Members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Parliamentary Group of the Orange Democratic movement met at the Flamingo Beach Resort in Mombasa on June 18, to deliberate on a number issues affecting the country.
The meeting was hosted by the Deputy Party Leader and Governor of Mombasa County Ali Hassan Joho and attended by the Governor of Kilifi Amason Kingi, the Deputy Governors of Mombasa and Kilifi, among others.
During the meeting, the Party Leader Raila Odinga brought members to speed on the progress made in the implementation of the Building Bridges Initiative. Thereafter, the members had a robust discussion and resolved as follows:
1. That we support the Building Bridges Initiative, which is aimed at reconciling Kenyans, fostering unity of the Nation and harmony among Kenyans. Kenya at the moment needs healing.
We must as a country work hard towards ensuring a peaceful nation, fix the ills that have derailed us for years and put Kenya on the right track.
2. We fully support the current efforts to fight corruption in the country. Corruption has become a scourge that requires concerted efforts to eradicate. Although the war on graft is bound to elicit strong opposition from those who have benefitted from it, the ODM party will support any initiative that will help Kenya fight this vice and recover the stolen money and the grabbed property.
In this respect, we fully support lifestyle audit of leaders and procurement personnel in all public institutions. It should not be business as usual for those who engage in economic crimes. Those opposed to lifestyle audit of public officers are enemies of the country. No one is special and no one is being targeted.
3. Being a protracted process, the war on corruption must be fought from all fronts. We therefore urge the government to also consider involving external agencies to help the local institutions of integrity to bolster their efforts in the fight against graft.
By so doing, we shall rid the process of manipulation by cartels. Coast has become a host to top government leaders to scramble over land and mineral resources. We put on notice all the corruption cartels; we shall not sit down and look as greedy people move around with high appetite for natural resources and land meant for the poor.
4. We are opposed to the imposing of duty on Kerosene and removing from zero-rating of other basic commodities in the recent budget highlights that was delivered last week by the Cabinet Secretary for Treasury.
More worrying, the decision to impose tax on Mobile Money Transfer which is the only Kenyans not privileged to own bank accounts can use to send and receive money. The process of budget making should be to encourage and give hope to the citizens and not to disenfranchise them.
5. We register our disappointment with the government’s continued habit of disregarding court orders and refusing to abide by the law. The law provides for the allocation of 0.3 percent of the country’s revenue to the Political Parties Fund and this was affirmed by the High Court.
However this has not been honoured in the current printed estimates. We demand that the National Treasury should respect the law and abide by decisions of the court.
6. ODM is concerned at the spate of disappearances and abduction of young people, especially in the Coast region.
This in our view is a ploy by some State agencies to instill fear in the peace loving people of this region. we demand an immediate stop to this and call for an investigation on the past disappearances.
7. That in line with the discovery of Oil in Turkana, the government must take steps to revamp the KPRL plant in Mombasa for the country to reap the full financial benefits from Kenyan oil.
Dated at Mombasa this 18th June 2018"