Are banks complicit in corruption?

This corruption thing shall be the bane of many some of whom may not even be immediately obvious which I shall try to explain.

Politicians, state officers, civil servants and business people have all been fingered in the ongoing investigations on high level corruption in Kenya now declared a national tragedy because it takes two to tango – the giver and the receiver. As direct beneficiaries of this vice that is the way it should be.

Wanton theft of public funds and endemic corruption has been going on for many years and has made front page headlines not only within our plentiful borders but even beyond even as President Magufuli next door in Tanzania seems to have made driving the corruption cartels out of town by whatever means possible his only agenda so far in his infancy presidency. If only some of that fresh breeze blowing across Tanzania would waft into Kenya!

However, I fear that some banks will be found guilty and complicit in the ongoing corruption in high places investigations for many reasons. Banks are required under prudential guidelines to have in place a KYC (know your customer) policy requiring them to, in addition to being able to positively and correctly identify their prospective clients, also interrogate the source of funds that a person wishing to open an account shall be depositing. This requirement is not only for individual clients but business and corporate clients too.

Heavy financial penalties are prescribed for those banks which do not file their monitoring reports as required by the law for what may be termed suspicious transactions which is basically transactions that do not fit into the defined profile of their clients. This has happened recently in other jurisdictions outside Kenya with heavy fines being meted out on various banks within the last 12 months.

Where a transaction is out of the ordinary for a particular client, then the bank is under obligation to insist on documents in support of the underlying transaction to ascertain its origin and veracity and allow that transaction to be recorded in their books or else red flag the transaction as a suspicious transaction but still record the transaction in their books but with an accompanying freeze notification preventing the funds from leaving the banks books for the time being until the bank is satisfied that the funds have been genuinely received in the ordinary course of business or personal engagements. This means that one is required to declare their sources of income at the time of opening an account and the bank is then required to monitor the transactions in that account to see if the information given by their client in regards to their expected financial transactions tallies.

All these extraordinary measures are designed to prevent money laundering of ill-gotten funds and financing of terrorism activities. Monitoring software is now available to assist banks manage this difficult function which has also evolved into full fledged departments whose job is managing this potential risk that may even lead to the withdrawal of their banking license as well as the freezing of their overseas correspondent bank accounts that all banks require to conduct their foreign currency transactions on their own behalf as well as on behelf of their clients.It is therefore incumbent that all banks scrupulously follow the laid down procedures to prevent a catastrophic loss of confidence and business occasioned by the negative publicity of their dangerous business practices as custodians of the public wealth.

All banks in this country are also required as part of the internal due diligence to flag certain categories of persons who may be especially susceptible to activities that may border on corruption or money laundering so that the activities on their accounts are monitored more closely for possible infringements. These people are commonly known as P.E.P’s. In financial regulation, "politically exposed person" (P.E.P) is a term describing someone who has been entrusted with a prominent public function, or a relative or known associate of that person. A P.E.P generally presents a higher risk for potential involvement in bribery and corruption by virtue of their position and the influence that they may hold which brings me to the point why banks may be unwitting (or willing) accomplices of the corrupt and therefore complicit in the ongoing investigations!

In one of the recent cases, the son of a high ranking political figure was the custodian of hundreds of millions of shillings deposited through his bank account which sums a 21 year old would usually not have access to. Being a relative of a prominent public figure the son would also be deemed a P.E.P and therefore be subject to the same high level of monitoring required of P.E.P’s and the bank in this case may have failed in the test of know your customer and therefore be guilty of an offence.

It also follows that should the individuals and businesses currently being investigated be found guilty of corruption by a competent authority, then the banks where these individuals and companies maintain their bank accounts would also be enjoined in the whole mess as being guilty of handling the proceeds of crime and therefore likely to suffer punitive and hefty financial penalties or other administrative sanctions by the licensing authorities and their overseas correspondent banks for their transgressions. This again has happened in other jurisdictions where a person is found guilty of engaging in corrupt practices by a court of law and the bank is thereafter fined for being guilty of not reporting the suspicious transactions. Howvere, where a bank may have filed the suspicious transaction report then the bank is absolved of any blame in future should other forces come into play to reactivate a frozen account whose source of funds was the proceeds of crime.

So you see folks it is not only those directly caught with their hands in the cookie jar that are in trouble under the current circumstances but also those that handled the proceeds of the corruptly obtained funds through their banks and failed to follow the regulations required in making their suspicious transactions reports. I foresee a situation in the not too distant future where heads in certain banks will roll as a direct result of not reporting suspicious transactions which in hindsight stunk to high heaven!!

As a footnote and in answer to my question are banks complicit in corruption, the answer is a resounding YES if they failed to follow the laid down regulations because there is no defense for willful disregard for the rules as the Barings Bank collapse in 1995 reminds us. I would hate to be in the monitoring department of any bank today because the onus of deciding what may or may not construe a suspicious transaction is a difficult and onerous task though prudent banks would always want to err on the side of caution because the consequences of not complying are just too dire!!

Short insight - On the forthcoming FKF elections:

I am not sure what television debates are supposed to accomplish. Recently there was one on a leading TV station that paraded some people vying for the presidency of Football Kenya Federation (FKF) whose elections are slated for this coming weekend. A leading FKF presidential candidate was absent and being the incumbent that has faced a barrage of criticism recently over a seemingly lackadaisical attitude towards the national team the Harambee Stars whenever they are called up for national duty, this was an eye brow raising moment!

The delegates from the various branches of FKF across the country are the only ones that shall be voting in these upcoming elections and this therefore begs the question why the debate had to be televised on live national TV while less than 100 people shall participate in the actual election while the rest of us sit back in blissful ignorance until the results are announced.

Against a backdrop of a mediocre performance by the national team, an ongoing blame game about who is responsible for the mess in Kenyan football and allegations of corruption at high levels in matters football you would have expected that the incumbent would be present to vocally defend his tenure and provide some insights into how he shall manage the football affairs of this country if he were to be voted into his second term of office. His absence however is thought provoking given that he is a seasoned politician who many love to hate for his shenanigans and well known machinations leaving him perennially ahead of the pack to the chagrin of all.

Perhaps he decided that he has no time for a debate with his opponents where skeletons would be exposed to the public, or a pressing matter requiring his personal involvement suddenly and inconveniently came up or maybe he has a trick or two up his sleeve that he needed to use while his opponents were holed up in a debate at Nation Centre studios. We shall probably never know!!

I am not sure if the platform given to the FKF candidates via a live TV debate shall sway any votes their way because knowing the voting psyche in Kenya today, the highest bidder always carries the day and it won’t surprise me if the guy that was absent at the debate recently carries the day!

What is a golf handicap?

It always amuses me when a non-golfer asks what my handicap is because I can tell that they have no clue about what this seemingly complicated animal is. I will attempt to explain in as simple terms as I can and in a “golf handicap explained for dummies” kind of way!

A handicap in amateur golf terms is a numerical representation of the skill of an individual golfer. It is a number assigned between 28 - 0 for men and 36 - 0 for women with the lower number (or handicap for the sake of this discussion) indicating the better skill level of that golfer. It could also be said that a handicap allows golfers to make mistakes equivalent to their handicaps. It has nothing to do with hands or caps!!

A regular round of golf involves getting around the golf course in 72 strokes (or level par) though some courses could be rated as 71 or in extreme cases upto 74 as a handicap 0 or scratch golfer. A handicap essentially levels the playing field between the various skill levels of different golfers. What that means by illustration is that in the case of a man just starting out in golf and with an assigned handicap of 28, he is allowed to hit an extra 28 strokes on the same par 72 course i.e 100 strokes to play to his handicap. A person playing off handicap 10 would similarly be allowed to play a maximum of 82 strokes to play to his handicap. The strokes made less the handicap of that golfer would indicate the score for that round of golf. The person playing off handicap 0 and returning a score of 72 strokes and the handicap 28 guy returning a score of 100 strokes have both played the same score!!

Similarly, a lady just starting off in their golf career would start off at handicap 36 and hence is allowed to make 108 strokes to play to their handicap being the difference between the strokes played less the handicap assigned in this case 108-36=72.

You may be wondering how in all fairness someone playing off handicap 36 and one playing off handicap 6 can both play to their handicap when one has shot 108 and the other 78 a difference of 30 strokes (the number of times one hits a ball)………and that folks is what a handicap does, it levels the playing field so that a beginner and a relatively good golfer can play on the same course and compete quite well against each other!!

Depending on the golfers skill level it is sometimes possible to play better than your handicap and this is when things start to get interesting.

In the example above of a handicap 36 golfer playing 108 strokes and therefore playing to her handicap let us assume that she played a total of 102 strokes how would the computation look like? Like in the previous example if you subtract the strokes from the handicap in this case 102-36=66. If you then subtract the expected score to play to your handicap of 72 from the net score of 66 that you have played i.e 72-66=6 then this player has played 6 strokes better than their handicap and has thus improved their golfing skills and need to have their handicap adjusted/reduced accordingly.

The next question on your mind is probably then how does on reduce their handicap over time? I will not go into the complicated process as to how points are assigned depending on how well you played better than your handicap but I shall give an analogy that the better you play below your handicap the quicker your handicap reduces which is akin to being promoted to the next class in primary school after passing a test or an exam. In the above example the lady has passed the test and shall be promoted to the next class vide a handicap reduction and should be playing off handicap 26 the next time they play a round of golf.

If you are really good at golf and get in lots of practice, take lessons from a competent professional, invest in reading or watching videos on golf etc the process of handicap reduction can be quite quick but for the vast majority of mostly weekend golfers this process is a slow and agonizing plod and a very tiresome endeavor. By the same token a handicap can increase if you continually return poor scores upto the maximum assigned for both genders of 28 & 36 respectively.

Professional golfers like the ones you see on TV play off handicap 0 (or scratch) and their skill levels when they are in top form are such that they regularly play below their handicaps. These tournaments are played over a 4 day period with the first two days designed to reduce the ‘cut’ or number of players (usually between 72 and 80 players) who then go into the money rounds over the last two days.

The better you play at professional level and the lower your score the better your chances of ‘making the cut’ though sometimes the cut is at -1 (minus one) meaning that anyone who played to their handicap or worse is eliminated giving you an idea of just how talented these top professionals are. Scores of -20 (minus twenty) have been recorded many times as the winning scores in these tournaments over the four day period of play!

A handicap is a shining beacon of ones success on the golf course and the lower your handicap the higher the esteem, awe and regard you are held by fellow golfers. All golfers aspire to reduce their handicaps to single figures (between 9-0) but the reality is that many will never be single figure handicapped golfers for various reasons that I shall not delve into.

So the next time you ask me what my handicap is, I hope you will much better appreciate just how good a golfer I am when I tell you that I play off handicap 6……which I do!!

Corruption, corruption everywhere:

I despair at what is happening in Kenya today. I want to believe that we have a pragmatic and wise leadership that is aware of the issues that are supposed to be in the best interests of the country, but alas what we are seeing and reading about in matters of misuse of public funds and outright theft seems to suggest otherwise!

I recently watched a 2011 viral video of then President John Atta Mills of Ghana seemingly fed up with the shenanigans and corrupt ways of those in the Customs Department in his country, storming into what may have been the customs head office at the port of Tema and proceeding to tell off the corrupt officials. The visibly annoyed president did not mince his words and lambasted those present (unfortunately the video focus is on him so we don’t see the faces of those on the firing line) for failing to look at the interests of the country first but instead enriching themselves at their work stations. This must have been a serious crisis if the president himself made an appearance perhaps suggesting the gravity of the situation.

A friend who has been in Kenya for the last 15 years made a telling comment recently that in the decade and a half that he has been in the country not a single politician or high ranking government officer has been jailed for corruption or theft of public funds. Someone else present then shared a story how the North Korean leader earlier this year reportedly had a high ranking military general executed with anti-aircraft guns virtually vaporizing him for the treasonable act of napping during a military parade where the leader was present!!

While North Korea is not known to be a bastion of civility and democracy and indeed seems to be run like a personal fiefdom whose leadership is handed down from generation to generation, and whether this (apparently widely reported) event did take place - see story under the following link http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/13/north-korean-defence-minister-executed-by-anti-aircaft-gun-report the point is that drastic action is required from a leader to make a point if things are not progressing as they should.

In my opinion, and while agreeing with the opposition who are shouting from the rooftops about corruption, corruption and more corruption in government circles (and by the way I don’t believe they would be any different were the shoe on the other foot) I think that the theft of public funds and widely reported corruption reached endemic proportions a long time ago and continues unabated and unchecked and drastic, mercurical and unprecedented action now needs to take place before the country already in the throes of an economic shutdown collapses on itself.

I may not be an economist but the current economic crisis and reports of unpaid salaries and wages to state and government officers, high interest rates as the government continues to borrow domestically, banks shutting their doors to innocent depositors, ferries breaking down at the busiest ferry crossing point in Kenya at Likoni in Mombasa is nothing but a reaction to the years of corruption and theft of public funds by those entrusted with looking after the public vault.

Unless something, anything drastic and dramatic happens to stop this nonesense, this pussy footing and shielding of cronies and busom buddies implicated in corruption scandals and long drawn out cases in court designed seemingly to cleanse the accused shall not solve a thing. It behoves those who have sworn to protect our constitution to roll up their sleeves and fight this vice before it pulls us down into the abyss together! While their tactics may not be anything as dramatic as what happened in North Korea the message needs to be sent that corrupt individuals shall be dealt with firmly and decisively. The law must be applied equally across the board and the maximum sentence handed down to the individuals that make up these cabals and networks of corruption.

Corruption is everywhere and it must be fought at all levels starting with those with the power to stop high level corruption dead in its track!!

It’s just a matter of time and we’ll be inundated folks:

A friend is currently in America and he narrated how a week ago he was unable to proceed on a planned visit to Washington DC due to hurricane Joaquin bearing down on the East Coast of the US and how due to the state of emergency declared by respective state governors leading to all non-essential travel being cancelled they had stayed put even practicing living in a storm cellar should things get really rough. Well they dodged that bullet with the hurricane veering off towards Bermuda and causing serious damage in that region.

This is a grim preamble to our own looming crisis, but are we ready for it? The now boring mantra of ‘serikali saidia’ is almost on us once again. With the advent of the expected El Nino rains as has been predicated not only by our weather men in the +254 but also internationally heavy rains affecting much of the country will be upon us soon in a deluge of rain, more rain, floods, over flowing rivers, landslides and misery interwoven in equal measure reminiscent of the times of Noah and his famous Ark! This is expected to be the worst period of continual rain for the last 60 years.

In Kenya, the central and county governments seem to have taken the threats of flooding and related perils wrought by the expected heavy rains seriously (and I say this with a pinch of salt and tongue in cheek and trying unsuccessfully not to roll on the ground as I burst out laughing) based on the frenetic warnings to those living in flood prone low lying areas as well as those on riparian reserves and hilly slopes prone to landslides to relocate for the time being until the El Nino rains are over. There also appears to be additional efforts to clear up chocked and clogged drains and to widen drainage channels in flood prone towns and low lying areas despite the blame game that is shaping up with the central government being accused of not releasing funds for El Nino preparedness a song that is likely to take on a more stringent tone when the rains begin pounding in earnest.

The die is already cast and already some deaths have been reported in the media in rain related incidents across the country but the citizens are having none of these requests to move away from danger responding with the clichés that they have nowhere else to go, their homes have never been affected before so why now, and that their children are hard at work studying for exams…….as if they shall have a future should the deadly predictions be proved right and whole families plus their books and beloved pets are swept into a watery grave one rainy night!

But anyone over the age of 15 years of age will agree with me that in this digital age weather predictions are spot on 95% of the time so while it would be unfair to look on with disdain at the steps a caring government (oxymoron intended) is taking to protect its citizens from the almost certain elements soon to visited upon us, it is equally foolish to ignore the advice of the scientists that study such mundane things as weather predictions for a living, with one clueless guy recently admitting he has not heard anything about heavy rains and once again proving beyond doubt that aliens from another planet do populate our country!

So don’t rule out ‘serikali saidia’ choruses when rain drenched citizens who refused to heed warnings of danger with nothing else left but the clothes on their backs now turn to the same government that they ignored for assistance when the chips and their homes are finally down swept into a pulpy mess by the raging storms soon to land on our shores!

But whatever you do heed the expert calls on how to stay safe rather than sorry however silly they may sound because this could save your life.

Religion takes on a new dimension

Back in the day when you dared someone to a school yard fight you drew a line in the sand and dared them to cross at the risk of a through beating while in actual fact you were lily livered cowards. It didn’t matter how many times that line was breached because you would draw another and another until light faded or your parents came to pick you up from school sparing you further blushes as the champion school yard coward of the day!

Sometimes I’m not sure whether to laugh at religious zealots who follow their religious leaders with puppy dog devotion lapping up all the content spewed at them or to weep at what I would consider their naïveté for signing up for something that they cannot now exit peacefully without being labeled a charlatan somewhat like the school yard bully who keeps drawing lines in the sand while awaiting a tactical time to retreat without losing face.

I recently wrote about religion and it seems that the excesses of that sensitive subject never quite disappear, they only fade away only to resurface at the most inopportune of times. This time we had unwittingly exposed a bishop of a church to ridicule in the eyes of his flock to the chagrin of the lay leadership of the church who couldn’t understand how we could fail to recognize the authority of a whole bishop of the church.

Let me digress a little with a narration of an incident that happened to me many years back. I was in Form 6 and the deputy head boy of a predominantly Asian school in Nairobi. The practice of having an Asian head boy/girl and an African deputy head boy/girl had been part of the tradition in the school to bring in some semblance of inclusivity of the African for a few years and seemed to be working well and this was my year.

One fine day we received an important guest in the school, the Begum Salima the wife to the spiritual head of the millions of Ismailia Muslims across the world his holiness the Aga Khan himself. This event had been preceded by a lot of excitement by the Ismailia students and staff at the school and the mood was palpable and the air pregnant with expectation. As was the tradition the visitor was introduced to the student leadership in the school and I got to solemnly shake her highnesses hand a gesture probably considered blasphemous given that the teachers were swooning all over themselves to bow their heads in supplication and get that all important touch on their heads!

“How could these upstart Africans get to hold hands with royalty” must have been on the thoughts of many because the immediate reaction after she left was for them to approach me to find out how it felt like! Other than being soft to the touch and quite cool her handshake didn’t feel any different from anyone else’s but of course they were having none of that. Didn’t I know that I had been blessed a million times more by that small hand shake than those whose heads had been touched? No I didn’t……..! Would I wash my hands anytime soon? Sure I would to disbelieving gasps from the assembled teachers and students alike who affirmed that they would never wash their hands for the rest of their lives if they were in the same situation that I found myself in. At that moment the fact that I had been blessed by the Aga Khan himself by the simple gesture of a handshake from his wife was lost on me.

Fast forward to today 35 years later! We open a church account for a specific church recently and get all necessary documents including a letter from the Chairman of the Church Central Committee confirming no objection. A few months later all hell breaks loose after an abortive and volatile election of the church where the outgoing committee who happen to be signatories to the account in our books dispute the outcome of the elections and inform the bank accordingly. The next day, another group of people come to the bank armed with a letter from the church and the bishop informing us that they are the new signatories to the account. By whatever definition this is a full blown dispute pitting different factions of a church that I have so far only ever read about in the press.

Now this is a delicate situation by any standards and we need to move fast to retain the banks reputation and more importantly safeguard the money in the account so we freeze the account. No money can be deposited or withdrawn from the account for the time being and then we write an official letter to the church as our client with a copy to the bishop asking that they resolve their issues and then advise us to change signatories with the full knowledge of all factions.

Our letter seemed to be the last straw as a fuming chairman then accuses us of undermining the name of the bishop by subjecting it to ridicule by the congregation of the church that had held the abortive elections with our letter to them asking them to resolve their disputes!

The questions that arise are these. How am I expected to understand the authority of a bishop of a church that I don’t follow? What gives a member of a congregation the right to accuse me of disrespecting the authority of the bishop? Why in the first place have disputes within your church that you cannot manage yet want to drag the name of a bank into internal disputes?
The hierarchical structures in place in any church are an internal matter and should not be confused with the acceptable practices employed in financial establishments where our motives are neither emotional nor dictated by the authority of the highest office in that organisation. Whether the Begum Salima, the Dalai Lama, the Syedna the bishop and so on I should not be expected to kow tow to the faith of the believers and blindly be expected to pay homage and practice reverence when I am in their exalted presence or to instruction in letters written in their exalted hands.

On a similar note I was once phoned by an all-powerful civil servant for daring to subject one of our highly connected clients with a letter of default on his loan facilities and threatening to auction his property. As calmly as my shaking voice could muster I told him that the party had defaulted on his obligations with the bank and I was not at liberty to disclose issues relating to a client of the bank against all my sinews urging me to reveal all and live with the consequences. Thankfully he disconnected the line before my sweaty hands had dropped the handset whereupon I contacted my superiors and informed them of the earth shattering phone call for them to handle.

A well-known and powerful public civil servant contacting a lowly me sitting in my modest office could get me all riled up and standing to attention almost saluting as I responded to his phone call but I still managed to convey the banks position on a sensitive issue so why would a person unknown to me cause me to suffer the same tremens delirium?

The long and the short is that issues relating to a church or congregation should not compel one to insist that others behave the same way to their chosen beholden mami and dadi because religion is a personal choice.

Religion is a touchy subject:

Earlier today a pastor whose church we have been wooing for a bank account for some time asked me in the course of our discussions if I was born again and seemed to be personally affronted when I told him that I was not! This did not faze me in the least but once again the topic I am about to tackle – religion - came to the fore.

Religion is a touchy subject so touchy that anyone commenting on it is likely to incur the wrath of those whose toes they seem to be treading on. Commenting on matters religious is akin to treading on thin ice or in our Kenyan context a mud hole where any wrong step may result in a messy pair of shoes and possibly worse.

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when an innocent comment on a social media platform where I am a member sparked off indignant outrage. It started off, like such things, quite innocently when a member commented that he did not see the necessity of long winded sermons on matters religion being posted every morning onto our social media page – Whatsapp to be precise - yet the forum was supposed to be dedicated to matters and information affecting the neighborhood that we reside in.

In my opinion this was a personal statement that should have been met with measured comments on its pros or cons but not with the furious rebuttals and counter allegations by supporters of the said sermons (who probably get their dose of spiritual nourishment from those sermons) who came out guns ablaze in support.

My own opinion which I voiced was that the forum was set up to discuss and disseminate issues affecting our community and that we were a disparate and diverse (through the overwhelming majority practice the Christian faith) community who espoused different religious views and therefore it was unfair to those that did not espouse those views to be part of the audience. I further went on to opine that if I was a Muslim and decided to use that forum to spread the word of Allah I would be labeled as being unchristian and using the wrong forum for the simple reason that the majority are, as I’ve mentioned, of the Christian persuasion!

Suffice is to say that the original asker of the innocent question left the group a short while later and the religious sermons no longer populate our phones so something clearly must have been done or a decision taken elsewhere for the sake of fulfilling the objectives of the group.

One can argue that in those situations, you have the option of either reading, deleting or ignoring content that doesn’t interest you because everyone has different motives for their actions but I guess the point being made was that if you set us a Whatsapp forum for golfers as an example, should you then start posting issues relating to your failed marriage or your difficult boss at the office?

This brings me to the topical issue that is currently trending in the news and on social media about a pastor at one of the charismatic churches in Nairobi who was in a hurry to get to wherever he was going several days ago and in the process causing the death of an innocent person after a head on collision with an oncoming vehicle. This may be considered an accident which is likely to happen to any motorist at one time or other in their lives but the fact that he seemed to be breaking every rule in the book including carelessly speeding, overtaking and forcing drivers of the road while on an expired insurance sticker goes to show just what kind of deviant behavior he was exhibiting.

That he then took off from the scene of the accident in another vehicle even as people lay writhing in pain and dying and then proceeded to engineer a cover up of epic proportions with the help of rogue police officers from a nearby police station who ignored witness statements, erased call and SMS data as is emerging from investigations ordered by the Inspector General of Police, is the icing on the cake in this ignominious and contemptible saga that is now threatening the careers of several people including those that misadvised the IGP into making statements on his social media page in defending the hapless pastor.

He also seems to command police protection and have high level connections with his vehicle being released with uncustomary speed from the police yard where it was towed to and was even able to pay a likely scapegoat to act as the alleged driver of the vehicle arraigned in court neck brace and all is the stuff of a riveting action movie. I wonder how many other such cases abound where innocent chaps for a few shillings happily languish in jail knowing that the loot they have been paid will be theirs to enjoy once released from gaol!!

The question on everyone’s mind now is how did he with his cloak of religious piety even think to come up with this cloak and dagger scheme? Is this not the thinking of a dangerous and nefarious criminal? If this is the role model to his congregation and society at large then surely the world is coming to an end as was foretold in the bible!

Continuing with matters religious, I came across a post by a member of parliament again on social media who was asking for views from his constituents on going after 2nd generation churches now that 2nd generation alcohol had been consigned to various streams, rivers and sewers across the country. It was not clear who his intended victim was supposed to be but it seems that he is similarly fed up with the goings on and shenanigans by some of the pastors, bishops, ministers, anointed and so on who have made religion a get rich quick scheme where they extort money from their congregations through various nefarious schemes whose only result is to impoverish their flock even more.

The general feeling from the responses to his question was a furious barrage of self-righteous indignation that such a thought could even cross his mind if he wished to see the inside of parliament ever again with the more rabid and vacuous defending religion as their right and no one should direct them who to follow and when. No wonder that religion is probably one of the biggest causes of broken families in our country today.

So with pastors thinking like hardened criminals and the faithful (victims) defending their pastors as being as clean as the driven snow we are in for a showdown of epic proportions if ‘mheshimiwa’ makes good his threats to sweep away 2nd generation churches from our midst because clearly there are those faithful who are ready to take a bullet for their thieving and immoral pastors while at the same time defending them against their crimes as the work of the devil the eye witness accounts notwithstanding!

As for my brave neighbor who took on the wrath of God’s defenders I salute your right to defend your space when it is being taken over by others. May the good Lord also punish those of his servants who mock him through their actions and may the judge who is assigned this case not be swayed by the prayers of those who believe their pastor cannot possibly have done what he is being accused of.

Finally may that imbecile of a man who agreed to stand in for his pastor as a scapegoat driver also suffer the wrath of the judicial system for perjury and misrepresenting the truth while under oath.