Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has criticised the government for its mode of communication with Kenyans, citing that threats will not coerce people to embrace their policies.
Speaking on Radio Citizen, Sifuna singled out Mining CS Hassan Joho for lashing out at Kenyans who criticised the government on social media.
Sifuna confirmed that the CS would be summoned to Parliament to explain why he would threaten Kenyans’ freedom of speech which is enshrined in the Constitution.
“This government doesn’t know how to communicate with Kenyans. There’s no need for threats. In the case of Joho, we parliamentarians will summon him to ask him why he’s threatening Kenyans,” Sifuna said.
“He should remember that he is not a politician, he’s not a governor, but a CS. He is lucky that we’ll go for recess till February but we won’t forget. We will summon him and ask him what he means when he says that he will come for people online,” he added.
On December 3, 2024, Joho promised to take action against Kenyans who hurled insults towards the government, remarks that have elicited debate from all quarters.
Senator Sifuna urged Kenyans to exercise their right to freedom and not feel intimidated by any person in power.
“I want to urge Kenyans online not to be threatened by anyone. They have a right to speak. Some of you have already done your part and on retirement, and you’re threatening teenagers? We should be having conversations to know how to take the country forward,” Sifuna remarked.
He also raised concerns over President William Ruto’s recent remarks where he labelled Kenyans opposing all of his projects as “pepo chafu”.
Some of these projects included the Affordable Housing, Taifa Care and the controversial Adani-JKIA deal.
Sifuna explained that Kenyans demanded for accountability and transparency when carrying out such projects, which would inevitably become more appealing to the public.
“Kenyans are not against the upgrading of the airport, all they want is transparency. It didn’t matter if Adani got it as long as the process was transparent and credible,” Sifuna pointed out.
“The law dictates that the State should announce all the projects that it considers priority projects under the PPP model. To date, the president doesn’t understand why Kenyans were against Adani.”
To mitigate this, the senator noted that he would propose to amend the Public Private Partnership (PPP) law to enhance transparency during the entire process.
“I, as a Senator, will seek to amend the PPP laws whereby even if a company initiates a Privately Initiated Proposal (PiP), in seven days, the government must make it public. We will also introduce a Swiss challenge whereby other competitors can also submit their bid and the government to choose the best bid,” Sifuna explained.
“We don’t want a situation where a whistleblower such as Nelson Amenya telling us that the airport is being sold so that we take these things seriously.”
