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Monday, March 10, 2014

Lawmakers vow to increase their pay by 20 per cent

Photo: gadocartoons.com
Kenyan members of parliament have reacted with shock to the use of the word's 'pay' and 'cut' in the same sentence. Their reaction at an emergency press conference came after the president announced that he and the deputy president would be taking a 20 percent pay cut on their salaries, while cabinet secretaries would take a 10 percent pay cut. Ironically, the president announced this resolution after a retreat for top government officials in one of the most expensive hotels in the country. Nevertheless, a government parrot, who attended the retreat explained that taking a pay cut did not mean that the top dogs would quit extravagant and wasteful spending of public funds.

"Pay cuts or not, we have to live a life worthy of our stature in society," he offered.

The president has also directed parastatal chiefs to take a 20 per cent salary cut. This new directive prompted MPs to call an emergency parliamentary meeting, oddly attended by all MPs, during which it emerged that it was illegal for the president to vary his salary during one term. For that reason, a handful of lawmakers volunteered to challenge the president's pay cut in court. MPs also pledged to ensure that the word 'rise' is reinstated to its former position in any sentence with the word 'pay' in it, and vowed to increase their salaries to prove that parliament is an independent body, that is free from external influence.

                                                                                                -Additional reporting by Mugambi Mutegi




Tuesday, January 14, 2014

No one cares about your excuses

I was running late and there was nothing much I could do about it. I could not get a convenient ride from dial-a-chopper to get me where I needed to be on time nor could I  run in record time to get there. All I could do was pray for the best.

I had scheduled two interviews hours and miles apart, knowing there was ample time in between to get to each without much of a fuss. However, as with many other best laid plans, mine came apart. I got delayed for the first interview, eating into my travel time for the second interview. I had to rush through the first so that I could barely make it, huffing and puffing into the second. It was at a place I wasn't too familiar with and I looked like a mad woman running from one block to the other asking the askaris I found for directions without really stopping to get them right. Eventually, I gobbled up the stairs to the first floor where our meeting was to take place and almost missed my host as she was walking out of her office. I was already in quite a state: not the picture one is supposed to present of herself for first impressions and especially not for a meeting with a lady boss whom you needed to remember you in good light: My face was moist with sweat, shoes dusty, and I out of breath. But I managed to mouth my introductions and to beg that she give me a few minutes of her time.

As I blurted out my excuses, she gave me a once over and sternly replied:

"Nobody cares about your excuses."

And then she went ahead to explain that she had other things on her schedule that she couldn't delay for my sake. I had had my slot on her to-do list but I wasted it. That wasn't her problem. Previously, I was used to people taking my excuses for lateness kindly and indulging me, after all were we not all African's with only a sense of African time? But this lady's remarks cut me, and she was right. After that lifetime lesson/ lecture, she gave me a warm welcoming smile. She only had 10 minutes to spare, would that be enough? I mouthed a quick yes and we went ahead to have a brief interview that went well and gleaned all of what I needed. She walked into her next meeting without huffing and puffing and I left her office with a lesson that I'll never forget: Nobody cares about your excuses. Nobody cares about your good intentions; what they want is to see the work done. Whenever, I want to make excuses for myself or anyone else, I remember that nobody cares about my excuses and I do what I need to do. I thought about this just before the recent anniversary of my birth. I looked at my life and the excuses I had given myself this past year, the fears I had given in to, the risks I had failed to take and the things I was yet to do and I remembered that nobody cares about my excuses, all they want is to see things happening. So I'm toasting to a more adventurous year where I take more risks. So help me God.

And here are the quotes I keep around my neck to remind me not to give any excuses:


  • For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions.” But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. - Jean-Paul Satre
  • I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse. - Florence Nightingale
  • The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it. - Jordan Belfort
  • At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets. - Steve Maraboli
  • He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. - Benjamin Franklin
  • Never make excuses. Your friends don't need them and your foes won't believe them. - John Wooden
  • Do not make excuses, whether it's your fault or not. - George S Patton Jr
  • The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions. - Dwight Eisenhower
  • It's easy to blame traffic jam when you're late and in a hurry. - Toba Beta