Readers Have Their Say: Sunday Nation did little research on Ngunyi
Political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi gestures in his office in Nairobi on August 10, 2023.
Sunday Nation seems to have done little background research on Mutahi Ngunyi, his career and most of all, issues of integrity (See “The unanswered and unmasked questions in Ngunyi interview,” Daily Nation, August 18, 2023).
He didn’t find it necessary to ask which university granted Mr Ngunyi his much-vaunted professorial position. Or where his Fort Hall School of Government is located and who awarded its credentials.
Better still, Kenyans deserve to be informed why Francis Hall, the builder of Fort Hall at Mbiri (Murang’a) in the early 20th Century, who destroyed so many African lives in the name of Pax Britannica, should be honoured by a top presidential advisor in independent Kenya a century later.
There are serious questions on economic policy propaganda dished out of the Fort via television and presidential speeches that would take many pages to unravel.
Those among us who have followed the depravity wrought on African economies and governance by spurious academics will not take these issues as lightly as Mr Gikunju and the ‘Nation’ have done. Look more critically when self-serving publicists approach newspapers with snake oil being sold as balm to Kenya, like the advocacy for food subsidies with which Mr Ngunyi's interview concluded.
Let me also take the opportunity to thank the Public Editor for a thankless task patiently done against the declining standards in what we read. Thanks especially for his highlighting the callous and unprofessional manner in which Prof Henry Indangasi dealt with the legacy of Prof Micere Mugo.
— Prof Michael Chege
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Ngunyi breached the Official Secret Act
Mutahi Ngunyi breached all the rules of the Official Secrets Act, whose declaration form states: “I am aware that I should not divulge any information gained by me as a result of my appointment, to any unauthorised person, either orally or in writing without the previous official sanction in writing… I understand also that I am liable to be prosecuted if I publish without official sanction any information I may acquire in the course of my tenure of an official appointment.”
I am in agreement with your statement that Kenya Kwanza should only touch this man with a ten-foot pole. He will do what he has done now to them.
— Ngure Kamau
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Why couldn’t ‘Nation’ name culprits?
The story headlined “Mega tender owners hiding in plain sight”, (Sunday Nation, August 20 2023) reads in paragraph 2: "Mega tender owners hiding in plain sight." Para 2 reads: “Analysis of a sample of 12 companies -- owned by individuals with close links to the Kenya Kwanza administration -- shows that details... were not published as required, pointing to heightened opaqueness in public procurement”. Why, I pray, couldn't NMG name the individuals?
— Chris Kiriba, Narok
