Sifuna-led ODM faction terms ten-point agenda report a fraud

A faction of ODM leaders who are mainly against the broad-based government have dismissed the ten-point agenda report as a fraud.

They termed the report released on Tuesday as a public relations exercise and the biggest betrayal of the late ODM leader Raila Odinga.

The Edwin Sifuna–led faction dismissed the report, accusing the committee of failing Raila and ODM members by, as they put it, “reducing themselves to President William Ruto’s choir team.”

The Linda Mwananchi team — led by Sifuna — criticised the committee led by Agnes Zani, which was tasked with overseeing the implementation of the ten-point agenda and the National Dialogue Committee (Nadco) report, highlighting what they termed as failure by the Kenya Kwanza administration to honour commitments made in the memorandum of understanding signed by Ruto and Raila.

“The committee reviewing the implementation of the ten-point agenda has released a report which is a study of falsehoods and amounts to a monumental joke,” they said.

In their report — titled The Ten-Point Lies — released yesterday, the Linda Mwananchi team chided the Zani report for failing to address the issue of auditing the 2022 General Election which they maintained was a key issue in the ten-point agenda and the Nadco report.

“The call for an audit of the 2022 presidential election reflected unresolved political and legal concerns that continue to affect public confidence in elections.  Legal ambiguities around scope and mandate pose challenges. The Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) system remains clouded in mystery with the continued negative allegations against Smartmatic and should be audited ahead of the 2027 election,” the report read.

 While the Zani committee report relied heavily on President Ruto’s pledge on Sh2 billion to compensate victims of police brutality and his pronouncement that they had identified all the victims, Linda Mwananchi questioned how the victims were identified and how the government arrived on the figure of Sh2 billion.

According to their report, the President’s Proclamation on the Framework for Compensation of Victims of Protests and Riots to establish a framework for compensating civilians and police victims of protests between 2017 and 2025, was unconstitutional and hence diversion of public resources to fund an unconstitutional entity would be unlawful, contrary to the principles of public finance.

“All State attempts to deploy any other mechanism under the Executive’s thumb would be a political ploy to shield state agencies, particularly the National Police Service, from accountability for the killings, injuries, and widespread violations committed against citizens exercising their constitutional right to assemble, demonstrate, and petition under Article 37 of the Constitution. This is also a political tactic to derail justice and hoodwink victims and society,’ the report indicated.

Pouring cold water on the Zani report, the Sifuna faction listed incidents when their rallies were disrupted ‘‘by the police who worked with goons’’ as they accused the pro broad-based government leaders within the ODM of betraying Raila’s legacy.

 Their report also discounted Ruto’s pronouncements that the national government would allocate Sh450 billion to counties and told off a section of the governors who attended the release of the Nadco report on Tuesday, accusing them of clapping for the President when he ‘lied’ to the nation.

“It was unfortunate to see governors, who usually come to cry for us (the senators) to demand for increase of allocation to counties, clapping when Ruto lies to them that counties will get Sh450 billion in the 2026/27 financial year based on the Budget Policy Statement that we passed,” Sifuna said.

The leaders also accused the President of capturing devolved functions that are meant for the county governments, such as the Nairobi County government’s move to cede some of the key functions to the State.

 On protection and promoting the livelihood of the youth, the Linda Mwananchi report dismissed the Nadco report which indicated that the Nyota Project and the Hustler Fund as the Kenya Kwanza’s commitment to fulfilling the ten-point agenda describing the funds as political slush funds.

The report indicated that the Nyota Project, supported by the World Bank, had been abused and used for political mileage with the President using it to conduct early campaigns.

They cited corruption as one of the Kenya Kwanza administration’s biggest undoing.

“Despite an elaborate legal framework, impunity persists. Auditor-General and Ethics And Anti-Corruption Commission reports point to weak enforcement, political interference, and lack of follow-through. Delayed justice enables impunity and undermines public confidence in anti-corruption efforts,” the report indicated.

The report added that four in every ten citizens could not afford basic necessities and were considered to be living below the poverty line while more than 1.8 million people in arid and semi-arid areas were suffering from acute food insecurity.