Corridors of Power

Monday, 28 March 2011 00:01 BY POLITICAL DESK

The ODM wants to renege on its earlier position of backing Bernard Shinali as their candidate for Ikolomani by-elections on May 3. Our mole says that a group 12 ODM members led by Fred Gumo met in a Nairobi hotel yesterday and resolved to back former Ikolomoni MP Bonny Khalwale instead of Shinali. Curiously, another team of three Luhya MPs opposed to the idea met at a private members' club at the same time but failed to get a quorum. The 12 ODM members reason that since Ikolomani seat was not their own they are safer backing Khalwale as a starting point in uniting Western Kenya  in the countdown to the 2012 general elections.
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Fear and panic have gripped top echelons in the police following news that the Police Reforms Committee headed by Kenya Airways CEO Titus Naikuni is considering keeping the retirement age of police officers strictly at 55. The Naikuni team might scrap the option by which police officers who have attained retirement age continue to serve on contract. In that case scores of officers — from police superintendent to Deputy Police Commissioner — would be made to retire. We are told there are about 40 police superintendents aged above 55 but who are still working since the government revised the retirement age of civil servants to 60.
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Recently, we told you about a top official at the AG's office who has facilitated the illegal sale of a 2000-acre piece of land belonging to Muhotetu Farmers Company Ltd. The government has moved to freeze the Sh300 million account pending investigations, denying the official access to his 10 percent commission. His efforts to coerce the banks to release the cash have failed and he is pressuring senior colleagues in government to quash the account freeze orders.
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A junior diplomat at the Kenyan mission in Egypt is said to be a disgrace. The man, from Lower Eastern Province, is denied entry to almost all social places due to his unbecoming behaviour. He was recently heard exchanging harsh words with an Egyptian official over the Nile waters in a social place. The same night, the man was thrown out of the social place for making sexual advances to one Rwandese senior official. Tabloids in Rwanda reported the matter prominently and Egyptian government is said to have written Kenya demanding an apology over the incident while the business community is planning to hold a demo to demand the diplomat's sacking.