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If you're still earning less than 2% on your savings accounts or fixed deposit accounts (rates dipped in 2003, and early 2004), you should ask your Bank or Branch manager to raise it or you'll take a walk. With treasury bill rates at 8%, and Bank's lending at around 17%, you should be able to earn at least 5%. Standard Chartered, in the Friday newspapers,' proclaimed, "You deserve a raise" as they trumpeted rates of up to 5.5% for 12 months and 7.2% for 24 months. Other Bank's are expected to follow suit, but more quietly.
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Since Equity Building Society got their license and converted into a Bank, they have now walked away from their offer to buy out Daima Bank (in statutory management). They had earlier offered to buy Daima for 220 million (and also assume Daima's 800 million debts). Still, according to the Sunday Standard, a deal to revive Daima should be completed in February 2005 with another investor.
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Prime Bank has signed on to sponsor the main series of golf events in Kenya known as the "festival of golf." This year the festival will comprise 18 tournaments around the country, with the final's to be on September 3 at Leisure Lodge Mombasa (a sister company of Prime Bank)
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Friday, January 28, 2005
Groups sue City Council over service delivery
Entrepreneurs in Nairobi have sued the City Council and the Attorney-General (AG) for failing to deliver services and to account for taxes collected daily. "Specifically, it has failed in the provision of the following basic services and amenities: water and sewerage, garbage collection, roads and street lighting, education facilities, health facilities and housing facilities," the plaint said.The AG has been sued on behalf of the Minister for Local Government who is alleged to have failed to either compel the council to discharge its responsibilities of providing basic services or by performing the duties himself.
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Also the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) list’s their success over the past year. These include: the conviction of former National Aids Control Council boss Margaret Gachara, the bringing to court of chief executives of eight parastatals on charges of irregular deposits of public funds in Euro Bank, fraud cases against former Kenya Seed Company managing director Nathaniel Tum and other officials, corruption cases against four policemen attached to Nairobi's Kamukunji station and another against Goldenberg scandal chief suspect Kamlesh Pattni, accused of trying to bribe a judge. Some 3,552 complaints were received by KACC between 2003 and 2004, and it investigated 242 cases in its mandate and handed over the others to the relevant agencies for action. It took no action on 229 others and has 256 cases pending before it.
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Also the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) list’s their success over the past year. These include: the conviction of former National Aids Control Council boss Margaret Gachara, the bringing to court of chief executives of eight parastatals on charges of irregular deposits of public funds in Euro Bank, fraud cases against former Kenya Seed Company managing director Nathaniel Tum and other officials, corruption cases against four policemen attached to Nairobi's Kamukunji station and another against Goldenberg scandal chief suspect Kamlesh Pattni, accused of trying to bribe a judge. Some 3,552 complaints were received by KACC between 2003 and 2004, and it investigated 242 cases in its mandate and handed over the others to the relevant agencies for action. It took no action on 229 others and has 256 cases pending before it.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Banking News
International
Riggs Bank will pay a $16 million fine (1.3 billion shillings) to avoid being prosecuted for failing to monitor suspicious financial transactions. The settlement will enable the Bank to complete a merger with PNF financial services, but will also sacrifice Kenyan banker Simon Kareri in the process. “Riggs will continue to cooperate with investigators as they pursue some former executives, and the agreement allows federal prosecutors to bring separate criminal charges against them.” The agreement will include descriptions of several transactions involving Equatorial Guinea (Kareri’s portfolio) and officials of that West African country, including its president, a dictator accused by human rights advocates of pocketing much of that nation's $500 million a year in oil revenue, sources said.
The guilty plea is a rare one for a commercial bank. In recent cases of criminal settlements with the Department of Justice, banks have agreed to what is known as a deferred prosecution. That means the bank pays a fine but does not technically plead guilty -- agreeing instead to certain facts that could result in a prosecution in a period of one or more years if the bank fails to make good on its commitments to clean up its act.
Local
Following in the successful steps of Equity Bank, Family Finance Building Society announced plans to convert into a bank. They have a customer base of 60,000 and 12 branches, and will become the third microfinance institution after Equity and K-Rep to become a full commercial bank.
The European Investment Bank will open a regional representation office in Nairobi by April 2005. It will be third such office on the continent, after Senegal and South Africa, and will serve East and & Central Africa – giving potential investors a point of contact and advice on EIB operations and financing availability within the region.
Standard Chartered Bank has raised its base-lending rate to 13.75%
Riggs Bank will pay a $16 million fine (1.3 billion shillings) to avoid being prosecuted for failing to monitor suspicious financial transactions. The settlement will enable the Bank to complete a merger with PNF financial services, but will also sacrifice Kenyan banker Simon Kareri in the process. “Riggs will continue to cooperate with investigators as they pursue some former executives, and the agreement allows federal prosecutors to bring separate criminal charges against them.” The agreement will include descriptions of several transactions involving Equatorial Guinea (Kareri’s portfolio) and officials of that West African country, including its president, a dictator accused by human rights advocates of pocketing much of that nation's $500 million a year in oil revenue, sources said.
The guilty plea is a rare one for a commercial bank. In recent cases of criminal settlements with the Department of Justice, banks have agreed to what is known as a deferred prosecution. That means the bank pays a fine but does not technically plead guilty -- agreeing instead to certain facts that could result in a prosecution in a period of one or more years if the bank fails to make good on its commitments to clean up its act.
Local
Following in the successful steps of Equity Bank, Family Finance Building Society announced plans to convert into a bank. They have a customer base of 60,000 and 12 branches, and will become the third microfinance institution after Equity and K-Rep to become a full commercial bank.
The European Investment Bank will open a regional representation office in Nairobi by April 2005. It will be third such office on the continent, after Senegal and South Africa, and will serve East and & Central Africa – giving potential investors a point of contact and advice on EIB operations and financing availability within the region.
Standard Chartered Bank has raised its base-lending rate to 13.75%
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
National Bank of Kenya
The oft-rumoured about Bank launched a new slogan yesterday, and are now - “the bank where you belong.” In addition, Finance Minister Mwiraria, in his capacity as main shareholder, announced further plans to restructure the bank. At the urging of the World Bank, banks (incl. NBK with Kshs. 17 billion) will transfer all their bad debts (non-performing loans) at a fraction of their value to a new bad debts agency that will then collect future the payments – thereby clearing up the bad debt problem off a bank’s books. However, one problem is that until Kenya’s judiciary is fully straightened out, borrowers (with bad loans) can tie up banks (and the new agency) in court in a bid to stave of payment or sale of their assets. Also Banks are loathe to admit that they made bad investments and don’t want to get short-changed when they sell them off. The Minster also indicated that the Government plans to sell off its 24% stake in NBK by December 2005
Jobs
From the Wednesday Standard, Jan 26.
The giant audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers is seeking:
1. An Associate Director; Must have undergraduate degree, preferably an MBA or CFA, as well as relationship management skills and contacts across East Africa.
2. Manager-Infrastructure Finance: Must have undergraduate degree, preferably an MBA or CFA, as well as project and client management skills.
Write to recruitment.ke@ke.pwc.com by Feb. 7 2005
Banking consultant
To advise on banking laws and setting up of an Islamic bank in Hargeisa. Should be MUSLIM candidate, and preference will be given to Somali nationals. Must have university degree, with CPA or CAIIB, minimum of 10 years banking experience, and be less than 50 years old.
E-mail to dsh_fc2004@yahoo.com
Africa Banking Corporation: Graduate Devt. Program
The African Banking corporation is recruiting candidates for 4-month training program. Candidates will be exposed to all aspect of banking during training, with the possibility of working with the Bank after completion for top performers. Must be fluent in English, be below 26 years and have attained a degree of any kind, with a minimum 2nd upper class.
Send detailed CV by Jan 31 1005 e-mail to abcmail@africanbankingcorp.com ref: “”human resources – graduate trainee program”
(Note even though they have seven branches in Kenya, they appear to be looking for candidates from Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana - but Kenyan's should apply anyway!)
The giant audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers is seeking:
1. An Associate Director; Must have undergraduate degree, preferably an MBA or CFA, as well as relationship management skills and contacts across East Africa.
2. Manager-Infrastructure Finance: Must have undergraduate degree, preferably an MBA or CFA, as well as project and client management skills.
Write to recruitment.ke@ke.pwc.com by Feb. 7 2005
Banking consultant
To advise on banking laws and setting up of an Islamic bank in Hargeisa. Should be MUSLIM candidate, and preference will be given to Somali nationals. Must have university degree, with CPA or CAIIB, minimum of 10 years banking experience, and be less than 50 years old.
E-mail to dsh_fc2004@yahoo.com
Africa Banking Corporation: Graduate Devt. Program
The African Banking corporation is recruiting candidates for 4-month training program. Candidates will be exposed to all aspect of banking during training, with the possibility of working with the Bank after completion for top performers. Must be fluent in English, be below 26 years and have attained a degree of any kind, with a minimum 2nd upper class.
Send detailed CV by Jan 31 1005 e-mail to abcmail@africanbankingcorp.com ref: “”human resources – graduate trainee program”
(Note even though they have seven branches in Kenya, they appear to be looking for candidates from Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana - but Kenyan's should apply anyway!)
Kenyan Round-up
Finance Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua admitted that he was embarrassed that he, and his fellow permanent secretaries at other ministries, have been forced to buy luxury cars and 4WD’s at the behest of their Ministers, at a time when the government is preaching about cost-cutting. I recommend that PS Kinyua, and other Kenyans look at India to see what car their Prime Minister and government top brass use – and we’ll realise how much money we waste.
According to the Standard today (Jan 26) the US is exerting pressure on Kenya Airways to break it’s link to KLM before it begins service to the US (Atlanta). This is bad news since Kenya Airways fortunes have greatly increased since its partnership on the European route via KLM – its revenue have gone up from 10 billion in 1997 to 20 billion in 2004. Even if it is ture, I don't see any US airline flying to Nairobi until they route is proven to be super-profitable (and most US carriers are struggling or bankrupt)
The good, the bad and the ugly (this week)
Bad (Kenyans)
I am distressed about CPT (Coloured people time or African time-keeping). This has to stop, and it is not something we can blame on politicians. We are all guilty of it – seminars, weddings, office meetings, dinner dates, Sudan peace agreements, funerals – all typically start and end late because someone did not keep time. It’s frustrating and expensive habit in that it cot’s people valuable time as they wait for latecomers.
This week the good and ugly of Kenya come from our institutions of higher learning
The Good
First the (very) good where over the weekend students from Kenyatta University participated in a clean up at Pumwani (maternity) Hospital in Nairobi. This is one of the few time in recent years when public university students have demonstrated good civic/public service duty. The students cleaned the grounds, collected trash, washed utensils, the kitchen, and other buildings and even cooked and served meals to the patients. Unbelievable but true. Bravo
The Ugly
The (very) ugly was that fighting broke out between Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) male students and Kenya Polytechnic (Poly) male students on Tuesday that had to be broken up by riot police. Why are students, who normally express solidarity, fighting their comrades? Female students! It seems that Poly male students are angry that the KIMC male students have denied them a chance to socialize with their female KIMC colleagues, while the male KIMC students say the Poly males are harassing their KIMC females.
According to the Standard today (Jan 26) the US is exerting pressure on Kenya Airways to break it’s link to KLM before it begins service to the US (Atlanta). This is bad news since Kenya Airways fortunes have greatly increased since its partnership on the European route via KLM – its revenue have gone up from 10 billion in 1997 to 20 billion in 2004. Even if it is ture, I don't see any US airline flying to Nairobi until they route is proven to be super-profitable (and most US carriers are struggling or bankrupt)
The good, the bad and the ugly (this week)
Bad (Kenyans)
I am distressed about CPT (Coloured people time or African time-keeping). This has to stop, and it is not something we can blame on politicians. We are all guilty of it – seminars, weddings, office meetings, dinner dates, Sudan peace agreements, funerals – all typically start and end late because someone did not keep time. It’s frustrating and expensive habit in that it cot’s people valuable time as they wait for latecomers.
This week the good and ugly of Kenya come from our institutions of higher learning
The Good
First the (very) good where over the weekend students from Kenyatta University participated in a clean up at Pumwani (maternity) Hospital in Nairobi. This is one of the few time in recent years when public university students have demonstrated good civic/public service duty. The students cleaned the grounds, collected trash, washed utensils, the kitchen, and other buildings and even cooked and served meals to the patients. Unbelievable but true. Bravo
The Ugly
The (very) ugly was that fighting broke out between Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) male students and Kenya Polytechnic (Poly) male students on Tuesday that had to be broken up by riot police. Why are students, who normally express solidarity, fighting their comrades? Female students! It seems that Poly male students are angry that the KIMC male students have denied them a chance to socialize with their female KIMC colleagues, while the male KIMC students say the Poly males are harassing their KIMC females.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Who's buying KCC?
Now that Ndwiga and the KCC board have been exposed, the Government (knock! knock! anyone there?) should re-consider the move they orchestrated to take back KCC to sell it to 'dairy farmers.' Their motives are more likely to be ulterior, than good and chances are good that people who are not small scale rural dairy farmers will be the new true owners of KCC.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Banking Round-up
In Nigeria, Banks have turned their tellers into prostitutes, appropriately titled “relations managers.” With 89 banks in Nigeria, competition can be fierce, and many businesses have complained of harassment by "corporate prostitutes" and Women's Rights Watch Nigeria and other groups accuse some banks of "specifically mandating young, unmarried female staff to target and convince wealthy young men [that] these employers insist on skimpy outfits and unusual work hours".
In Britain, Barclays Bank staff won’t get paid on time owing to a Banking error. The wrong date was entered into the bank's computer system and as a result as many as 62,000 Barclays UK staff and another 40,000 former employees will get paid a day late.
In Uganda, a Bank now collects taxes for the URA or Uganda Revenue Authority. Look for this outsourcing model to be expanded in Kenya where bank’s already collect utility payments for KPLC and other cash-strapped bodies.
In Botswana, the Finance Minister was warned Banks about their poor service. Mr. Gaolathe said there is growing concern amongst the general public regarding long queues in banking halls, especially at peak times and also took issue with the commercial banks for focusing on the prestige market at the expense of the larger community.
Lastly, in Canada customers pay as much as 16,000 shillings in banking fees (Can$C258 a year) for current accounts at some Banks.
In Britain, Barclays Bank staff won’t get paid on time owing to a Banking error. The wrong date was entered into the bank's computer system and as a result as many as 62,000 Barclays UK staff and another 40,000 former employees will get paid a day late.
In Uganda, a Bank now collects taxes for the URA or Uganda Revenue Authority. Look for this outsourcing model to be expanded in Kenya where bank’s already collect utility payments for KPLC and other cash-strapped bodies.
In Botswana, the Finance Minister was warned Banks about their poor service. Mr. Gaolathe said there is growing concern amongst the general public regarding long queues in banking halls, especially at peak times and also took issue with the commercial banks for focusing on the prestige market at the expense of the larger community.
Lastly, in Canada customers pay as much as 16,000 shillings in banking fees (Can$C258 a year) for current accounts at some Banks.
The Taint of the Greased Palm (Is Kenya like Mexico?)
Tina Rosenberg of The New York Times, wrote an article on corruption in Mexico . Like the Kennedy-Lincoln comparisons, the article is startling and very revealing if you substitute Kenya for Mexico, Kibaki for Fox, KANU for P.R.I and so on. This article was written in 2003 (three years into the term of Vincent Fox in Mexico – we are now almost 3 years in Kibaki’s presidency)
· When Vicente Fox (Kibaki) was sworn in as president of Mexico on Dec. 1, 2000, he carried with him a huge burden: the public's expectation that he would liberate from corruption a country that had become symbolic of the scourge.
· Fox was the first Mexican president from an opposition party after 71 (40) years of autocratic control by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., (KANU) which maintained its grip on Mexico (Kenya) principally through corruption.
· In his inaugural address, Fox (Kibaki) said that combating corruption, ''until now a goal of secondary importance, will from today on be a national priority.''
· Yet just as sure as a new leader's pledge to clean up the corruption of his predecessor is the certainty that his successor will, in a few years, (2007) be doing the same.
· Presidents who come to office promising to fight graft almost always fail -- occasionally leaving office several million dollars (shillings) richer themselves.
· Arrests are made -- but often only of political rivals.
· But corruption can be cleaned up - Australia, now one of the world's cleanest nations, was a long-time Wild West of lawlessness. Singapore is now a model of probity, but in the 1950's it was awash in corruption. Bolivia is one of the world's most corrupt nations, but for a time a reformist mayor gave residents of its biggest city, La Paz, a reprieve. Ferdinand Marcos, of all people, cleaned up the Philippines' tax bureau.
· Corruption also distorts spending. There is evidence that when levels of graft are high, governments spend less on education and health and more on public works -- projects (passports) chosen not for their value to the nation but for their kickback potential.
· Corruption greatly discourages foreign investment.
· The transition to democracy tends to be a very corrupt period, during which shaky institutions, rapid privatisations and unclear rules contribute to the problem. Countries recently emerging from dictatorship tend to be more corrupt than the dictatorships they displaced.
· Mexico shows how easy it is to fight corruption once a government really wants to -- and how hard it is to reach that point, despite what presidents say in their inaugural addresses.
· Another problem was the thicket of requirements necessary for getting goods through customs (bureaucracy at Mombasa port) - there were 16 steps, hence 16 opportunities for officials to solicit bribes. Gil Díaz got Mexico's congress to convert customs to the system now in use in most of the world. Major shipments now had to be handled by licensed customs brokers, who would inventory the merchandise and calculate the correct duty. The 16 steps became 3. A process that had taken as long as a month was cut down to 10 minutes. From one month to the next, officially collected (KRA) duties jumped by 30 percent. In addition to raising revenue and greasing the movement of goods, that reform also curtailed corruption.
· Every week, Gil Díaz flew to a different post for a surprise inspection, not even telling the pilot where he was going until the plane was in the air. (Maitha)
· Gil Díaz changed the behaviour of customs workers by removing opportunities for theft and bribery and increasing the probability of their being caught. In short, he made illegal acts difficult.
· In his book ''Controlling Corruption,'' Robert Klitgaard, now dean of the RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, Calif., shows how in some of the most unlikely places corruption has been fought using such simple administrative reforms. His most spectacular example is the cleanup of the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue under that renowned graft-buster Ferdinand Marcos. It is amusing to recall that Marcos declared martial law in 1972 in part to combat corruption. Three years later, he installed Efren Plana, a respected judge, as the commissioner of internal revenue. Plana fired about a hundred of the most corrupt officials. He set higher professional standards and banned the hiring of officials' relatives. Previously, tax assessors won promotion by bribing their superiors. Plana developed incentives that gave promotions and cash prizes to the most effective and fairest assessors. He brought in outside auditors and instituted frequent audits and spot checks. He recommended changes to simplify the tax laws, so that an individual agent's discretion was reduced. In short, he used strategies any first-year business student could have designed.
· Gil Díaz's reforms were similarly straightforward. ''It's not that I'm an administrative genius,'' he says. ''These changes were simply logical.''
· All those inaugural speeches declaring all-out war on graft? Lies. It's actually easy to clean up corruption, absurdly easy, when you want to. What is difficult is really wanting to.
· Once corruption has become the norm, the system spits out those who try to fight it (Gladwell Otieno & Ahmednassir Abdullahi). In Argentina, President Fernando de la Rua, keeping a campaign promise, reduced the slush fund used to pay off legislators. But when Congress would not pass his labour-law reforms, 11 senators were said to have received bribes from members of his cabinet. When de la Rua went on to retain the two cabinet members accused of bribery in a cabinet reshuffle (Government of National Unity), the vice president, Carlos Alvarez, protested. The vice president ended up resigning. Those accused of bribery outlasted him. And the labour reforms passed.
· Corruption was found to be spectacularly concentrated in Mexico City (Nairobi) People in the capital stopped by a transit cop reported paying a bribe 69 percent of the time.
· Until elections were instituted in 1997 (1992), Mexico City's mayors were appointed by the P.R.I. (KANU) All three mayors since then have come from the Democratic Revolutionary Party (P.R.D.), a leftist party that broke away from the P.R.I. (LDP?)
· Mexico City's leadership today seems to think it is doing enough just by not being the (KANU) P.R.I. The P.R.D. (NARC) has fallen victim to a common misconception: corruption is the other guys.
· Politicians everywhere seem to believe that things automatically change when they (Ndwiga) win, when in fact the corporate culture of corruption is usually so strong that it swallows any party's good intentions.
· ''You want the parties to take on the administrative process,'' says Federico Reyes Heroles, the director of Transparency Mexico (Githongo), ''not simply to say, 'When the saints come to power everything will be O.K.' I have no doubt that mayor AMLO (Kibaki) is honest, but the important thing is the system.''
· Of course, along with a corrupt political culture, Mexico City's leaders have inherited problems that make it difficult to change that culture.
· While the P.R.I. mafiosi (KANU) at the very top have been swept out of city government in the last few years, the municipal workers' union (councillors) protects lower-level workers from being fired. City officials could try to take on the union but the P.R.D. (NARC) wants control of the union's 100,000-plus members and its formidable election machine.
· It's just one example of the single biggest reason corruption persists worldwide: fighting it requires alienating the influential groups and people -- from labour unions to billionaire businessmen -- who keep politicians in office and help them get things done.
· Ask Mexico City officials (Cabinet Ministers) how they are fighting corruption, and they point to the comptroller and the City Council's auditor (Ringera & KACC). But these agencies are crippled by narrow mandates and tiny budgets - the office that monitors the price of public-works projects has only recently started using computers and reports from the City Council's auditor regularly come out two years late.
· Corruption's dirty little secret: the people's cry that they are fed up with having to pay bribes is an exaggeration - the vast majority of citizens (Kenyans) who complain about corruption are full participants in the process. (Author) “I hate corruption enough to write an article about it, but I bribed my garbage man every Friday, as did all my neighbours. Should I complain to my garbage man's boss? He probably enjoys a percentage of my tips.”
· Despite the complaints of citizens, the corruption accompanying an ordinary transaction in Mexico City usually begins with them. (Author)”In a neighbouring registry, an official had offered to do it for a large bribe we paid a gestor, or coyote, to help us with the transaction, and at least got mostly done in one morning. An acquaintance who went alone needed four trips.”
· Everyone complains, all the time. But when bribery is the only way to get services without taking a week off work, people bribe. What people (Kenyans) really need, of course, is a system that doesn't require bribery to get things done.
· Nor do many people here believe in their own ability to influence a process of change.
· Officials here (MP’s) ignore corruption because they can -- it doesn't cost them at election time. Most voters have more urgent needs than clean government, like jobs, security and food (maendeleo). And if voters don't really believe that corruption will ever disappear, then they figure they would be chumps not to get their own little piece.
· Votes here are not won through good service but through caudillo-style favours to constituent groups. The P.R.I. (KANU) no longer runs Mexico City, (Kenya) but its political system still does. Mayor AMLO (Kibaki) may be personally puritanical, but he relies on P.R.I.-style (KANU) electoral games to maintain political support. The strategy works. In midterm elections last month, Mexicans rewarded the nation's two major political machines.
· Throughout the countryside, the P.R.I. (KANU), which never stopped doling out goodies, made a comeback. (Note: KANU has no more goodies to hand out and is losing most by-elections)
· In the Philippines, Efren Plana's reforms slowly eroded, and they crashed completely when President Marcos apparently decided to install cronies in the tax bureau in the mid-1980's to help his family avoid taxes (Mwiraria?) and to produce money for his 1986 (2007) re-election campaign.
· Even in places where officials have the power, initiative and imagination to clean house, their work can dissolve into nothing when the desire flags (Ringera).
· Still, I have yet to meet a Mexican (Kenyan) who says that President Fox (Kibaki) is doing much of anything to fight corruption, except those who work for him.
· The year after Fox (Kibaki) took office, more people actually thought corruption was rising rather than going down. I believe that this public perception of Fox's failure is wrong, but it is understandable.
· His (Kibaki) is a notoriously lethargic presidency. Rooting out corruption was a theme -- the theme -- of his party. No one could have lived up to the hopes invested in him.
· Another reason for the public perception that Fox has failed is that his administration has chosen not to attempt widespread prosecutions for corruption (Ndwiga)-- and when it has gone after big fish, it has so far failed to land them.
· For most Mexicans (Kenyans), and indeed, people everywhere, jailing the big fish is synonymous with fighting corruption.
· But in general, Fox has been right to emphasize other strategies. Prosecutions of past thievery (Goldenberg and Ndungu report) consume money and time better spent elsewhere. Especially in dysfunctional judicial systems like Mexico's (Kenya’s), they often fail, and even when people do go to prison (Somaia), the event is so rare that it has no deterrent effect on the behaviour of current officials.
· But Fox (Kibaki) has actually made important investments in the future of clean government. He is bringing the anticorruption agency (KACC) up to global standards. And at his urging, this year Congress created a federal civil service. It will professionalize government and cut down on patronage, nepotism and jobs allocated by the applicant's willingness to pay kickbacks to his superior. (Note: However Kibaki scuttled the new constitution which Kenyan’s believed would have reduced corruption)
· As Mexico City (Kenya) shows, general disgust about corruption does not produce change. Only when powerful sectors (private sector, donors and diplomats Clay) demand specific new ways of doing business do reforms occur.
· To call Mexico, where civil society is barely breathing after years on the P.R.I. (KANU) payroll, a successful example of corruption-fighting is an overstatement at this point. (Note: civil society has turned a myopic eye to NARC) But it might not be in a few years. ''
· In Mexico, as elsewhere, (anti-corruption) fences go up and fences fall. They remain standing only when a government (Kenya) knows that its fortunes are tied to the fences, that if the fences topple, the government topples along with them.
Where is Mexico today?
· According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Mexico’s largest party, the PRI (KANU), has reason to be optimistic at the start of 2005. It scored numerous electoral successes in local and statewide contests last year, which have increased its prospects of regaining the presidency in 2006 after a six-year hiatus.
· The PRI’s president, Roberto Madrazo (Uhuru or Biwott?), has been able to claim success for mobilizing the party vote in the local polls, thereby strengthening his authority over the party and his chances of securing its presidential nomination. Given the party’s weak finances, another factor that will work in Mr. Madrazo’s favour is his ability to forge alliances with important financial backers, such as the controversial Hank Rhon brothers.
· Barring any major upsets, Mr. Madrazo will almost certainly be the PRI’s presidential candidate in 2006. And given the troubles afflicting the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), (NAK) the party of President Vicente Fox, and the left-leaning Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) (NARC), Mr. Madrazo’s chances of capturing the presidency are good.
· The PRD, meanwhile, generally had a poor year in 2004. The “videoscandals” (Anglo-leasing) that broke in March and exposed corruption at the heart of Mexico City’s government, which is run by a PRD mayor, have been extremely damaging for a party that has always sought to emphasize an anti-corruption agenda. The videoscandals were followed by the launch of the process to strip the mayor, Andres Manuel López Obrador, the PRD’s (Kibaki or his preferred successor?) best prospect of winning the presidency in 2006, of his parliamentary immunity, in a case that could yet endanger his ability to run.
· In the last quarter of 2004, the PRD suffered other setbacks. The arrest on October 9th of Gustavo Ponce Meléndez, the Mexico City administration’s former finance minister, demonstrates the extent to which the videoscandals have the potential to continue to harm the party. Mr. Ponce had been a fugitive since March 2nd, shortly after the release of a video showing him betting large sums of money in a casino in Las Vegas. Mr. Ponce is being held at La Palma, a maximum-security prison in the State of Mexico, and is being investigated for illicit enrichment. Following Mr. Ponce’s arrest, the criminal investigation he faces has the potential to reveal damaging facts that could incriminate Mr. López Obrador.
· So far, Mr. López Obrador (Kibaki) has been able to distance himself from the corruption scandals. Indeed, a poll carried out in mid-November by a national newspaper, Reforma, indicates a slight rebound in Mr. López Obrador’s popularity in recent months, with 34%—up from 32% in August—of those polled saying they would vote for him, compared with 26% for Santiago Creel Miranda, the frontrunner for the PAN candidacy, and 24% for Mr. Madrazo, the favorite for the PRI candidacy.
· When asked to give a preference for a particular party, regardless of its candidate, the PRI (KANU) comes out top in both polls. The November El Universal poll showed that 29% of those polled supported the PRI, followed by the PAN with 27% and the PRD with 23%. Similarly, the Reforma poll, using a slightly different methodology, found that 36% of those asked said they thought it likely that the next president would be from the PRI, with 25% believing him or her to be from the PAN, and only 22% from the PRD.
· The electorate’s apparent preference for the PRI appears to underscore its disillusionment with the ineffectiveness of the first non-PRI (non KANU) government in 71 (40) years and by the PRD’s failure to project itself as a convincing alternative party of government.
· When Vicente Fox (Kibaki) was sworn in as president of Mexico on Dec. 1, 2000, he carried with him a huge burden: the public's expectation that he would liberate from corruption a country that had become symbolic of the scourge.
· Fox was the first Mexican president from an opposition party after 71 (40) years of autocratic control by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., (KANU) which maintained its grip on Mexico (Kenya) principally through corruption.
· In his inaugural address, Fox (Kibaki) said that combating corruption, ''until now a goal of secondary importance, will from today on be a national priority.''
· Yet just as sure as a new leader's pledge to clean up the corruption of his predecessor is the certainty that his successor will, in a few years, (2007) be doing the same.
· Presidents who come to office promising to fight graft almost always fail -- occasionally leaving office several million dollars (shillings) richer themselves.
· Arrests are made -- but often only of political rivals.
· But corruption can be cleaned up - Australia, now one of the world's cleanest nations, was a long-time Wild West of lawlessness. Singapore is now a model of probity, but in the 1950's it was awash in corruption. Bolivia is one of the world's most corrupt nations, but for a time a reformist mayor gave residents of its biggest city, La Paz, a reprieve. Ferdinand Marcos, of all people, cleaned up the Philippines' tax bureau.
· Corruption also distorts spending. There is evidence that when levels of graft are high, governments spend less on education and health and more on public works -- projects (passports) chosen not for their value to the nation but for their kickback potential.
· Corruption greatly discourages foreign investment.
· The transition to democracy tends to be a very corrupt period, during which shaky institutions, rapid privatisations and unclear rules contribute to the problem. Countries recently emerging from dictatorship tend to be more corrupt than the dictatorships they displaced.
· Mexico shows how easy it is to fight corruption once a government really wants to -- and how hard it is to reach that point, despite what presidents say in their inaugural addresses.
· Another problem was the thicket of requirements necessary for getting goods through customs (bureaucracy at Mombasa port) - there were 16 steps, hence 16 opportunities for officials to solicit bribes. Gil Díaz got Mexico's congress to convert customs to the system now in use in most of the world. Major shipments now had to be handled by licensed customs brokers, who would inventory the merchandise and calculate the correct duty. The 16 steps became 3. A process that had taken as long as a month was cut down to 10 minutes. From one month to the next, officially collected (KRA) duties jumped by 30 percent. In addition to raising revenue and greasing the movement of goods, that reform also curtailed corruption.
· Every week, Gil Díaz flew to a different post for a surprise inspection, not even telling the pilot where he was going until the plane was in the air. (Maitha)
· Gil Díaz changed the behaviour of customs workers by removing opportunities for theft and bribery and increasing the probability of their being caught. In short, he made illegal acts difficult.
· In his book ''Controlling Corruption,'' Robert Klitgaard, now dean of the RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, Calif., shows how in some of the most unlikely places corruption has been fought using such simple administrative reforms. His most spectacular example is the cleanup of the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue under that renowned graft-buster Ferdinand Marcos. It is amusing to recall that Marcos declared martial law in 1972 in part to combat corruption. Three years later, he installed Efren Plana, a respected judge, as the commissioner of internal revenue. Plana fired about a hundred of the most corrupt officials. He set higher professional standards and banned the hiring of officials' relatives. Previously, tax assessors won promotion by bribing their superiors. Plana developed incentives that gave promotions and cash prizes to the most effective and fairest assessors. He brought in outside auditors and instituted frequent audits and spot checks. He recommended changes to simplify the tax laws, so that an individual agent's discretion was reduced. In short, he used strategies any first-year business student could have designed.
· Gil Díaz's reforms were similarly straightforward. ''It's not that I'm an administrative genius,'' he says. ''These changes were simply logical.''
· All those inaugural speeches declaring all-out war on graft? Lies. It's actually easy to clean up corruption, absurdly easy, when you want to. What is difficult is really wanting to.
· Once corruption has become the norm, the system spits out those who try to fight it (Gladwell Otieno & Ahmednassir Abdullahi). In Argentina, President Fernando de la Rua, keeping a campaign promise, reduced the slush fund used to pay off legislators. But when Congress would not pass his labour-law reforms, 11 senators were said to have received bribes from members of his cabinet. When de la Rua went on to retain the two cabinet members accused of bribery in a cabinet reshuffle (Government of National Unity), the vice president, Carlos Alvarez, protested. The vice president ended up resigning. Those accused of bribery outlasted him. And the labour reforms passed.
· Corruption was found to be spectacularly concentrated in Mexico City (Nairobi) People in the capital stopped by a transit cop reported paying a bribe 69 percent of the time.
· Until elections were instituted in 1997 (1992), Mexico City's mayors were appointed by the P.R.I. (KANU) All three mayors since then have come from the Democratic Revolutionary Party (P.R.D.), a leftist party that broke away from the P.R.I. (LDP?)
· Mexico City's leadership today seems to think it is doing enough just by not being the (KANU) P.R.I. The P.R.D. (NARC) has fallen victim to a common misconception: corruption is the other guys.
· Politicians everywhere seem to believe that things automatically change when they (Ndwiga) win, when in fact the corporate culture of corruption is usually so strong that it swallows any party's good intentions.
· ''You want the parties to take on the administrative process,'' says Federico Reyes Heroles, the director of Transparency Mexico (Githongo), ''not simply to say, 'When the saints come to power everything will be O.K.' I have no doubt that mayor AMLO (Kibaki) is honest, but the important thing is the system.''
· Of course, along with a corrupt political culture, Mexico City's leaders have inherited problems that make it difficult to change that culture.
· While the P.R.I. mafiosi (KANU) at the very top have been swept out of city government in the last few years, the municipal workers' union (councillors) protects lower-level workers from being fired. City officials could try to take on the union but the P.R.D. (NARC) wants control of the union's 100,000-plus members and its formidable election machine.
· It's just one example of the single biggest reason corruption persists worldwide: fighting it requires alienating the influential groups and people -- from labour unions to billionaire businessmen -- who keep politicians in office and help them get things done.
· Ask Mexico City officials (Cabinet Ministers) how they are fighting corruption, and they point to the comptroller and the City Council's auditor (Ringera & KACC). But these agencies are crippled by narrow mandates and tiny budgets - the office that monitors the price of public-works projects has only recently started using computers and reports from the City Council's auditor regularly come out two years late.
· Corruption's dirty little secret: the people's cry that they are fed up with having to pay bribes is an exaggeration - the vast majority of citizens (Kenyans) who complain about corruption are full participants in the process. (Author) “I hate corruption enough to write an article about it, but I bribed my garbage man every Friday, as did all my neighbours. Should I complain to my garbage man's boss? He probably enjoys a percentage of my tips.”
· Despite the complaints of citizens, the corruption accompanying an ordinary transaction in Mexico City usually begins with them. (Author)”In a neighbouring registry, an official had offered to do it for a large bribe we paid a gestor, or coyote, to help us with the transaction, and at least got mostly done in one morning. An acquaintance who went alone needed four trips.”
· Everyone complains, all the time. But when bribery is the only way to get services without taking a week off work, people bribe. What people (Kenyans) really need, of course, is a system that doesn't require bribery to get things done.
· Nor do many people here believe in their own ability to influence a process of change.
· Officials here (MP’s) ignore corruption because they can -- it doesn't cost them at election time. Most voters have more urgent needs than clean government, like jobs, security and food (maendeleo). And if voters don't really believe that corruption will ever disappear, then they figure they would be chumps not to get their own little piece.
· Votes here are not won through good service but through caudillo-style favours to constituent groups. The P.R.I. (KANU) no longer runs Mexico City, (Kenya) but its political system still does. Mayor AMLO (Kibaki) may be personally puritanical, but he relies on P.R.I.-style (KANU) electoral games to maintain political support. The strategy works. In midterm elections last month, Mexicans rewarded the nation's two major political machines.
· Throughout the countryside, the P.R.I. (KANU), which never stopped doling out goodies, made a comeback. (Note: KANU has no more goodies to hand out and is losing most by-elections)
· In the Philippines, Efren Plana's reforms slowly eroded, and they crashed completely when President Marcos apparently decided to install cronies in the tax bureau in the mid-1980's to help his family avoid taxes (Mwiraria?) and to produce money for his 1986 (2007) re-election campaign.
· Even in places where officials have the power, initiative and imagination to clean house, their work can dissolve into nothing when the desire flags (Ringera).
· Still, I have yet to meet a Mexican (Kenyan) who says that President Fox (Kibaki) is doing much of anything to fight corruption, except those who work for him.
· The year after Fox (Kibaki) took office, more people actually thought corruption was rising rather than going down. I believe that this public perception of Fox's failure is wrong, but it is understandable.
· His (Kibaki) is a notoriously lethargic presidency. Rooting out corruption was a theme -- the theme -- of his party. No one could have lived up to the hopes invested in him.
· Another reason for the public perception that Fox has failed is that his administration has chosen not to attempt widespread prosecutions for corruption (Ndwiga)-- and when it has gone after big fish, it has so far failed to land them.
· For most Mexicans (Kenyans), and indeed, people everywhere, jailing the big fish is synonymous with fighting corruption.
· But in general, Fox has been right to emphasize other strategies. Prosecutions of past thievery (Goldenberg and Ndungu report) consume money and time better spent elsewhere. Especially in dysfunctional judicial systems like Mexico's (Kenya’s), they often fail, and even when people do go to prison (Somaia), the event is so rare that it has no deterrent effect on the behaviour of current officials.
· But Fox (Kibaki) has actually made important investments in the future of clean government. He is bringing the anticorruption agency (KACC) up to global standards. And at his urging, this year Congress created a federal civil service. It will professionalize government and cut down on patronage, nepotism and jobs allocated by the applicant's willingness to pay kickbacks to his superior. (Note: However Kibaki scuttled the new constitution which Kenyan’s believed would have reduced corruption)
· As Mexico City (Kenya) shows, general disgust about corruption does not produce change. Only when powerful sectors (private sector, donors and diplomats Clay) demand specific new ways of doing business do reforms occur.
· To call Mexico, where civil society is barely breathing after years on the P.R.I. (KANU) payroll, a successful example of corruption-fighting is an overstatement at this point. (Note: civil society has turned a myopic eye to NARC) But it might not be in a few years. ''
· In Mexico, as elsewhere, (anti-corruption) fences go up and fences fall. They remain standing only when a government (Kenya) knows that its fortunes are tied to the fences, that if the fences topple, the government topples along with them.
Where is Mexico today?
· According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Mexico’s largest party, the PRI (KANU), has reason to be optimistic at the start of 2005. It scored numerous electoral successes in local and statewide contests last year, which have increased its prospects of regaining the presidency in 2006 after a six-year hiatus.
· The PRI’s president, Roberto Madrazo (Uhuru or Biwott?), has been able to claim success for mobilizing the party vote in the local polls, thereby strengthening his authority over the party and his chances of securing its presidential nomination. Given the party’s weak finances, another factor that will work in Mr. Madrazo’s favour is his ability to forge alliances with important financial backers, such as the controversial Hank Rhon brothers.
· Barring any major upsets, Mr. Madrazo will almost certainly be the PRI’s presidential candidate in 2006. And given the troubles afflicting the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), (NAK) the party of President Vicente Fox, and the left-leaning Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) (NARC), Mr. Madrazo’s chances of capturing the presidency are good.
· The PRD, meanwhile, generally had a poor year in 2004. The “videoscandals” (Anglo-leasing) that broke in March and exposed corruption at the heart of Mexico City’s government, which is run by a PRD mayor, have been extremely damaging for a party that has always sought to emphasize an anti-corruption agenda. The videoscandals were followed by the launch of the process to strip the mayor, Andres Manuel López Obrador, the PRD’s (Kibaki or his preferred successor?) best prospect of winning the presidency in 2006, of his parliamentary immunity, in a case that could yet endanger his ability to run.
· In the last quarter of 2004, the PRD suffered other setbacks. The arrest on October 9th of Gustavo Ponce Meléndez, the Mexico City administration’s former finance minister, demonstrates the extent to which the videoscandals have the potential to continue to harm the party. Mr. Ponce had been a fugitive since March 2nd, shortly after the release of a video showing him betting large sums of money in a casino in Las Vegas. Mr. Ponce is being held at La Palma, a maximum-security prison in the State of Mexico, and is being investigated for illicit enrichment. Following Mr. Ponce’s arrest, the criminal investigation he faces has the potential to reveal damaging facts that could incriminate Mr. López Obrador.
· So far, Mr. López Obrador (Kibaki) has been able to distance himself from the corruption scandals. Indeed, a poll carried out in mid-November by a national newspaper, Reforma, indicates a slight rebound in Mr. López Obrador’s popularity in recent months, with 34%—up from 32% in August—of those polled saying they would vote for him, compared with 26% for Santiago Creel Miranda, the frontrunner for the PAN candidacy, and 24% for Mr. Madrazo, the favorite for the PRI candidacy.
· When asked to give a preference for a particular party, regardless of its candidate, the PRI (KANU) comes out top in both polls. The November El Universal poll showed that 29% of those polled supported the PRI, followed by the PAN with 27% and the PRD with 23%. Similarly, the Reforma poll, using a slightly different methodology, found that 36% of those asked said they thought it likely that the next president would be from the PRI, with 25% believing him or her to be from the PAN, and only 22% from the PRD.
· The electorate’s apparent preference for the PRI appears to underscore its disillusionment with the ineffectiveness of the first non-PRI (non KANU) government in 71 (40) years and by the PRD’s failure to project itself as a convincing alternative party of government.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Anglo Leasing alive
The Standard ran a page one story on the technical advisor on Anglo leasing, (a French company called Francois-Charles Oberthur Fiduciaire) angling to get the contract to print Kenya's currency.
However in this case, the Sunday Standard is trying to keep up with it's corruption-exposing theme by rehashing an old story they ran in May 2004. It's shocking that Anglo-leasing Company is still alive, but the notion that it (or anybody) can snatch De La Rue's contract to print Kenya's currency is too unbelievable - they have done so since independence. De La Rue is unmatched in its currency printing operation and actually runs an operation in the EPZ Nairobi that prints currencies for several countries. The earlier story was much more revealing about who was behind the Anglo-leasing currency and carries an ominous warning - "When you start hearing French firms being given tenders, be sure corruption is back," a Government official said.
(Since the Standard archives are offline today, here's the article from last year)
Inteligence | New corruption haunts Narc
Big Issue | Financial Standard | Maddo | Pulse | Style | Society
Sunday, May 9, 2004
By Sunday Standard Team
Official corruption is back - and this time it is bigger, bolder and a lot more difficult to pin down. Errand boys and crooked businessmen of the Moi era have teamed up with cartels and officials of the Narc administration to continue with business as usual, exerting influence over tenders and supplies, as well as
presenting themselves as brokers both locally and abroad.
Where the crooks of the Moi era asked for 10 per cent commissions on tenders and supplies, those of the Narc regime are asking for 30 per cent.
A twilight zone has emerged between the Office of the President, the Treasury and State House where - under the guise of state security - tenders are secretly negotiated on behalf of the Government by a clique of Asian businessmen and close associates of State House, Treasury and OP officials.
Sunday Standard investigations reveal that the security business is the worst hit because of the secrecy that surrounds even mundane things like printing of driving licences and passports.
For about a year now, the reputed firm, De La Rue's security printing business with the Kenya Government has been hanging on a thread, awaiting cancellation because of intense lobbying to take away its business.
Cartels
The cartels in the Kibaki administration, backed by a small clique of powerful government officials, have tracked down jack-of-all trades Asian businessmen, even those who fell out with the Kanu regime, and incorporated them into money-minting schemes where they
hold sway over who gets lucrative tenders, at a fee. Sources told the Sunday Standard that an Asian businessman who made a killing in the Moi era by supplying substandard goods, or none at all, has been pushing for two foreign firms to take the business from De La Rue.
The businessman, teaming up with a former District Officer in the Eastlands area, a State House official, two permanent secretaries, a Cabinet Minister, a Democratic Party official and a nominated MP have been pushing for De La Rue's business to be given to Banking Notes Ltd of Canada and Currency Australia of Australia.
A search on the firms yielded variations in names while a source said the companies might as well be non-existent.
"It could just be another money minting scheme by these crooks. Those firms may not exist. Even if they [the two firms] did get the [security printing] contract, De La Rue is local and is paid in local currency. The foreign firms will get 70 per cent of their pay in foreign currencies and only 30 per cent in local. That is capital flight," a government official said.
The clique is also pursuing contracts for the supply of security equipment like guns, particularly AK-47s, which they have either supplied or plan to supply at a cost of $2,800 each where they would ordinarily go for $1,500. Because the European Union has stringent rules on kickbacks and bribery abroad by its firms, the crooks in government are looking elsewhere for companies that can
give 30 per cent commissions.
"When you start hearing French firms being given tenders, be sure corruption is back," a Government official said.
Cronyism
According to a chief executive of a US firm in Nairobi, the new influence-peddlers have added "a high-tech sophistication to the arsenal of old-fashioned corruption". "They disguise their trade, they move with more discretion, they are better-educated, and they have more of an entrepreneurial vision of their corrupt businesses," the government officer said.
"We are seeing a lot more of cronyism; where government officials offer favourable treatment to their old friends and 'buddies'. We are seeing favouritism, confidentiality and preferential treatment based on long-standing friendships. I don't know what it will evolve into," he added.
In the wave of cronyism, abuse of office has emerged as a component of corruption where for being friends with the "right" people, individuals get favours they don't deserve.
The nominated MP deep in the new cartel has her houses guarded by four administration police officers. Ordinarily, MPs are entitled to only one civilian body guard.
Meeting in Cyprus
Last December, an Asian businessman who fled the country after his business deals in the Moi era went sour and now lives in Cyprus held a meeting with a senior government official at an exclusive location in the Seychelles. He was accompanied by power brokers and
influence peddlers with State House connections. "This is not a man a clean Government official can meet. His duty is to pursue all sorts of contracts and ask for commissions. The fact that they are back says a lot about our war on corruption," a government official
said.
The official said the meeting in Cyprus was organised by a senior government official who left the country last December 12, and met the businessman in London to arrange the Seychelles meeting. The government official and his team was picked from Seychelles and flown to Mombasa on New Year's Eve in a military helicopter dispatched from Nairobi.
Shady deals
According to a former MP who runs an international consultancy, the new corruption is run on a cash basis, not land or other property, as was the case in the Moi era.
"There seems to be a feeling that time is short and nobody wants to be bogged down in transactions like land transfers. They go for cash. The shady deals are all over. The ones we get to hear about are deals that go sour. Most of the shady deals are well executed and we don't get to know about them. The parties shake hands and part happily while the government loses billions," the former MP said.
Where the brokers cannot have firms to offer 30 per cent commissions, they form their own companies with foreign-sounding names to take the tenders and then subcontract other firms to supply the required goods.
A government official familiar with security and intelligence supplies and tenders was last week categorical that Anglo Leasing and Finance Ltd, the firm at the centre of the passports printing scandal, was a local firm owned by the same State House, OP and businessmen clique specifically for the passports deal. "Those companies are disbanded immediately they have got their cut and passed on the business to someone else." The official said security is being used as an excuse to defraud the government.
"There are no security implications in printing of passports. What is required is that we get a reputable firm that will not leak information or one whose systems cannot be duplicated. If you are buying things like fighter jets or communications equipment, you don't have to advertise. But you visit several suppliers, then you form a technical committee to evaluate the firms," he said.
The feeling that old corruption is back cuts across party lines. Kiharu MP Kembi Gitura says the talk about corruption "cannot be for nothing and should form the basis for investigations."
"When people talk like this, they are reacting to their frustrations. Even Goldenberg began as a clean business. I agree that security matters should be secret but good business sense requires that you vet what you are dealing with," Gitura said.
"I want to believe that new passports were necessary. But we know of situations where contracts were created, not for the benefit of the country but to perpetuate corrupt practices. I hope that is not the case here," he added.
Civil society
Kanu MP Mutula Kilonzo blames the civil society, donors and the Government for the return of corruption. He sees a deliberate effort by the government to create confusion over which government agency does what.
"The shelving of the passports tender was announced by Dr Chris Murungaru. That was wrong. What happens when Murungaru is found to be a suspect? Will he announce that to the public? Only the anti-corruption commission should have announced that the tendering has been cancelled and investigations are on. But the government has ensured KACC has no director," Kilonzo said.
"The country may have to grapple with a complex situation of a corrupt new regime investigating past corruption. If Moody Awori can defend a corrupt deal in government, who is left in Narc?" he added.
Mutula lamented the death of civil society whose members were co-opted into government and the feeling among donors that they want to channel all the money to the government and not civil society organisations.
Some 17 months ago, Kenyans cheered as President Kibaki took power with a warning that "the era of anything goes is gone forever and asked "all those members of my government and public officers accustomed to corrupt practice" to know there will be no sacred cows. Now, the optimism has faded, as allegations of corruption dog his presidency.
However in this case, the Sunday Standard is trying to keep up with it's corruption-exposing theme by rehashing an old story they ran in May 2004. It's shocking that Anglo-leasing Company is still alive, but the notion that it (or anybody) can snatch De La Rue's contract to print Kenya's currency is too unbelievable - they have done so since independence. De La Rue is unmatched in its currency printing operation and actually runs an operation in the EPZ Nairobi that prints currencies for several countries. The earlier story was much more revealing about who was behind the Anglo-leasing currency and carries an ominous warning - "When you start hearing French firms being given tenders, be sure corruption is back," a Government official said.
(Since the Standard archives are offline today, here's the article from last year)
Inteligence | New corruption haunts Narc
Big Issue | Financial Standard | Maddo | Pulse | Style | Society
Sunday, May 9, 2004
By Sunday Standard Team
Official corruption is back - and this time it is bigger, bolder and a lot more difficult to pin down. Errand boys and crooked businessmen of the Moi era have teamed up with cartels and officials of the Narc administration to continue with business as usual, exerting influence over tenders and supplies, as well as
presenting themselves as brokers both locally and abroad.
Where the crooks of the Moi era asked for 10 per cent commissions on tenders and supplies, those of the Narc regime are asking for 30 per cent.
A twilight zone has emerged between the Office of the President, the Treasury and State House where - under the guise of state security - tenders are secretly negotiated on behalf of the Government by a clique of Asian businessmen and close associates of State House, Treasury and OP officials.
Sunday Standard investigations reveal that the security business is the worst hit because of the secrecy that surrounds even mundane things like printing of driving licences and passports.
For about a year now, the reputed firm, De La Rue's security printing business with the Kenya Government has been hanging on a thread, awaiting cancellation because of intense lobbying to take away its business.
Cartels
The cartels in the Kibaki administration, backed by a small clique of powerful government officials, have tracked down jack-of-all trades Asian businessmen, even those who fell out with the Kanu regime, and incorporated them into money-minting schemes where they
hold sway over who gets lucrative tenders, at a fee. Sources told the Sunday Standard that an Asian businessman who made a killing in the Moi era by supplying substandard goods, or none at all, has been pushing for two foreign firms to take the business from De La Rue.
The businessman, teaming up with a former District Officer in the Eastlands area, a State House official, two permanent secretaries, a Cabinet Minister, a Democratic Party official and a nominated MP have been pushing for De La Rue's business to be given to Banking Notes Ltd of Canada and Currency Australia of Australia.
A search on the firms yielded variations in names while a source said the companies might as well be non-existent.
"It could just be another money minting scheme by these crooks. Those firms may not exist. Even if they [the two firms] did get the [security printing] contract, De La Rue is local and is paid in local currency. The foreign firms will get 70 per cent of their pay in foreign currencies and only 30 per cent in local. That is capital flight," a government official said.
The clique is also pursuing contracts for the supply of security equipment like guns, particularly AK-47s, which they have either supplied or plan to supply at a cost of $2,800 each where they would ordinarily go for $1,500. Because the European Union has stringent rules on kickbacks and bribery abroad by its firms, the crooks in government are looking elsewhere for companies that can
give 30 per cent commissions.
"When you start hearing French firms being given tenders, be sure corruption is back," a Government official said.
Cronyism
According to a chief executive of a US firm in Nairobi, the new influence-peddlers have added "a high-tech sophistication to the arsenal of old-fashioned corruption". "They disguise their trade, they move with more discretion, they are better-educated, and they have more of an entrepreneurial vision of their corrupt businesses," the government officer said.
"We are seeing a lot more of cronyism; where government officials offer favourable treatment to their old friends and 'buddies'. We are seeing favouritism, confidentiality and preferential treatment based on long-standing friendships. I don't know what it will evolve into," he added.
In the wave of cronyism, abuse of office has emerged as a component of corruption where for being friends with the "right" people, individuals get favours they don't deserve.
The nominated MP deep in the new cartel has her houses guarded by four administration police officers. Ordinarily, MPs are entitled to only one civilian body guard.
Meeting in Cyprus
Last December, an Asian businessman who fled the country after his business deals in the Moi era went sour and now lives in Cyprus held a meeting with a senior government official at an exclusive location in the Seychelles. He was accompanied by power brokers and
influence peddlers with State House connections. "This is not a man a clean Government official can meet. His duty is to pursue all sorts of contracts and ask for commissions. The fact that they are back says a lot about our war on corruption," a government official
said.
The official said the meeting in Cyprus was organised by a senior government official who left the country last December 12, and met the businessman in London to arrange the Seychelles meeting. The government official and his team was picked from Seychelles and flown to Mombasa on New Year's Eve in a military helicopter dispatched from Nairobi.
Shady deals
According to a former MP who runs an international consultancy, the new corruption is run on a cash basis, not land or other property, as was the case in the Moi era.
"There seems to be a feeling that time is short and nobody wants to be bogged down in transactions like land transfers. They go for cash. The shady deals are all over. The ones we get to hear about are deals that go sour. Most of the shady deals are well executed and we don't get to know about them. The parties shake hands and part happily while the government loses billions," the former MP said.
Where the brokers cannot have firms to offer 30 per cent commissions, they form their own companies with foreign-sounding names to take the tenders and then subcontract other firms to supply the required goods.
A government official familiar with security and intelligence supplies and tenders was last week categorical that Anglo Leasing and Finance Ltd, the firm at the centre of the passports printing scandal, was a local firm owned by the same State House, OP and businessmen clique specifically for the passports deal. "Those companies are disbanded immediately they have got their cut and passed on the business to someone else." The official said security is being used as an excuse to defraud the government.
"There are no security implications in printing of passports. What is required is that we get a reputable firm that will not leak information or one whose systems cannot be duplicated. If you are buying things like fighter jets or communications equipment, you don't have to advertise. But you visit several suppliers, then you form a technical committee to evaluate the firms," he said.
The feeling that old corruption is back cuts across party lines. Kiharu MP Kembi Gitura says the talk about corruption "cannot be for nothing and should form the basis for investigations."
"When people talk like this, they are reacting to their frustrations. Even Goldenberg began as a clean business. I agree that security matters should be secret but good business sense requires that you vet what you are dealing with," Gitura said.
"I want to believe that new passports were necessary. But we know of situations where contracts were created, not for the benefit of the country but to perpetuate corrupt practices. I hope that is not the case here," he added.
Civil society
Kanu MP Mutula Kilonzo blames the civil society, donors and the Government for the return of corruption. He sees a deliberate effort by the government to create confusion over which government agency does what.
"The shelving of the passports tender was announced by Dr Chris Murungaru. That was wrong. What happens when Murungaru is found to be a suspect? Will he announce that to the public? Only the anti-corruption commission should have announced that the tendering has been cancelled and investigations are on. But the government has ensured KACC has no director," Kilonzo said.
"The country may have to grapple with a complex situation of a corrupt new regime investigating past corruption. If Moody Awori can defend a corrupt deal in government, who is left in Narc?" he added.
Mutula lamented the death of civil society whose members were co-opted into government and the feeling among donors that they want to channel all the money to the government and not civil society organisations.
Some 17 months ago, Kenyans cheered as President Kibaki took power with a warning that "the era of anything goes is gone forever and asked "all those members of my government and public officers accustomed to corrupt practice" to know there will be no sacred cows. Now, the optimism has faded, as allegations of corruption dog his presidency.
Friday, January 21, 2005
KIPPRA Summit
Yeterday I briefly attended a KIPPRA Summit on improving the enabling environment for business in Kenya. I was only able to attend two sessions, but the highlight was a five minute speech by industrialist Dr. Manu Chandaria who basically ripped the government - he said that the state of security was alarming, the NSHIF bill was a bad thing (Kenyans must have choice & competition not an authoritarian body) and that the Government wasted the entire 2004 year (no investment reforms) doing nothing. A 2.4% economic growth rate was nothing to brag about, and Kenya should measure its business environment against that of India and China – not Tanzania and Uganda. He said that Kenya should shoot for 7% growth, and then maybe it would attain 5% otherwise we'd be overtaken by Uganda and Tanzania by 2015.
By compassion the VP and Nyongo sounded tired. Nyongo said that Kenya didn’t have much to worry about as investors were primarily (25%) concerned with market share – and Kenya was the gateway to huge markets in East Africa, Sudan and the Congo. He also said that corruption was not a big deal and was only cited by 3% of investors as a cause for concern.
The VP, who opened the conference, mentioned that bureaucracy (government officers and red tape) was delaying investment in Kenya and preventing development from taking place. e.g. taxing NGO money
It was an informative one-day summit by KIPPRA, with speakers from the government, private sector and donors, which will be followed by two more in the next few months. I wish I had attended the whole day, but at least I have a report of the conference to read.
Comedy moment: As the session broke for morning tea (and the VP to leave), Chris Kirubi (DJ CK) stood and said “we don’t need no stinking tea!” - actually he wanted the summit to skip tea and continue discussions
By compassion the VP and Nyongo sounded tired. Nyongo said that Kenya didn’t have much to worry about as investors were primarily (25%) concerned with market share – and Kenya was the gateway to huge markets in East Africa, Sudan and the Congo. He also said that corruption was not a big deal and was only cited by 3% of investors as a cause for concern.
The VP, who opened the conference, mentioned that bureaucracy (government officers and red tape) was delaying investment in Kenya and preventing development from taking place. e.g. taxing NGO money
It was an informative one-day summit by KIPPRA, with speakers from the government, private sector and donors, which will be followed by two more in the next few months. I wish I had attended the whole day, but at least I have a report of the conference to read.
Comedy moment: As the session broke for morning tea (and the VP to leave), Chris Kirubi (DJ CK) stood and said “we don’t need no stinking tea!” - actually he wanted the summit to skip tea and continue discussions
Boardroom Drama
The Nairobi Stock Exchange has a new Boss, Mr. Mr Chris Mwebesa, replacing Mr Kibuga Kariithi. At the time of his appointment, he was serving as a non-executive director on the NSE board. A statement by the NSE said the post fell vacant after Mr Kariithi decided not to renew his contract, which expired on December 31, 2004.
Meanwhile the former head of the KTDA has called for more professional to be added to boards to improve their performance and efficiency. Many boards in Kenya, especially the public sector, are not up to the job, with members mostly concerned with allowances and perks. They are ill informed about the histories of their companies especially in transitional times. Proving this point, the board of KMC is refusing, to pay a disputed debt. The KMC MD, Mr. Masika, said he was not opposed to the Government paying the debt provided his board was kept out of it, and that KMC did not have a board of directors at the time National Bank is said to have extended Sh120 million to it after a request by the Government in 1991. "The Kenya Meat Commission board was dissolved in 1987 and the plant closed down. We have no official records to show who borrowed this money or whether it ever reached KMC," he said. Despite this, Treasury went ahead and allocated Sh 3 billion to the ministry for KMC to clear the debt.
Meanwhile the former head of the KTDA has called for more professional to be added to boards to improve their performance and efficiency. Many boards in Kenya, especially the public sector, are not up to the job, with members mostly concerned with allowances and perks. They are ill informed about the histories of their companies especially in transitional times. Proving this point, the board of KMC is refusing, to pay a disputed debt. The KMC MD, Mr. Masika, said he was not opposed to the Government paying the debt provided his board was kept out of it, and that KMC did not have a board of directors at the time National Bank is said to have extended Sh120 million to it after a request by the Government in 1991. "The Kenya Meat Commission board was dissolved in 1987 and the plant closed down. We have no official records to show who borrowed this money or whether it ever reached KMC," he said. Despite this, Treasury went ahead and allocated Sh 3 billion to the ministry for KMC to clear the debt.
Housing plan in jeorpady
The government’s plan to create low cost housing was put in jeopardy earlier this month after the NHC bond flopped. In a complex web of debt management, the World Bank prevented the government from guaranteeing the bond - as the Bretton Woods Institutions don’t want the Kenya to inject money into troubled state enterprises. NHC’s 150,000 housing units were to be constructed in all the key urban centres in Kenya.
However, going by recent history, houses built by parastatal for the poor usually end up being too costly with only the upper middle class or rich able to afford them. Among the prospective financiers that had expressed interest in the deal include International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the French Development Agency (AFD).
However, going by recent history, houses built by parastatal for the poor usually end up being too costly with only the upper middle class or rich able to afford them. Among the prospective financiers that had expressed interest in the deal include International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the French Development Agency (AFD).
Financial Jobs
Compiled from Nation and Standard of Friday Janaury 21 (Please check the papers for accuracy and additional details & contact information)
Financial Controllers: Lafarge (Parent company of Bamburi, Kenyan cement giant)
Must be fully qualified, with CPA or ACCA and have at least 5 years experience at large audit or corporate firm. Also must Good knowledge of ERP systems and trend data analysis skills
D/L 28 Jan, write to controller@careerconnections.co.ke
Government of Kenya:
5 specialists for consultants for financial and legal sector technical assistance project. these are
(1) Financial sector adviser
professional with 10-year experience preferably in policy sector of developing countries, and have a graduate degree.
(2) Accountant
Must have at least 5 years public sector accounting experience
Other positions are (3)project manager 4)Legal sector adviser (5) Procurement specialist
D/L Feb. 11, apply to h-momanyi@treasury.go.ke with Ref: "expression of interest for providing services to FLSTAP project implementation unit (___ specify position you are applying for)"
Equity Bank: Branch Manager HR05/01 and Credit Manager HR05/02
Must have 5-years experience in similar positions, university degree preferably in business, as well as diploma in banking/ACCA/CPA or other.
Must be flexible to work at any of their branches in Kenya, and be aged 27 - 40 years.
D/L is Feb 4 and apply to jobs@ebsafrica.co.ke
Egerton University: Finance manager
Must have commerce or business management degree, accounting qualification (CPA)and 3-years experience in similar position at a large organization.
D/L 11 Feb, and apply to dvcre@wananchi.com quoting Ref EU/AC/05/1/1
Financial Controllers: Lafarge (Parent company of Bamburi, Kenyan cement giant)
Must be fully qualified, with CPA or ACCA and have at least 5 years experience at large audit or corporate firm. Also must Good knowledge of ERP systems and trend data analysis skills
D/L 28 Jan, write to controller@careerconnections.co.ke
Government of Kenya:
5 specialists for consultants for financial and legal sector technical assistance project. these are
(1) Financial sector adviser
professional with 10-year experience preferably in policy sector of developing countries, and have a graduate degree.
(2) Accountant
Must have at least 5 years public sector accounting experience
Other positions are (3)project manager 4)Legal sector adviser (5) Procurement specialist
D/L Feb. 11, apply to h-momanyi@treasury.go.ke with Ref: "expression of interest for providing services to FLSTAP project implementation unit (___ specify position you are applying for)"
Equity Bank: Branch Manager HR05/01 and Credit Manager HR05/02
Must have 5-years experience in similar positions, university degree preferably in business, as well as diploma in banking/ACCA/CPA or other.
Must be flexible to work at any of their branches in Kenya, and be aged 27 - 40 years.
D/L is Feb 4 and apply to jobs@ebsafrica.co.ke
Egerton University: Finance manager
Must have commerce or business management degree, accounting qualification (CPA)and 3-years experience in similar position at a large organization.
D/L 11 Feb, and apply to dvcre@wananchi.com quoting Ref EU/AC/05/1/1
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Ndwiga not corrupt
As more and more calls have been made to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority (KACA) to investigate minister Ndwiga it is important to note what is at stake here.
Taking a loan from a parastatal within his ministry, manoeuvring to provide insurance services to another parastatal also within his ministry, and receiving a waiver meant to attract strategic investors from another minister are clearly unethical actions, but not corruption.
During the World Anti-Corruption Day activities last December, KACA Chairman, Justice Ringera was asked why he had not investigated MP’s for attending retreats at the Coast paid for by lobbyists who were pushing for controversial parliamentary bills. Justice Ringera said that those activities while being clearly un-ethical, did not constitute corruption as defined by the laws of Kenya. I predict a similar outcome here
Ndwiga loves loves free stuff, has shown poor judgment, and laziness (unable to pull a deal outside of his ministry - as other ministers are doing) but is not corrupt according to our laws.
Taking a loan from a parastatal within his ministry, manoeuvring to provide insurance services to another parastatal also within his ministry, and receiving a waiver meant to attract strategic investors from another minister are clearly unethical actions, but not corruption.
During the World Anti-Corruption Day activities last December, KACA Chairman, Justice Ringera was asked why he had not investigated MP’s for attending retreats at the Coast paid for by lobbyists who were pushing for controversial parliamentary bills. Justice Ringera said that those activities while being clearly un-ethical, did not constitute corruption as defined by the laws of Kenya. I predict a similar outcome here
Ndwiga loves loves free stuff, has shown poor judgment, and laziness (unable to pull a deal outside of his ministry - as other ministers are doing) but is not corrupt according to our laws.
Kenya – America flights by year-end?
The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority has formally applied to the US Federal Aviation Administration for Category One Status, which will enable direct flights to the US. The status upgrade, expected in June 2005, is expected to pave the way for national flag carrier, Kenya Airways' newly acquired Boeing 777 to operate direct flights between Nairobi and Miami or Atlanta.
In 2004, Ethiopia was found to meet ICAO standards, and Ethiopian Airlines began direct service between Addis Ababa and Washington’s Dulles Airport, becoming the fourth sub-Saharan African airline after South African Airways, Ghana Airways and Air Afrique to serve the United States.
Sources revealed that the US authorities have finally given in to pressure and dropped about 80 per cent of the tough conditions it laid down for the project that were considered to be too expensive for Kenya. The government has made a provision of Sh1.6 billion (US$20 million) to upgrade the airport through a comprehensive programme that will see domestic flights relocated to the old Embakasi airport. The project is to be co-financed by the World Bank to the tune of Sh936 million (US$12 million) and the balance of Sh624 million has to be met by Kenya Airports Authority. The work also involves setting up of a 26 KM security fence marking the airport boundary and expansion of the runways so that that at least two aircraft would be in a position to land and take-off at the same time.
In 2004, Ethiopia was found to meet ICAO standards, and Ethiopian Airlines began direct service between Addis Ababa and Washington’s Dulles Airport, becoming the fourth sub-Saharan African airline after South African Airways, Ghana Airways and Air Afrique to serve the United States.
Sources revealed that the US authorities have finally given in to pressure and dropped about 80 per cent of the tough conditions it laid down for the project that were considered to be too expensive for Kenya. The government has made a provision of Sh1.6 billion (US$20 million) to upgrade the airport through a comprehensive programme that will see domestic flights relocated to the old Embakasi airport. The project is to be co-financed by the World Bank to the tune of Sh936 million (US$12 million) and the balance of Sh624 million has to be met by Kenya Airports Authority. The work also involves setting up of a 26 KM security fence marking the airport boundary and expansion of the runways so that that at least two aircraft would be in a position to land and take-off at the same time.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Finance Jobs
Regional Financial Analyst (Actionaid International)
3 year renewable contract based in Nairobi
Bachelor’s degree in accounts or finance, and at least 3 years experience, with a good knowledge of management accounts. You must display empathy for the poor, indicate your salary expectations in US$ and qualified women are encouraged to apply. Deadline is January 31, and write to vacancies@actionaid.org (see East African 17 Jan)
Management Accountant (Standard/KTN Group)
Must have B.com, accounting option, CPA or ACCA and be a member of ICPAK, have four years working experience in private or multinational company and be between 26 – 30 years. Write to the HR Manager, Standard Group, P. O. Box 30080-00100 Nairobi by January 28 (see Standard Jan 19)
Director of Finance (World Vision Tanzania)
Must have masters degree and or solid finance/accounting or CPA, also must have 5 years experience in NGO, commercial or church sector. Interviews in February and begin in March 2005. Apply to the Director, WVT P.O. Box 6070 Arusha (see East African 17 Jan)
3 year renewable contract based in Nairobi
Bachelor’s degree in accounts or finance, and at least 3 years experience, with a good knowledge of management accounts. You must display empathy for the poor, indicate your salary expectations in US$ and qualified women are encouraged to apply. Deadline is January 31, and write to vacancies@actionaid.org (see East African 17 Jan)
Management Accountant (Standard/KTN Group)
Must have B.com, accounting option, CPA or ACCA and be a member of ICPAK, have four years working experience in private or multinational company and be between 26 – 30 years. Write to the HR Manager, Standard Group, P. O. Box 30080-00100 Nairobi by January 28 (see Standard Jan 19)
Director of Finance (World Vision Tanzania)
Must have masters degree and or solid finance/accounting or CPA, also must have 5 years experience in NGO, commercial or church sector. Interviews in February and begin in March 2005. Apply to the Director, WVT P.O. Box 6070 Arusha (see East African 17 Jan)
Call me dottore (Dr.)
Actually, in Italy, I am qualified to be called "ragioniere," "cavaliere," "dottore magistrale," and even "dottore di ricerca." But for now dottore will suffice
Airbus unveils World’s largest Jet
Airbus launched the A380 yesterday, but don’t count on seeing it in Nairobi though. Kenya Airways has hitched it’s future for the next ten years to Boeing’s 777 aircraft. One was delivered last year and the other two will arrive this year and will be used for long-distance flights in Africa, Asia, Europe, and eventually America. Also it doesn’t appear that Jomo Kenyatta airport has made upgrades to enable it to land the plane and process the huge passenger numbers on the double-decker aircraft. The A380 has the potential to be unlike anything now flying. Though it will have only 35 percent more seats than a 747, it will have 49 percent more usable passenger space. That leaves open possibilities like in-flight bars, lounges, shops and gyms. The plane is launched against stiff opposition from America - no American passenger carrier has signed up and the Bush administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization saying that Airbus is unfairly subsidized.
X-Files star has wedding in Kenya
Former X-Files star Gillian Anderson, long-time leading lady of the cult-favourite sci-fi series wed her fiancée, photojournalist Julianne Ozanne, on Dec. 29 in an intimate ceremony on Lamu's Shella island, off Kenya's Indian Ocean coast by the local district officer and their union was blessed by a Kenyan priest. A choir sang hymns in Swahili in the background.
CBK to liquidate Prudential Society
CBK Governor, Andrew Mullei, said the society lacked tangible financial commitment to recapitalise. He said available funds would be distributed to depositors and other creditors of the society without further delay in order to save costs and maximise benefits to the depositors and other creditors. PBS owes, among other depositors, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) Sh1.9 billion which accounts for 95 per cent of the bank’s deposits.
Changes at Nation Media Group
For once, the Nation has a story about the Nation Group that is a genuine story. Stories about the Nation or Standard Christmas party or new anchors don’t count as news stories and should not be the third item on the 7 p.m. news, even on a slow news day. In 2004, the Nation media group was heavily poached of top executives and anchors who went to the Standard (newspaper and KTN) In 2005, Nation seems to be fighting back starting with appointment of Mr Ian Fernandes as managing director of Nation Broadcasting Division, taking overall charge of Nation TV and Nation FM – he was previously the managing director of KTN and worked with Standard group in various senior positions for 11 years. Other realignments have also been made
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Celtel names new CEO
Celtel, Kenyan’s 2nd largest mobile operator has named Mr Gerhard May as its new chief executive, replacing Mr John McDonald who oversaw the firm’s transition from KenCell to its current business name Celtel.
Bank certification
Fina Bank, which recently expanded into Rwanda, has been granted ISO 9000-2000 certification after a 19 month period.
ABC Bank enters the mortgage market
The African Banking Corporation (ABC Bank) has announced plans to enter the home loans market in a bid to widen its product portfolio. Other banks that have joined the mortgage bandwagon include Barclays, CBA, NIC, I&M and StanChart
Enough blame to go around
Today the Government, which has recently been accused of not doing enough to eradicate poverty, joins the UNDP to launch the National Plan to achieve the millennium development goals.
The World Bank says that the government does not have the capacity or coordination to achieve these goals, nor does not have the political will to privatise parastatalas and undertake civil service reform, and the Kenyan economy remains vulnerable to external events that may undermine these goals.
The United Nations blames the IMF and the World Bank, saying that the Bretton Woods institutions actually undermine the UN’s millennium development gaols efforts by failing to budget for them in their aid packages.
And local investors say that the only way the government will get development funds for these projects is by enacting a new constitution which will bring about public sector reforms. The investors support the running of ministries by professionals, not politicians.
The World Bank says that the government does not have the capacity or coordination to achieve these goals, nor does not have the political will to privatise parastatalas and undertake civil service reform, and the Kenyan economy remains vulnerable to external events that may undermine these goals.
The United Nations blames the IMF and the World Bank, saying that the Bretton Woods institutions actually undermine the UN’s millennium development gaols efforts by failing to budget for them in their aid packages.
And local investors say that the only way the government will get development funds for these projects is by enacting a new constitution which will bring about public sector reforms. The investors support the running of ministries by professionals, not politicians.
Monday, January 17, 2005
From hawker to a shopping giant
Lessons for Kenya as a Karibu, a black bookstore, grows to become a power in Washington DC.
Sana and his partner Yao Ahoto started selling books from a street vending table in the District in 1992. Today, they have four stores in malls in Hyattsville, Bowie, Hillcrest Heights and Forestville. They also operate a kiosk in Pentagon City Mall in Arlington.
Sana and his partner Yao Ahoto started selling books from a street vending table in the District in 1992. Today, they have four stores in malls in Hyattsville, Bowie, Hillcrest Heights and Forestville. They also operate a kiosk in Pentagon City Mall in Arlington.
Pizza Party
Highlight of my weekend, after a poor round of golf, and another Liverpool loss, was lunch with the one and only Kenyan Pundit a.k.a. Ory, a lovely, charming, lady who’s going places.
Co-op Card offer
I have been persuaded by family to get a credit card for emergencies, and coincidentally Cooperative Bank (Co-op Card) have waived their card joining fee of (Kshs. 3,000) till the end of January. I will do an analysis this week of available local credit cards, before I decide on which card to apply for.
IDB Lines of Credit
Industrial Development Bank has two lines of credit for borrowers (1) from Bank Muscat for imports from Oman (Coast Express Jan 14) (2) from the Arab Bank for Economic Development (BADEA)for small and medium sized enterprises (Sunday Standard Jan 16)
Ambitious Equity
Equity, which converted to a Bank at the beginning of the year, plans to install 45 ATM’s (15 by March 2005) and open 6 branches new branches according to the Sunday Standard. This will rival KCB (55) and Barclays (70+) ATM networks
Friday, January 14, 2005
Carnivore case
The government has gone ahead and charged nine senior managers of the Carnivore and Kenya Breweries with failing to provide adequate security at a December concert incident where three students died. I believe the organizers took adequate security measures and that this case has no merit. The crowd got out of control and unfortunately 3 people died, but there was nothing any amount of security would have done. Most people predict that the case will be dropped, companies fined, and families of the victims will received some payments.
In all this we must drown out the busybodies, i.e. leaders who have no agenda but to create moral mileage out of the tragedy.
Excerpts from Nation news stories
According to Carnivore Restaurant management and the event sponsors, United Distillers and Vintners (UDV), the stampede occurred at around midnight when impatient youth tried to force their way past the gates.
Police who had been deployed to the venue, however, said that the chaos was started by some drunken youths already inside the Carnivore grounds. A policeman had the butt of his AK-47 rifle broken as a group of drunken youths tried to snatch it.
Carnivore security manager Reuben Lumwaji said that 37 regular police, 24 traffic officers and 70 private security guards were hired for the event. There were three ambulances, paramedics and a doctor on the grounds, he said. It was standing room only as the crowd estimated to be in excess of the 15,000 people that the event organisers had expected showed up.
And by 10 pm, long queues had formed at the 16 gates where patrons were "vetted". The vetting was a farce, with no proof of age demanded. As long as the patrons showed they had entry tickets, they were allowed in – including the underage. Other than confiscating knives and other weapons, the bouncers were not concerned about what revellers carried, including sachets of alcohol.
Nineteen-year-old Thomas Mboss was queuing to pay the Sh300 to get in when, suddenly, he was pushed from behind. He saw at least 20 people in front fall down. "One victim fell down twice, and was trampled by the others trying to stay upright. I overheard someone say the man was dead when they lifted him up the second time," Mr Mboss, who waited in the queue until he made his way in, said. It was about midnight.
At about the same time, but at another gate, 18-year-old Edward Obado was also waiting in the queue as the crowd kept swelling. "There was so much shoving, jostling and pushing, it was even difficult to breathe," he said. He remembered falling down, even as other patrons waited to pay and get in. "I fell down, and I'm lucky to be alive, as the bouncers rushed to me for first aid," he said.
The tickets were cheap; Sh250 for advance tickets and Sh300 at the gate. High-ticket prices have in the past kept the number of attendants at manageable levels. This time, even underage youths could afford the ticket. With Sh500, such a youngster was able to gain entry and with a little prior planning, sneak in alcoholic drinks in mineral water or soda bottles, which many of them were carrying.
At the sixteen gates, body searches were casual as the security people's main interest was to ensure that each person had a ticket. Requests that patrons produce identity cards to prove their age were similarly treated. They were also overwhelmed by the large numbers and could not search each and every patron. Quite a number of underage patrons managed to escape the bouncers' scrutiny. Many were the patrons who sneaked in sachets of liquor into the grounds. In some venues, managers restrict entry if the maximum number of patrons is achieved. People were still being admitted into the venue by 3 am at least two hours after the stampede in which the three youngsters died. Many of the youths started leaving for home at 5am.
At a press conference held at the office of the coordinator of the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (Nacada), Mr Joseph Kaguthi, the pressure groups said the tragedy could have been avoided if Government agents had taken control of the event by enforcing the law. In a statement read by Prof David Ndetei, a lecturer at Nairobi University, the group accused Government agents of reluctance to enforce laws controlling advertisements, sale and consumption of beer and cigarettes. "Can we afford to sacrifice the lives of our youth at the altar of easy-coming tax money from selfish multinationals. Is the Government happy to run on blood money – for that is what taxes from beer and cigarettes are – without regard of future generations?" he asked. Media and advertising companies were criticised for promoting immoral behaviour and they must stop it, the group said. The church leaders called for the revocation of the trading licences of both Carnivore and Smirnoff.
Responding to the criticism, Smirnoff said it did not target young people in its advertising. "Only legal drinking age adults were targeted for the Smirnoff Experience event. No one featured in any of our publicity material and advertising is under the age of 25 years," Dr Joyce said. And for the Carnivore, Mr Misumi added: "We do not sell alcohol to underage people and we support responsible drinking among adults." He said a crowd had built up at the entrances where the crush happened because of delays caused by vetting those entering to ensure they all had tickets, were not under-age and were not carrying weapons.
In all this we must drown out the busybodies, i.e. leaders who have no agenda but to create moral mileage out of the tragedy.
Excerpts from Nation news stories
According to Carnivore Restaurant management and the event sponsors, United Distillers and Vintners (UDV), the stampede occurred at around midnight when impatient youth tried to force their way past the gates.
Police who had been deployed to the venue, however, said that the chaos was started by some drunken youths already inside the Carnivore grounds. A policeman had the butt of his AK-47 rifle broken as a group of drunken youths tried to snatch it.
Carnivore security manager Reuben Lumwaji said that 37 regular police, 24 traffic officers and 70 private security guards were hired for the event. There were three ambulances, paramedics and a doctor on the grounds, he said. It was standing room only as the crowd estimated to be in excess of the 15,000 people that the event organisers had expected showed up.
And by 10 pm, long queues had formed at the 16 gates where patrons were "vetted". The vetting was a farce, with no proof of age demanded. As long as the patrons showed they had entry tickets, they were allowed in – including the underage. Other than confiscating knives and other weapons, the bouncers were not concerned about what revellers carried, including sachets of alcohol.
Nineteen-year-old Thomas Mboss was queuing to pay the Sh300 to get in when, suddenly, he was pushed from behind. He saw at least 20 people in front fall down. "One victim fell down twice, and was trampled by the others trying to stay upright. I overheard someone say the man was dead when they lifted him up the second time," Mr Mboss, who waited in the queue until he made his way in, said. It was about midnight.
At about the same time, but at another gate, 18-year-old Edward Obado was also waiting in the queue as the crowd kept swelling. "There was so much shoving, jostling and pushing, it was even difficult to breathe," he said. He remembered falling down, even as other patrons waited to pay and get in. "I fell down, and I'm lucky to be alive, as the bouncers rushed to me for first aid," he said.
The tickets were cheap; Sh250 for advance tickets and Sh300 at the gate. High-ticket prices have in the past kept the number of attendants at manageable levels. This time, even underage youths could afford the ticket. With Sh500, such a youngster was able to gain entry and with a little prior planning, sneak in alcoholic drinks in mineral water or soda bottles, which many of them were carrying.
At the sixteen gates, body searches were casual as the security people's main interest was to ensure that each person had a ticket. Requests that patrons produce identity cards to prove their age were similarly treated. They were also overwhelmed by the large numbers and could not search each and every patron. Quite a number of underage patrons managed to escape the bouncers' scrutiny. Many were the patrons who sneaked in sachets of liquor into the grounds. In some venues, managers restrict entry if the maximum number of patrons is achieved. People were still being admitted into the venue by 3 am at least two hours after the stampede in which the three youngsters died. Many of the youths started leaving for home at 5am.
At a press conference held at the office of the coordinator of the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (Nacada), Mr Joseph Kaguthi, the pressure groups said the tragedy could have been avoided if Government agents had taken control of the event by enforcing the law. In a statement read by Prof David Ndetei, a lecturer at Nairobi University, the group accused Government agents of reluctance to enforce laws controlling advertisements, sale and consumption of beer and cigarettes. "Can we afford to sacrifice the lives of our youth at the altar of easy-coming tax money from selfish multinationals. Is the Government happy to run on blood money – for that is what taxes from beer and cigarettes are – without regard of future generations?" he asked. Media and advertising companies were criticised for promoting immoral behaviour and they must stop it, the group said. The church leaders called for the revocation of the trading licences of both Carnivore and Smirnoff.
Responding to the criticism, Smirnoff said it did not target young people in its advertising. "Only legal drinking age adults were targeted for the Smirnoff Experience event. No one featured in any of our publicity material and advertising is under the age of 25 years," Dr Joyce said. And for the Carnivore, Mr Misumi added: "We do not sell alcohol to underage people and we support responsible drinking among adults." He said a crowd had built up at the entrances where the crush happened because of delays caused by vetting those entering to ensure they all had tickets, were not under-age and were not carrying weapons.
Job Scan
There are no bank jobs this Friday, but a few financial postings. There are also audit and accounting jobs (too many to list here), which might be a reflection of the times, as companies are paying more attention to corporate governance and audit issues.
Managing Director, National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation: must be an engineer with 15 years experience, write to the Company Secretary P. O. Box 30173 Nairobi – deadline omitted.
Forensic Divisional Director, KPMG. Must have CPA, ACCA or law degree and at least 5 years forensic or investigation exp. Deadline is 28 Jan and contacts at forensic@kpmg.co.ke
Deloitte
(1) Business analyst corporate financial services at Nairobi office. Must have account/finance degree and 2 or more years exp, aged 25 – 28 years. Contact hr@deloitte.co.ke
(2) Consultant Corporate financial services, Kampala office. Must have MBA and or CPA/CFA/ACCA, aged 27 – 30 years and have 2 – 4 years experience. Contact admin@deloitte.co.ug
Deputy Vice Chancellor Finance, Administrational and Planning at Daystar University. Applicants must have PHD and at least 10 years similar experience at other university. D/L is Feb 11; write to the VC P. O. Box 44400-00100 Nairobi
Finance Officer
Kenyatta University: Must have 10 years exp, BCOM and CPA www.ku.ac.ke Deadline Jan 28
Deputy financial controller at an international standards hotel in Nairobi: applicants must have at least 3 years exp in similar position at other hotel, and must have attained a salary of you’re earning 90,000 Kenya pounds (150,000 shillings per month) to be eligible. Contact: TS1672, P. O. Box 49990-00100 Nairobi.
Credit controller, Aga Khan Hospital. Must have at least 5 years exp, preferably in health sector. D/L 28 Jan, contact personnel@akhskenya.org
Managing Director, National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation: must be an engineer with 15 years experience, write to the Company Secretary P. O. Box 30173 Nairobi – deadline omitted.
Forensic Divisional Director, KPMG. Must have CPA, ACCA or law degree and at least 5 years forensic or investigation exp. Deadline is 28 Jan and contacts at forensic@kpmg.co.ke
Deloitte
(1) Business analyst corporate financial services at Nairobi office. Must have account/finance degree and 2 or more years exp, aged 25 – 28 years. Contact hr@deloitte.co.ke
(2) Consultant Corporate financial services, Kampala office. Must have MBA and or CPA/CFA/ACCA, aged 27 – 30 years and have 2 – 4 years experience. Contact admin@deloitte.co.ug
Deputy Vice Chancellor Finance, Administrational and Planning at Daystar University. Applicants must have PHD and at least 10 years similar experience at other university. D/L is Feb 11; write to the VC P. O. Box 44400-00100 Nairobi
Finance Officer
Kenyatta University: Must have 10 years exp, BCOM and CPA www.ku.ac.ke Deadline Jan 28
Deputy financial controller at an international standards hotel in Nairobi: applicants must have at least 3 years exp in similar position at other hotel, and must have attained a salary of you’re earning 90,000 Kenya pounds (150,000 shillings per month) to be eligible. Contact: TS1672, P. O. Box 49990-00100 Nairobi.
Credit controller, Aga Khan Hospital. Must have at least 5 years exp, preferably in health sector. D/L 28 Jan, contact personnel@akhskenya.org
War on corruption
There was a surge in anti-corruption case activities yesterday. Arrest warrants have been issued for the managers and the board of the giant Harambee SACCO, MP Charles Keter was charged with operating an illegal call centre, and the MD of Kenya Ports Authority was picked up for questioning in the ongoing 6.4 billion shilling cocaine investigation.
As always, success of the corruption wars can only be measured, when cases are completed and judgements delivered. The Harambee SACCO case is long overdue, and evidence appears to be strong in the Keter case. But the KPA MD job is a highly coveted post, and Mr. Ondego has held this post even from the previous regime and withstood campaigns to oust him - his opponents may use the cocaine case as an excuse to finally remove him.
As always, success of the corruption wars can only be measured, when cases are completed and judgements delivered. The Harambee SACCO case is long overdue, and evidence appears to be strong in the Keter case. But the KPA MD job is a highly coveted post, and Mr. Ondego has held this post even from the previous regime and withstood campaigns to oust him - his opponents may use the cocaine case as an excuse to finally remove him.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
How to deal with the media
The Standard has made some corrections
to its controversial “moneybags” story as people mentioned have called the editors and clarified some points. Minister Murungaru should consider doing this instead of threatening journalists.
to its controversial “moneybags” story as people mentioned have called the editors and clarified some points. Minister Murungaru should consider doing this instead of threatening journalists.
Economist story
The Economist has changed course and now made the much talked about story on Kenyan corruption available on its site. Previously it was for subscribers only.
Kenya to bid for 2016 Olympics
This is wishful thinking as the costs are staggering and Kenya will have only four years to prepare its bid. According to the Economist Greece spent $9 – 12 billion on the 2004 games or roughly $800 (Kshs. 64,000) per citizen. For that, at the end of the games, Greece ended up with magnificent stadiums, public parks, cheap housing, better roads and new suburban rail lines and other infrastructure improvements, many of which would never have been started, let alone completed, without the Olympic deadline.
While it is possible that that increased tourism can offset the cost of hosting the games, a phenomenon known as the "Barcelona effect", most Olympics have left host countries poorer from the huge debts that take decades to pay.
While it is possible that that increased tourism can offset the cost of hosting the games, a phenomenon known as the "Barcelona effect", most Olympics have left host countries poorer from the huge debts that take decades to pay.
More Tsunami relief
The Paris Club (donor nations) are offering a debt freeze and letting tsunami-hit countries suspend repayments on billions of dollars of debt. The freeze will be immediate and without conditions for those countries that request it. The five countries affected most by the tsunami pay $45 billion annually in debt repayment. Meanwhile Indonesia said that foreign troops must leave in 3 months , in response to the impression that it was surrendering sovereignty to outsiders. And cash-starved Zimbabwe plans to donate $3.6 million to tsunami relief efforts in Asia.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Banks help Tsunami relief efforts
Beyond the food aid and cleaning up, survivors of the tsunami need a lot more help to re-build their lives and businesses. Banks are helping in some parts of India by waiving interest payments and extending loan periods and in South Africa by waiving bank charges related to fund-raising efforts for victims. I hope Kenyan Banks can emulate such efforts whenever there are local disasters here such as floods, fires, or other devastating events.
Kippra to hold key investment forum
The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) will hold a conference on January 20 to discuss the country’s inability to attract foreign direct investment. Vice President Moody Awori is expected to preside. Kenya’s ability to attract foreign investment has continued to decline despite the coming to power of a new government and Uganda and Tanzania had overtaken Kenya and could soon threaten its long-held position as a regional economic powerhouse.
Coming soon: Green cards to Europe
The European Union is considering introducing a U.S.-style green card system to attract immigrants with special skills, a leading commissioner said. Permanent work visas based "on the American model" is one of the options the EU is mulling as it faces a shortage of skilled labour and an aging population, Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told reporters.
Less bureaucracy please, not more
Parliament to take the role of vetting the estimates and recommending changes before the Finance Minister reads the Budget.
What the Sudan peace deal entails
Putting former enemies together in the same government has been tried elsewhere in Africa, with mixed results. Rwanda erupted into genocide in 1994 after a peace deal there between Hutu and Tutsi failed to win full Hutu support. Congo signed a peace agreement in 1999 but true peace there remains elusive. Burundi's power-sharing government has yet to win over all the rebel factions wreaking havoc there.
Some pointers:
* The objective of the agreement is to keep Sudan intact
* The first challenge will be to complete a new constitution within six months (unless they consult Kenyans)
* Islamic law, or Sharia, will apply to the north but not the south
* The South will have a six-year interim period of self-rule, after which it will vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede
* The South will be get some autonomy, but basically they must create a functioning government from scratch
* Garang to become Sudan's first vice president, replacing Taha
* National Congress will take 52% of parliament, with the SPLM controlling 28% of seats. Other northern parties will have 14% while other southern parties 6% of the national assembly
* About 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers and monitors are expected to come to the region
* Armies must be merged. More than 100,000 government and rebel forces will redeployed
* Both English and Arabic will become the official languages
* New paper money will be issued with a design reflecting the country's diversity
* A dual banking system is to be set up
* Revenue from Sudan's underground oil deposits in the south will be divided up evenly between north and south. Communities in areas of oil production will have a say in oil contracts
Some pointers:
* The objective of the agreement is to keep Sudan intact
* The first challenge will be to complete a new constitution within six months (unless they consult Kenyans)
* Islamic law, or Sharia, will apply to the north but not the south
* The South will have a six-year interim period of self-rule, after which it will vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede
* The South will be get some autonomy, but basically they must create a functioning government from scratch
* Garang to become Sudan's first vice president, replacing Taha
* National Congress will take 52% of parliament, with the SPLM controlling 28% of seats. Other northern parties will have 14% while other southern parties 6% of the national assembly
* About 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers and monitors are expected to come to the region
* Armies must be merged. More than 100,000 government and rebel forces will redeployed
* Both English and Arabic will become the official languages
* New paper money will be issued with a design reflecting the country's diversity
* A dual banking system is to be set up
* Revenue from Sudan's underground oil deposits in the south will be divided up evenly between north and south. Communities in areas of oil production will have a say in oil contracts
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
More U.S. pressure on Kenyan banker
In a change of tactics, to increase pressure on former Riggs Bank vice president Simon P. Kareri, the U.S. attorney halted efforts to seize his money and land, an indication the government is preparing criminal charges against him.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Uh oh
It seems like the NSHIS Bill may not be dead after all, maybe in ICU with a chance of making recovery, and a life with some permanent disability requiring hefty medical bills.
I rarely like to see foreigners lecture Kenyan’s (I prefer Museveni’s way i.e. Africans deal with African problems which has succeeded e.g. Sudan, Somalia), but please read an article by BO GORANSSON, the Swedish Ambassador to Kenya. He shows that systematic corruption in Kenya is mainly out of a warped expectation wananchi have about their MP’s ability to bring development to them. These same MP’s are likely to pass Ngilu’s monstrous Health Bill , which they will of course not pay a shilling for themselves, or be responsible for implementing – but will tell their constituents that they brought them free healthcare. I hope that the NSHIS Bill becomes the second instance in modern times where the public can judge an MP’s vote on an issue – the first was aborted 2003 constitution. In the past leaders have been judged by their person, tribe, preferred candidates, godfather, party, spouse, or family etc.
I rarely like to see foreigners lecture Kenyan’s (I prefer Museveni’s way i.e. Africans deal with African problems which has succeeded e.g. Sudan, Somalia), but please read an article by BO GORANSSON, the Swedish Ambassador to Kenya. He shows that systematic corruption in Kenya is mainly out of a warped expectation wananchi have about their MP’s ability to bring development to them. These same MP’s are likely to pass Ngilu’s monstrous Health Bill , which they will of course not pay a shilling for themselves, or be responsible for implementing – but will tell their constituents that they brought them free healthcare. I hope that the NSHIS Bill becomes the second instance in modern times where the public can judge an MP’s vote on an issue – the first was aborted 2003 constitution. In the past leaders have been judged by their person, tribe, preferred candidates, godfather, party, spouse, or family etc.
MP issues bouncing cheque
I applaud MP Ndile for admitting that the story is accurate, however it was not the responsibility of the Bank to inform him that he had insufficient funds. It is only the account holder who knows the account balance before writing a check.
Is there fire behind the smoke?
The Standard published this long story on the links between powerful businessmen and presidents since independence. Since then, two ministers have strongly condemned the article, with one stating that it is now time for the government to censor the media.
Discrimmination, even in death
While unidentified foreign remains are kept in refrigerated containers at nearby temples, unidentified Thai bodies are brought to the cemetery by the truckload and packed in shallow trenches under the baking sun.
Sudan TV
Kudos to Nation television for their excellent coverage, analysis, and pictures of the Sudan peace agreement. They started early, and so were able to sort out their technical difficulties early, unlike other stations who came on just before the event and whose broadcasts were marred by sound and picture problems. Ever since Nation got their outside broadcasting capability, they have shown how technology can be used to enrich their broadcasting with soccer, boxing, and now international events.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Traffic Chaos?
While we salute the historic Sudan peace agreement to be signed on Sunday, Nairobians can expect to be blocked by at least 20 different motorcades as leaders dash around town led by Colin Powell. Going by past events, one can expect highways to be shut for at least ten minutes per passing president by traffic and security police.
Coffee chaos
Is this the end? Minister Kirwa confined farmers to sell their coffee only to marketing agents. The new move effectively seals the fate of controversial Tetu Coffee Inc., which has been seeking to export coffee after buying it directly from farmers without going through agents.
Something Kenya needs
Once a year, we fill out wealth declaration and income tax forms and dutifully submit them to the Kenya Revenue Authority. We are yet to get any feedback from the wealth declaration exercise that is now two years old. I hate to keep hammering the government for yet another broken promise, but I wish they’d take a cue from the American Supreme Court and publicize gift and wealth declarations of senior public officers. While it’s embarrassing to see that someone received gifts of cowboy boots, batteries, blankets, and car tires, this is one way of checking corruption.
Banking stocks in 2004
The following Banks stocks are listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Most of them peaked early in 2004, and are now trading at/or near their 12 month low’s. The numbers’ do not take into account the dividends that banks usually pay in profitable years. Data obtained from African Financial Markets website.
12 months high low and year end prices (numbers in Kenya shillings, and average exchange rate was 75 shillings to the US$ in 2004)
Barclays high: 321 (month: Feb) low 186 (month: Apr) 200 (closing price on 31/12/04)
CFC 65 (Feb) 33 (jan) 58
Diamond Trust 49 (Jan) 25 (Sept) 28
HFCK 19 (Jan) 8 (Dec) 8.5
KCB 91(Jan) 50 (Sept) 64
NBK 35(Feb) 13 (Jan) 18
NIC 67(Jan) 40 (Apr) 50
Stanchart 245(Feb) 120 (Apr) 122
12 months high low and year end prices (numbers in Kenya shillings, and average exchange rate was 75 shillings to the US$ in 2004)
Barclays high: 321 (month: Feb) low 186 (month: Apr) 200 (closing price on 31/12/04)
CFC 65 (Feb) 33 (jan) 58
Diamond Trust 49 (Jan) 25 (Sept) 28
HFCK 19 (Jan) 8 (Dec) 8.5
KCB 91(Jan) 50 (Sept) 64
NBK 35(Feb) 13 (Jan) 18
NIC 67(Jan) 40 (Apr) 50
Stanchart 245(Feb) 120 (Apr) 122
Bank Jobs
(1) Branch Managers/Assistant Branch Managers
Indigenous financial institution seeks 28 – 38 year olds with at least 5 years banking experience and the flexibility to work anywhere in Kenya (Contact Hawkins Associates)
(2) Financial Planning Managers/ Financial Advisors
For an international financial services group that has set up an asset management subsidiary in Kenya. You must have at least 3 years experience in financial sector (D/L January 21 2005)
Both advertisements appear in the Nation of Friday January 7, (P.33)
Indigenous financial institution seeks 28 – 38 year olds with at least 5 years banking experience and the flexibility to work anywhere in Kenya (Contact Hawkins Associates)
(2) Financial Planning Managers/ Financial Advisors
For an international financial services group that has set up an asset management subsidiary in Kenya. You must have at least 3 years experience in financial sector (D/L January 21 2005)
Both advertisements appear in the Nation of Friday January 7, (P.33)
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Picking on the (Weak) Kenyan link
Instead of going after the owners, or the top executives of Riggs Bank, prosecutors are targeting Kenyan Banker Simon Kareri of Washington DC,
After 9/11, it was discovered that some money that the terrorists received had come from the household of the Saudi Ambassador. Subsequent investigations revealed that the President of Equatorial Guinea had been the bank’s main customer for many years and had moved billions of the country's petro-dollars through the Bank with Mr. Kareri as his personal banker. Since Saudi Arabia are America’s friends, diplomats have immunity, and Riggs Bank is revered in Washington, it seems only that managers like Mr. Kareri (who was a lowly VP) will be left out to hang. He has not been charged with any crime, and yet they want to seize his property.
After 9/11, it was discovered that some money that the terrorists received had come from the household of the Saudi Ambassador. Subsequent investigations revealed that the President of Equatorial Guinea had been the bank’s main customer for many years and had moved billions of the country's petro-dollars through the Bank with Mr. Kareri as his personal banker. Since Saudi Arabia are America’s friends, diplomats have immunity, and Riggs Bank is revered in Washington, it seems only that managers like Mr. Kareri (who was a lowly VP) will be left out to hang. He has not been charged with any crime, and yet they want to seize his property.
Upcoming Urban Crisis
The government will soon have a crisis on its hands following its failure to delver on its promise of 500,000 jobs. Since there are no jobs, individuals are creating their own jobs as vendors or hawkers, selling all kinds of services. And since they set up shop where the market is, the city treats them as a nuisance. Recently, the Government has tried to crack down on beach boys at the Coast, hawkers, matatu gangs (route managers) and now
telephone operators who sell phone calls under umbrellas for as little as 5 shillings. Of course the mother of all issues is kiosks – and is there a Minister in the government with enough muscle to tackle kiosks? Then there’s another outlet for the frustrated and unemployed: crime
telephone operators who sell phone calls under umbrellas for as little as 5 shillings. Of course the mother of all issues is kiosks – and is there a Minister in the government with enough muscle to tackle kiosks? Then there’s another outlet for the frustrated and unemployed: crime
Welcome no more
After several years of taking in refugees, and several months of hosting delegates at peace talks, and with final logical steps in Kenya already done, the welcome mat is being slowly withdrawn. In the case of Sudan, a peace agreement is being signed on (Sunday), for it seems the umpteenth time - but this time it seems like the real deal. And after Somali delegates (drawn from all the major clans) elected a new parliament and president in Nairobi; they are still here living large at the best hotels in Nairobi. In his New Year’s message President Kibaki urged them to return home, and now his ministers have taken up the message. I suspect, that after putting in ($10 million dollars) donors are no longer will to finance luxury lifestyles in Nairobi. They would like to aid the Somali government, but in Somalia, not Nairobi.
SMS & Cell Phone Campaigns
The race for KANU chairman pits former strongman Nicholas Biwott versus young turk Uhuru Kenyatta. But how come old Biwott appears to be more (tech-savvy) than young Uhuru?
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Kibaki’s Working Holiday
Kenyans may fault the President for a lot of things – especially not communicating enough with the Public. But I must commend his office for their up to date website. If only they would add links to other sites like the Ministries of Tourism, Finance, Health and Parliament so I could see reasons why he did not assent to their bills
Wedding Sanity
(Disclaimer: Am not married, never have come close) December was wedding month in Kenya, and I was privileged to attend several weddings including one wedding of the year. All weddings are great days for the couple, who want the functions to be as spectacular and memorable as possible. While some of the weddings I attended were of the well-to-do, I also saw some where resources were stretched to the limit in a bid to have the best outfits, food, venue, honeymoon, motorcade, etc. And when you combine these wedding day expenses with the cost of visits to two rural homes, no matter the location, to satisfy the traditional African aspects of the wedding union (with food, gifts, dowry, transportation of singing groups etc) a typical wedding can easily run over a million shillings. This is no way for a young couple to start off their lives especially if they plan to have children soon. There must be a way of cutting down some traditions (African and Western) to make wedding simpler, more affordable affairs that will not bankrupt the family members who finance them
DV 2006 closes Friday
The window for the 2006 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program closes Friday. IMHO, America has changed much since 9/11 and is a much less friendly place for immigrants today.
Teach your kids Chinese
With its staggering growth demands, China is now making huge trade overtures and investments in Africa to tap the vast resources of the continent. I’d like to see a Chinese school, cultural or business center in Nairobi so that we can all learn about how to adapt and deal with the next world super-power.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Bank Jobs (Uganda)
The web is international, and since many Kenyan are crossing over to Uganda to work there, here are four openings posted in the East African (January 3) to work for Stanbic Uganda. Deadline is January 14th
1. Manager Financial Accounting
2. Account Trainees (4 positions)
3. Relationship Manager - Vehicle and Asset Finance
4. Head of Compliance - legal/audit issues (D/L 7/1/05)
1. Manager Financial Accounting
2. Account Trainees (4 positions)
3. Relationship Manager - Vehicle and Asset Finance
4. Head of Compliance - legal/audit issues (D/L 7/1/05)
Nairobi City Council rotten - but at least they have a website
On a day when almost no one reads newspapers, except for “where the parties are” section, Nairobi City Council finally published their budget for the Year 2005 in the Nation of Friday December 31st. Along with their budget for 2005, they also list some results from 2004, a year in which they collected 5.3 billion shillings in revenue and spent 6.2 billion, running a deficit for the year of 900 million shillings.
No wonder Nairobi is collapsing with just 11% spent on maintenance, 4% on operations and 0.1% (12 MILLION) spent on roads. The lion’s share, 4.2 billion shillings of their expenses (2/3 or 67%) goes to personnel alone – i.e. city council staff and councilors. This is worse than a mafia rip-off; at least the mafia offers your business some protection and service for the money they take.
Of the city’s revenue 1.2 billion from property rates, 550 million from business permits, 100 from market fees, 250 million from parking fees and 850 million from housing and others – what services do they provide to collect that money? I say scrap the whole thing and start again.
No wonder Nairobi is collapsing with just 11% spent on maintenance, 4% on operations and 0.1% (12 MILLION) spent on roads. The lion’s share, 4.2 billion shillings of their expenses (2/3 or 67%) goes to personnel alone – i.e. city council staff and councilors. This is worse than a mafia rip-off; at least the mafia offers your business some protection and service for the money they take.
Of the city’s revenue 1.2 billion from property rates, 550 million from business permits, 100 from market fees, 250 million from parking fees and 850 million from housing and others – what services do they provide to collect that money? I say scrap the whole thing and start again.
Deny, Deny , Deny Tetu!
A major showdown is looming between the Coffee Board of Kenya and the government following the appointment of Tetu Coffee Incorporated as a marketing agent in controversial circumstances.
Sanity prevailed
On Friday, President Kibaki refused to sign the monstrous Ngilu Health Bill. When the President first tried to kill it, Ngilu was “supported” by Jeffery Sachs - special advisor to Kofi Annan. But Sachs did not endorse the bill; he merely said it was a good idea that should be funded by donors. He does not speak for the donors, and the donors have said they will not support the bill.
Save Kofi Annan
Since the UN has had two African SG’s in a row, it may be a while before we see another one. Granted he could have done more, in Sudan, Rwanda etc but it’s a big organization to run, and he was caught driving-while-black by policeman GWB at the UN.
When will Parliament Get a Website?
Can the Kenya gazette and parliamentary calendar and daily events be placed online please? It is so archaic to have to go to the government printers to get a copy of these documents. I applaud the Central Bank of Kenya for having their monthly and other economic reports available on their website along with policy statements and regulations. And I’d like to tell Parliamentary officials, that such a computerizations program DOES NOT cost billions of shillings – just a few thousand to provide a valuable service to Kenyans online and abroad. Even lesser important, (dare I say) offices like the First Lady have up-to-date websites
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