It is time to bring order to declaration of public holidays
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
08 June 2025
On Wednesday 4th
June 2025, the Cabinet Secretary for Interior published a notice in the
Kenya Gazette declaring that Friday, 6th June would be a
public holiday. Now I have never understood why the government waits
until the last moment to make these announcements. In this instance, it
was just 2 days in advance.
The announcement of a
holiday on short notice might appear to be harmless, but it isn’t. Think
about all the people who had hearings in courts of law scheduled for 6th
June. Also, those who had appointment with land registrars for purpose
of resolving boundary disputes. All these matters have now been
postponed by an average of three months! I am not exaggerating: it
happened to me a few years ago.
The popular
explanation for the short notice is that the Islamic calendar depends on
the appearance of the moon hence it is not possible to tell when that
will happen. Well, that is not the entirely true. First of all, the
gazette notice is always issued BEFORE the moon is sighted.
Furthermore, the
cycles of the moon are known very accurately – each lasts 29 days, 12
hours, 44 minutes and 2.877 seconds – it is easy to predict the date on
which to fix the civil, public holiday way in advance. It can even be
announced centuries ahead!
To avoid the
disruptions caused by the short notices, I propose that we amendment to
the law in order to restrict the powers of the minister when declaring
public holidays: any announcement of a public holiday should be
published at least 12 months in advance.
In related news; the
question of the dates of our general elections has been rekindled by
lawyer and politician Willis Evans Otieno of the Safina Party. He counts
the dates correctly and finds that the next elections should be in 2026
(next year) and not 2027 as widely expected.
Predictability of
election dates was one of the key issues during the constitution-making
process and Kenyans agreed it shall be “the second Tuesday in August in
every fifth year”. This kind of predictability is also needed in the
declaration of dates of public holidays.
What we have now is
akin to what used to happen in the Roman Empire before Julius Caesar –
more than 2,000 years ago. Emperors would change the length of a year
and declare holidays for political mileage. We can do better!
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