Duty of Care and Trust: A foreign concept in Kenya as Kenyans Drop Dead One by One From Each Other’s Greed

Making the choice to exercise care and the safety of others in the line of doing business or any form of transaction is the Holy Grail of rules of engagement for humanity and the expression of Love for Humanity and Life itself.

However, greed has eroded this from the virtues that we Kenyans possess. We are indifferent and we would rather see our neighbor die as long as it makes me a profit.

Everything in Kenya seems to be going wrong and it is like our focus is on the wrong people to get solutions. We cannot hold the President accountable for everything that is going wrong.

The election of Uhuru is a reflection of who we are as a people and it is an indictment that all is not well within our society.

Accountability and responsibility start with you and I and this is something the President has been saying for the past 5 years, unfortunately, we have never understood what he means by that and hence the continual decay of our society.

Those in government, those in business, and those in the civil society have failed Kenya as a whole. The essence of what is responsible and accountable has been thrown through the window. Consumer protection no longer exists in the country and consumer watch is a farce.

A duty of care does not exist in Kenya and this has led to professional hypocrisy across the board. It is a jungle out there and death has become the norm, with daily requests for fundraising and help to solve issues that if we only were careful and needful of our neighbors’, we wouldn’t be going through.

Am sure you are asking, what is a duty of care and trust? See, that right there shows how far we have sunk as a society and how we deserve every pain we are getting until we start caring for the neighbor.

When Does a Duty of Care Exist?

A duty of care is the responsibility that a person or business has when doing business with, or otherwise interacting with, other people and businesses.

Under tort law, a duty of care is defined as the responsibility of a person or business to act as a reasonable person would act in a similar situation.

A person who violates his duty of care by acting in a negligent or reckless matter is then liable for any harm that another person suffers as a result of his behavior. As Kenyans, we have violated this duty in so many different ways without any consequence that it has emboldened everyone to cut shortcuts, not care about the consequences to others as long as it enriches them.

We have sad and deplorable situations happening right across the country and yet no one is being held accountable or liable. This clearly indicates that there is no consumer watch and protection and that the judicial system is broken to such an extent that they think they are immune to the damage that we are going through and yet they are not.

The Law Society of Kenya has also failed Kenyans because accessing justice is expensive and they do not have a pro bono division that can handle cases on behalf of the public.