open corruption that constantly remind us that this vice has percolated every sector of our society. Recognizing that eradicating corruption cannot be the duty of only one person or institution but rather must be collective effort aimed at transforming the society, this Regional Conference recommends the following:
i) We challenge the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development to spearhead a review of the school curriculum so that values are inculcated in our children from pre-school to university. Towards this, the KICD should engage relevant stakeholders including religious institutions and the National Anti Corruption Campaign Committee to get the specific messaging
ii) We challenge the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission to stop playing games with Kenyans and do their work or quit. It makes no sense to us for the Commission to present a list of persons suspected of engaging in corruption and then go ahead and clear them. Such Public Relations stunts are an insult on the wisdom of Kenyans and must not be repeated again. We wish to remind the staff of EACC that their success will be manifested in the number of corruption cases successfully prosecuted and perpetrators punished, and not in the number of lists of suspects they generate.
iii) We call upon the Governors in our counties to strongly intensify the war against corruption by ensuring that every person against whom there is evidence of corruption is severely punished. Governors must allow persons, even their ardent supporters, to bear their own crosses and pay the cost for the crimes they commit, especially the crime of corruption.
iv) We urge the Judiciary to deliberately bring to an end the culture of delaying delivery of justice that should be meted out on corrupt individuals to an end. Judges and magistrates must ensure that cases of corruption are heard and decided upon in the shortest time possible, keeping in mind what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 8: 11 – “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong”
v) We call upon the Attorney General and the County Assemblies in our counties to make laws that will make it very expensive and punitive for any person to give or receive a bribe. We must deal with both demand and supply corruption if we are to weed it out completely.
vi) We invite our brothers and sisters in the church and other religious institutions to initiate accountability forums in their communities where the public can hold leaders to account and thereby entrench a culture of ethical governance and accountability
2. Empower People on Environmental Stewardship
This Regional Conference recognizes that in the last few months, the reality of the degradation of our environment has come out quite strongly. In our region, our people have suffered from both the lack of rain and also too much rain. We therefore call upon our Governors to urgently put in place strategies to sensitize the people so that we grow to become communities of environmental stewards. The goal of these efforts will be to conclusively address the challenges of famine and drought as well as mitigate flooding when the rains come.
In addition, we recommend that some administrative actions be taken which include:
i) The use of polythene paper bags should be banned forthwith considering that these paperbags are the greatest solid waste polluters in our counties. Let us begin today to build a culture of adopting reusable and bio-degradable packaging.
ii) County administrators should enforce strict rules when approving construction plans to ensure that the urban centers are properly organized to facilitate movement of people and rain water
iii) Governors should ensure that all urban centers have sewer lines to stop the proliferation of septic tanks which pose a great health hazard to the community
iv) Governors should partner with churches and other religious institutions to run tree planting and nurturing campaigns with a goal of ensuring each county has a minimum of twenty percent tree cover
3. Address Terrorism Adequately
This Regional Conference expresses concern that in our counties, a religious war has been waged but has often been baptized terrorism and insecurity. Many Christians and especially preachers have been killed, injured or maimed in violent attacks. It is not lost on us that the heinous attacks including Westgate, US Embassy and Garissa University were all in our region. It is clear that the primary intention of these attacks is to suppress the right to religious freedom of Christians in specific areas by provoking a religious war in the country.
In this regard, we urge His Excellency the President to take courageous and radical measures to deal with terrorism that could include:
i) Profile hate message preachers and prosecute them since they are known and records of their words against other religions exist
ii) Take ruthless action against any person who participates in attacks on other Kenyans. It must be made very clear that no one will be allowed to harm Kenyans and get away with it
iii) Take decisive and punitive action against terror supporters and financiers, who are known to include community, political and religious leaders. We especially remind the political leaders from Garissa that they should live up to the promise to release the list of terrorism supporters within one month
Related to the issue of terrorism is the question of spiraling insecurity affecting our people. We urge our Governors to partner with the national government to ensure security for all. A key strategy in this process will be extensive and intensive civic education to enable the people embrace the Nyumba Kumi Initiative. There will also be need for a rigorous campaign to eradicate corruption among the security agencies to ensure there is effective enforcement.
4. Reverse the Grabbing of Church Schools
This Regional Conference is greatly shocked at the blatant grabbing of church schools by the government through the Basic Education Act 2013. It is very worrying that the government has embarked on a process of declaring church sponsored schools as public institutions and issuing Title Deeds to the education boards. This is blatant robbery since it is the churches that established and run the schools. We call upon the national government to reverse this process and facilitate a review of the Basic Education Act so as to restore the schools to the rightful owners.
Further, we challenge the recent calls for scraping of religious education from the school curriculum. We are convinced that the religious education should actually be expanded so as to inculcate values in the learners as a remedy to the social problems we are currently experiencing.
In addition, this Regional Conference is perturbed by the efforts by the Ministry of Education and some international organisations to corrupt the morals of school children through the introduction of the so-called comprehensive sex education. We condemn these efforts and demand the process stops forthwith.
5. Protect Marriage and Family Life
This Regional Conference rejects and condemns the ruling by the High Court that Gay and Lesbian organisations can be registered. This blanket legalization of unnatural, immoral and sinful behavior is what we warned would happen when we asked Kenyans to first amend the Constitution before passing it in the referendum in 2010. We assure the Kenya Christians Professionals Forum and the Attorney General of our prayers and support as they appeal the ruling seeking to reverse it so as to safeguard our marriages and family life.
Further, we call upon the Attorney General to reverse the regulations developed in light of the Marriage Act 2014 which have made conducting weddings a very expensive and tedious affair. Establishing marriage should be made as easy as possible, not more difficult.
On our part, we have committed ourselves to initiate and enhance Family Life Education Prorgrammes so as to fulfil Malachi 2: 15 which says that God is seeking a godly offspring. We will especially build on discipleship programmes targeting men and children in our churches and communities.
We will also undertake intensive campaigns in our congregations and communities to promote an end of the menace of drug and alcohol abuse among communities. This tragedy is decimating our men, and it is our prayer that the county and national governments will take decisive administrative action to enforce the Alcohol control related laws.
Conclusion
As we conclude, we wish to note that the problems facing our people cannot be adequately resolved without involving them. The people must be part of the solution. We therefore urge our county and national governments to educate and involve the people in decision making processes so that our counties and country can becoming beacons of shining light that will attract other nations.
May we always remember the concept in our National Anthem:
Let one and all arise
With hearts both strong and true
Service be our earnest endeavor
And our homeland of Kenya
Heritage of splendor
Firm may we stand to defend
May God bless Kenya now and forever more.
Signed on this 8th day of June 2015 at Jumuia Conference and Country Home, Limuru
Bishop Moffat Kilioba
Regional Chairman, NCCK Nairobi Region
