President William Ruto is contemplating banning fundraisers, and that follows a refrain of questions from the general public and a request from church buildings.
When he met leaders drawn from varied protestant church buildings on Friday, one of many requests offered to him was to get rid of harambees.
One of the clerics current in that assembly was retired Presbyterian cleric Timothy Njoya. In an interview with NTV, Rev Njoya mentioned the difficulty of harambees was one of many subjects the clerics touched on.
“That one we said very clearly,” Rev Njoya instructed NTV’s Dann Mwangi as a part of the “Collar on Trial” sequence of interviews.
And how did the President reply?
“He didn’t respond to some things. He had no time. We asked him too many things,” answered Rev Njoya. “But he seems to agree.”
During a media roundtable on Sunday, Dr Ruto mentioned it’s time Kenya rethought fundraisers.
Corruption
“We must stop harambees because it is occasioning and it is breeding, if I may say, corruption,” mentioned the President.
Among the complaints raised towards Dr Ruto’s administration is how his high allies had been contributing huge quantities to fundraisers, which invited questions relating to the supply of revenue.
The President mentioned harambees started as a noble concept, however their usefulness now hangs within the steadiness.
According to Rev Njoya, the political class contributing in harambees is a conduit for corruption.
“These people who are carrying gunny bags to church, these MPs and other people, to give to the church. Who is more corrupt: the giver or the given?” he posed.
“I have always said that since I got saved in1956: the State is the agent and servant of the people. It should not buy the people. It should do work for which it is mandated by the people; not steal from the people to take back to them,” added the cleric.
Rev Njoya added that in his days as a preacher, he by no means organised fundraisers in search of to get contributions from personalities.
“Ask all these people who used to come to my church in Kinoo. Have they ever given me a shilling or given my church? We didn’t do harambee or any fundraising when they came,” mentioned Rev Njoya.
Asked whether or not the church leaders received any handout from the State House after visiting, Rev Njoya was equivocal that nothing was supplied.
“If anybody was in the pocket, Ruto was in our pocket. We gave him our written statement and then we gave it to the Press,” he mentioned. “It is him who was left with our property; not us his.”
He went on: “All those who can be given money are the ones who are saying so because they don’t know anything else to be done to the State House other than be given money. They are corrupt, those who are alleging that to me are the most corrupt people. They are mentally corrupted. Their mindset is corrupted. I would say that: how can you imagine that Reverend Njoya can be given money by Ruto? Would you imagine?”
Rev Njoya was an outspoken critic of the seat of energy, and he got here face-to-face with the brutality of the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi administrations.
During Jomo’s time, Rev Njoya as soon as questioned the idea of harambees, saying they had been an ideology of the Kikuyu center class. He confronted the wrath of Jomo’s authorities due to these remarks, getting an assault that led to the chopping of three of his fingers.
During Moi’s time, he was assaulted quite a few occasions for participating in anti-government protests, amongst them the Saba Saba.
