By Alphonce Shiundu
Nairobi, Kenya - President Uhuru Kenyatta resurfaced yesterday after a week-long retreat at the Sagana State Lodge with good news for the thousands of the country’s workers: a 12 per cent payrise and a directive to employers that henceforth, they have to share their colossal profits with their hardworking employees.
At the Labour Day celebrations peppered with political undertones, President Kenyatta slammed the opposition for persistent criticism of his two-year-old administration and pledged to end the rhetoric that he has served the public on crucial issues.
“I am happy that even my colleagues who lead the opposition are here. They should know that today I am here as President, but when they talk about this country, they should talk in terms of giving solutions. It is easy to criticise, it is much harder to do. Let’s be on the path of doing...to undo the wrongs we have done in the past,” he said.
That terse remark delivered in a mix of English and Kiswahili, the two official languages of the country, came after the cheery late entry of the Opposition leader Raila Odinga and senators Moses Wetangula, Hassan Omar and James Orengo at the Uhuru Park, just moments before the Head of State spoke.
For the first time since he took power and his first public appearance after an embarrassing blunder that made him cancel an international business trip, the President appeared keen to shed the tag that his administration only “talks a lot and does little”.
Kenyatta told a cheering crowd, which had braved the early morning rains and the chilly Nairobi weather to show up, that, going forward he’ll stop the rhetoric and deliver on his campaign pledges for affordable healthcare, free education for primary and secondary students, and secure, corruption-free country.
“I am now fed up with the rhetoric, the talking. I think it is enough. You won’t hear me engage in the rhetoric again. But I want to promise you that I will use the position that God and Kenyans have given me to improve the lives of Kenyans inside and outside the country,” said the President.
The Head of State hauled five Cabinet Secretaries – Raychelle Omamo (Labour), Joseph Nkaissery (Interior), Jacob Kaimenyi (Education), Anne Waiguru (Devolution) and Amina Mohammed (Foreign Affairs and International Trade) to the workers’ Labour Day celebrations at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, that was also attended by a retinue of Principal Secretaries and senior State officials.
The Opposition has been a thorn in the flesh of the Jubilee administration following the runaway insecurity, the failure to deal with terror and even the scary itinerary blunder a week ago the President.
After two years of no raise on the minimum wage, the workers’ union boss Francis Atwoli and his colleague of a rival union Wilson Sossion pleaded with the President to consider giving the workers additional money because of the increase in the cost of living.
In his usual loud ebullient style, Atwoli worked up the crowd to “expect something” from the Head of State who had made a rare early appearance to the Labour Day celebrations after skipping it last year.
“I see he’s wearing an expensive imported suit, and I know, in there, in his wallet, there’s something good for the workers,” said Atwoli.
Perhaps aware of the usual government excuse that the economy was bad and therefore a pay rise was untenable, the Cotu secretary general insisted that workers too deserved a better life, and the President should not make time for the employers’ perennial cry to keep labour costs down.
“Inflation and the cost of living have gone up. The times are hard. Even if there’s a problem with the economy, it affects all of us. Please get something for these workers. The people who employ us, pay us peanuts but they evade paying tax,” said Atwoli.
Also Sossion, who is also the boss of the country’s biggest teachers’ union, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), told the President that workers’ hated downing their tools, but they were always being forced to do so, if only to make the government and employers realise that they must respect the collective bargaining agreements. “As workers, we don’t enjoy strikes,” said Sossion.
Workers’ rights
The President took the cue and said the government maths showed that the country can only afford a 12 per cent payrise, which translates to Sh672 of the previous wage of Sh6,000 for the least-paid worker in the minimum wage bracket.
“Everyone has to get what is rightfully theirs. Investors and employers must know that there’s no profit without the sweat of the worker; the workers too must know that there’s no pay without working hard to deliver. The government too deserves the taxes, because that’s what we use for service delivery to make sure every Kenyan lives a life that they can enjoy,” President Kenyatta told a cheering crowd.
Kenyatta also told employers that they should share the profits they make with their employees.
“We thank the investors for their investments in the country, but let it not be that you will continue crying everyday about the wage bill and labour costs without passing the huge profits that you make riding on the government’s reform programme to your hardworking employees,” said the President.
At some point the president’s delivery sounded like a campaign speech as he told the crowd that the power prices had gone down just as he promised, efficiency at the port of Mombasa had improved and insisted that he was working hard to make sure healthcare and primary and secondary education are also affordable.
“Slowly by slowly, we will get there,” the president said as he pledged a massive slum upgrading campaign like the one in Kibera.
“... so that when a worker from Industrial Area gets home, they should feel like they are living a life like that of the wealthy guy who has employed them”.
When it was all over, the President left for an engagement in State House – he told the crowd “not to think that he was running away” – and the opposition leaders also walked away without making a statement to the crowd.
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