Report & Reduce Corruption

The latest quarterly report from the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC) report was buried under a ton of criticism owing to the fact that it was perceived to continue the Anglo-Leasing cover-up.

Kenyans should face up to the fact that KACC is here to stay, regardless of who is in charge and use it to fight corruption - by reporting what they observe & perceive to be corrupt activities.

In the absence of proper whistle blower protection in the country, the commission has made it possible to report corruption anonymously (even by e-mail) which should trigger investigations such as those mentioned (in the quarterly report)that range from alleged CEO shopping demands to lowly clerks asking for bribes.

One weak point of KACC is that they only make public reports once their investigations are complete. They should also mention ongoing investigations and give a chance to more people to come forward, give evidence, and build stronger cases.

Unfortunate reference
In reading on the Citigroup/ CNBC ethical debate, I came upon the phrase Ugandan Discussions - an unfortunate slang term which demeans a country.

Musical Chairs

After steering Kenya Commercial Bank to profitability, respectability and restoring shareholder confidence (a long process that began with Gareth George), KCB group CEO Terry Davidson could be on his way out. The bank had advertised for the group CEO position as Davidson’s contract will expire in mid 2007. Applications should be sent to Manpower Associates (Naiorbi) within the next two weeks. Who will replace him? Only a career banker can, as the JD specified applicants must be under 50 years of age and have worked in banking for at least 15 years, with at least 10 in senior management. In 2005, KCB created the post of deputy CEO and selected former finance permanent secretary, Martin Oduor Otieno who still holds the job.

Also looking for new leadership is the (about to have an IPO) Kenya Reinsurance Corporation which has also advertised to replaced their suspended managing director and head of finance. (Interested? Apply to jobs@biz-ideas.biz by 16/2)

Recovery Week

Out of hospital and recovering this week and trying to catch up after two weeks away from a computer. Missed so much, mailboxes are full, have to send proper replies, and most of the news links are now out-dated and need to be refreshed.

It was a pleasant week, whose main difficulty was the passage to time. I read many books and consulted Dr. Hannibal Lecter who had spent 8 years in one room.

Describe a share investor
The Economist published a series on executive compensation and ran a quote from 17 years ago that can be used to accurately describe (we) investors who speculate on shares;

To a shareholder in a typical company, a share is little more than a betting slip. It is bought at what a shareholder thinks are good odds to provide winnings he hopes will be large.

The notion that he owns part of a company makes as much sense to him as it would for the average gambler to imagine he owns part of a horse running in a 2:30 race.

A title deed to a house tells someone what he knows instinctively - that he owns the place and must care for it. A share certificate tells him nothing more than that he has the right to a dividend and the chance to make some cash.

Tiomin sells out
Tiomin will sell ATW Venture Corp. a 50% interest in the Kenyan mineral sands for US$35 million to raise funds owing to cost escalations.

Githongo blog
He must be wondering what he has to do to get his point, but after putting up a blog he should be very careful

Stanbic Results
With over 1 billion shares on offer and despite the over-subscription, there’s won’t be too many complaints about allocation;
- Uganda nationals get full allocation up to 2.15 million shares
- Others (including Kenyans) get full allocation up to 109,500 shares (about 312,000 shillings)[But the stock exchange there trades for (I think) 3 days a week]

Sky please
After years of getting (and under appreciating) SKY news of Britain, the local STV channel has taken it down and replaced it with VOA TV. There’s no apparent reason why VOA should be broadcasting as there’s nothing I’ve seen that is newsworthy or worth tuning in for.

Opportunities

Jobs

International director of fund raising at AMREF. Details here and apply through olga@crsearchandselection.com by 9/2

Financial controller at Children’s International. Apply through KPMG at esd@kpmg.co.ke by 2/2

Senior project officers (2) at EADB Nairobi. Apply to the Kenya country manager at box 47685 by 16/2

Housing Finance: Manager [HR], assistant manager[legal], officer [insurance]. Apply to human.resources@housing.co.ke by 3/2

I&M Bank: Details here for Cashiers [Tellers], Liability Manager, Trade Finance Officer, and Relationship Manager [Assets].

Marshalls: General Manager (Tata), General Manager (KIA/Honda), Marketing Manager. Apply through Dagger Consultants at gd@africaonline.co.ke by 9/2

National Oil Corporation: Various jobs including customer service assistant, ICT manager and internal audit assistant. Apply to hr@nockenya.co.ke by 13/2

NIC Bank: Nakuru [business development manager, sales executives (2), branch advances officer, branch customer service officer], Mombasa [service delivery manager], Nairobi [Corporate relationship manager]. Apply to the Head of HR 44599-00100 Nairobi by 7/2

Finance manager at Sense International - Nairobi. Apply to info@senseint-ea.org by 2/2

Finance manager at Tearfund - Nairobi. Apply to internationaljob@tearfund.org by 31/1

Other

KCB is seeking new ATM machines to expand its network into the hundreds.

The Nairobi Stock Exchange will conduct a Market Index Review via a consultancy.

Associate consultants at the influential Steadman Group. Apply to md@steadman-group.com

Drip Cycle

0000 can’t believe two hours have passed and the drip is finished. Finished reading Next (a gift from AfroM) and I now start reading this week's Time. They can’t start a new drip because wrist is swollen where the vein has had enough. Note: Nurses seem more callous at night. Are they tired or more hardened to the calls of patients at midnight?
0012 Nurse disconnects drip - releasing me to go to the toilet. "Always carry your phone with you" - is something you are advised when you check in as phones tend to disappear, usually if you fall asleep during visiting hours. The toilet lights are off at night and there’s no switch but using my Nokia screen - there's no need for a light.
0017 Back to bed. Not really sleepy and I don’t use the mosquito net
0028 Mosquito buzzes my face. There’s a myth that Nairobi mosquitoes don’t transmit malaria, but I don’t wish to complicate my recovery/treatment by proving this out and I clumsily put the net down to cover the upper half of the bed and fall asleep
0145 Doctor comes in with a nurse. They make a new cut in my left hand and insert a tube to attach a new drip. Drip in right hand is removed and sealed with bandage.
0200 Another nurse comes and connects the drip bottle to the new tube. Back to sleep.
0530 Use toilet but this time i use the urinal – it’s a paper gourd that they bring round and is good for two flows. When on drip and drinking fluids throughout, one needs to go to bathroom a lot
0625 Nurse comes in to administer blood pressure, pulse, and temperature tests
0632 Get SMS from Couch Tato telling me when I might find a rare DVD I am looking for. (Does he ever sleep?)
0640 new jug of drinking water delivered by waiter.
0800 Watching CNN news: I must find out what the differences are between Sunni’s and Shiite’s.
0821 Breakfast brought in. Even though I am supposed to be on a low fat diet, they keep bringing some fatty foods. Take porridge, weetabix, banana, and tea leaving aside the boiled egg and sausage.
0852 finish breakfast – takes longer to eat with the wrong hand
0937 finish reading Time magazine
0955 Take a shower, and get new gown & shorts as my bed is changed. I am not able to walk about because my doctor shows up. She examines me, is happy with progress but asks that a blood sample be taken tomorrow morning after which she’ll consider discharging me
1000 Back to bed. If I had my Celtel line I’d be able to make more daytime calls, but stuck with Safaricom and waiting for whoever calls. I get a call from the office
1005 Drip reconnected. Must finish my lucozade bottle by tomorrow when I leave. Hate this stuff
1145 Finish reading a chapter of a manuscript and use paper toilet before visiting hours start
1150 Dietician brings suggested menu/foods for my recovery after I leave hospital and we discuss what is acceptable and what’s banned
1205 Have to use toilet. This time I ask to be disconnected and walk to the bathroom. Getting sloppy, this is the first time I have left my phone behind. I rush back to find its still there
1210 – 1215 first visitors of the day – and one brings another bottle of lucozade
1220 Itch on my right hand and realise it’s a mosquito bite from last night – I hope it drank saline instead of my blood.
1222 Lunch arrives
1225 More visitors. My sister is first and I send her downstairs to buy the newspapers (perks of being in hospital) and a Safaricom airtime card. They’re here as I eat lunch. Have wide discussion about the poor state of roads, book publishing. 1405 Back to toilet. As I am washing hands, I drop my phone in the sink. I scoop it up and take paper towels back with me where I strip, dry, and clean the phone which seems to be intact.
1440 Still reading newspaper but no drip running. I go to the nurses’ station to ask to be reconnected to drip.
1500 Still no one. I ring my buzzer and when nurse responds, ask again to be reconnected to drip. There seems to be a slacking of work as nursing shift ends and another begins as those going off have to prepare extensive reports.
1520 – 1530 New nurse comes and attached new drip bottle
1540 Start reading Foul about corruption in the soccer administration world. It's a great and someone should give a copy to our sports minister who’ trying to sort out Kenyan soccer. Other countries like Antigua and Jamaica have gone though what Kenya is going through (interim committees, normalization committees, suspension, and threats) FIFA does not appear to like government interference and prefers to deal with local sports administrators however corrupt they are.
1550 Waiter comes round but I decline afternoon tea. Other patients are asleep and I ask him to turn off TV, which is now showing a (annoying) kids variety show.
1650 Still reading Foul when first evening visitors arrive. Some visitors are interesting, others are tiring. For many, I have too repeat the story of who I ended up here. I engage some visitors in constructive talk; get advice on recovery while others have nothing to say. Still pick up some tips – I may get my full allocation of Stanbic IPO shares, and while this hospital has no internet for patients (am told), Kenyatta National Hospital (of all places) is a wireless hot spot
1830 I get a late visitor. Near the end of visiting time, guards don’t let in more visitors (except VIP’s) but my buddy assures me she can get past any time as she has a stethoscope in her car she wears.
1850 My boss visits. He’s on leave, but working on other projects. He advises me to enjoy the enforced rest and avoid dealing with office matters
1900-1920 Watch the 7 PM news as I eat dinner. Chicken again though not as fatty this time.
1945 Go to bathroom again
2000 Drip is reconnected. Lie back and drift in and out of sleep. TV still on with Spanish soaps with bad accents, and later the 9PM news. I try and remember the name of the movie where Wesley Snipes or Steven Seagal's characters' rip drip tubes from their arms, fight people sent to kill them and flee from hospital in a wheelchair. 0015 Wake again TV still on. Busta & Diddy’s “Pass the Courvesoir” video is on but not as interesting to watch three years later.

Share splits continue

ICDCI formalized their share split yesterday as CMC also announced a 10 for 1 share split.

Pressure will continue to build on companies with high flying shares like BAT, Bamburi and Standard Chartered to follow Barclays, Sasini, and EA Cables in announcing share splits. Speculation about splits has also caught on at KPLC, Equity, NMG and Jubilee.

Oil
- NOCK will acquire 45 service stations from Somken an independent Kenyan company which seems to be shifting its focus to oil exploration.

Jobs

AIG Kenya
- Consumer marketing manager
- Agency development manager
HR-kenya@aig.com by 26/1

Internal auditor at Care Kenya. apply to hrmanager@care.or.ke by 20/1

Project management office Director at the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) - Mombasa. Details here and deadline to info@eatta.co.ke is 22/1

Family finance: - Head of business development, branch business development managers (5), Credit officers (27), procurement officer. Apply online by 27/1

Executive director at Forum for Africa women educations Apply through KPMG by 31/1

Kenya commercial development foundation: Finance & investment manager, financial management accountant, grants management accountant, communications officer and interns. details here and deadline is by 26/1

Tsavo securities: Head of stock broking head of fixed income head of ICT and head of research as well as relationship managers apply through manpower associates

Following the recent government director on using chase cars to escort money to/from banks G4S/Securicor will hire over 800 new drivers

distributorships
For Celtel in Nairobi, Coast, Mt. Kenya, Western, Nyanza, Central & North rifts. Contact Kioi.e@ke.celtel.com

For Honda motorcycles in Kenya. Contact Takao_Ishizuka@hm.honda.co.jp

EADB Venture Capital

The East African Development Bank is proposing to set up a venture capital fund to invest between $100,000 to $1 million in companies who have turnover over $100,000 and are prepared to give the fund shares in exchange for capital invested. Expressions of interest to be sent to venturecapital@eadb.org

State of the VC

Is Kenya ready for VCs? Do we have the expertise and are they necessary?
The regulations for the VC industry are yet to be formalized and the Acacia Fund remains the only venture capital firm licensed by the CMA. But there are other players such as ICDCI, investment advisers, investment companies, and entities like Transcentury who can arrange equity-based financing for viable companies.

Given the archaic company laws and endless court processes, entrepreneurs in Kenya have to be very careful about who they let in as equity partners. They feel better off borrowing from a bank that they can pay off and walk away from after a while instead of having VC as partner/co-owner.

The VC route is more suitable for established companies who have a good long-term understanding of their requirements and the benefits that are offered by different equity partners.

A more viable, non-VC option for start-ups is the government’s proposed youth enterprise fund which was gazetted in December. (read more)

Mid East Careers

Companies this week looking for Kenyans to go work abroad

KBR, the global engineering & and construction subsidiary of the Haliburton Corporation, is seeking people to go work in the Middle East & Central Asia for a variety of positions including transport & maintenance, craft & trades, logistics, and management & administration. Apply online.

Cabin crew at Qatar Airways. Apply online by January 12.

Work ethic & sucession

Work ethic is something I’ll have to work on in 2007. In vying to start the aforementioned kiosk, I still have the idea that I can sit in an office all day and only visit the shop in the evening to collect the day’s income, pay bills, and reconcile accounts & inventory. That may be a recipe for mediocrity.

Just before Christmas, I went to buy some wine from a famous small town shop. The proprietor, let's call him Mr. Shah, has been at his storefront for the last 20 years. He is supported by his grown children and their spouses to run the shop and despite millions of shillings in annual turnover, they still have modest and humble lifestyles. He’s there from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. - 6 days a week and drives a 20 year old Mercedes.

This management style of Asian businessmen where they commit themselves, family, and their time to running the shop is admirable – and you see it in hardware, auto part shops, pharmacies, supermarkets etc. – i.e. owners being on the ground [not far away in someone else’s office, trying to run the shop via remote control - over the phone to avoid relatives looking for jobs, creditors, and others seeking favors]

Some business run by remote control may succeed, but rarely. As an owner I’ll have to get down & dirty with customers and suppliers ever day and know the business in & out and ring the cash register myself – and that will come by being in the shop full time. I have already promised a distant an uncle that his currently unemployed son could run the shop once it’s ready – but I may have to rescind that offer. Am I ready for that? I don't know.

There are limits at succession time – as a parent has to convince his kids that their future is in the shop and not being a CPA working at a multi-national firm. This is a dilemma Indian shopowners and African land owners/farmers face – with many of them running large businesses but which their kids have no interest in taking over. What happns to the business after many years? Sell out - move abroad/travel the world for the rest of their lives? I hope that will be a dilemna I'll be facing in 20 years time (i.e. How do I give away my money/estate?).

Giant in pothole

Mugoya Construction Company has been placed under receivership by their principal bankers KCB.

- Earlier post.
- How a receivership happens.

Transition into 2007

2006 was a great year thanks to bloging.

Looking back

- High point: the great people I met through the KBW buffet park meet ups

- High point # 2: getting invited to the digital citizen indaba in South Africa – my first real visit to another African country and I got an idea of what to expect at the 2010 World Cup.

Low point: getting booted from adsense by Google - which happened just as I was getting used to having blogging provide some supplemental income through advertising. Thanks to Stocktrends and Alex Gichira (Ed. Business Post) for their support of my efforts since then.



traffic
- Used statcounter (& still do) but it doesn’t provide much historical data so I also signed up with Google analytics in September.
- 43% visitors of visits are from within Nairobi - which is suprising since the target audience is Kenyans in the diaspora and most of what I write should be apparent to people here in Naiorbi. Still it’s encouraging.
- Fewest visits on Sundays - means most of you read in the office!

top posts
- Kenya exam results online (highest traffic [4X normal] was recorded on 28 December - not to read my banking summary for the year but to locate KCPE exams results online!)
- No drugs at NSE
- Where to buy shares
- Money transfer within Kenya
- Bank rankings June 2006

my faves - in terms of the comments and feedback I received
- Safaricom success
- No apologies
- Idea exchange & barter trade
- training Kenyans for outsourcing
- Where to buy shares (part ii) redux

Changes in 2007

Fewer posts: the amount of information posted by new bloggers and sites – such as nairobist, stockskenya, pesa tu, riba capital, cold tusker (now investing in Africa), hisagal, odegle nyang and others (see my blogroll) is a blessing for everyone. Foir me, it’s less to do, less news to bring up, and I can focus on more research and longer posts.

more techie; I owe so much to blogging so I must improve by learning more tech stuff and experiementing with more tools. I hope to have more photo posts this year and try out new templates (many people don’t like the black background). However bankelele is not eligible for blogger beta as it may be too large to migrate.

kioskelele: 2007 will be the year to take the plunge into the informal sector / entrepreneurship by starting a kiosk/shop/SME and continue to diversify my income. These opportunities are not there forever and we have to take them on otherwise we will regret forever why we didn't follow our dreams. Still looking for the right location in the city that is accessible and suitable.

more savings: So far so good but a book I read recently (the "automatic millionaire") said saving should happen automatically - i.e. money grows when you can't see it/have no chance to intercept it & use the money. Only problem is that standing orders at Kenyan banks are so expensive – and it’s wrong to have 5 – 10% of money intended for savings be eaten up by bank charges. I found a bank which was much cheaper, but they sometimes forget to remit the money into the account!

Quit share trading: Not quite, but there will be less trading of shares this year and focus will remain on IPO’s and new issues like Safaricom. It’s not that the brokers are bad, but there are too many shareholders (since Kengen, Scangroup, and Eveready) who occupy brokers’ offices and phone lines from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is too much hassle going there, trying to call in orders - that sometimes I think it may be better to cash in my gains and reinvest them in an Old Mutual fund or new investment club. (The folks at the Kenya capital investment group have posted their investment club constitution which is a good guide for those wishing to start a club)

Fun fact: from an article in the Economist on the etiquette of bribery.

Q: "What’s the difference between a gift and a bribe?"
A: "Any gift, must be consumable in a single day - so a bottle of wine is acceptable, a case of wine is not."

opportunities

Head of keg business at East African breweries. Apply to hr.recruitment@eabl.com by 6/1

ICDCI Investment manager, risk manager, business analyst, investment analyst, risk analyst. Details at their site and deadline for applications to jobs@icdci.co.ke is 19/1

Procurement adviser – public sector & development at KPMG. Apply to esd@kpmg.co.ke by 12/1

Commissioner of domestic tax revenue KRA. Apply through KPMG at esd@kpmg.co.ke by 7/1

Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Principal Counselors (4), First Counselor (11), Second Counselors (22), First Secretary (28) and Third Secretary Cadet (64) Posts. Details and deadline is 12/1

Head, Communications Unit at World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) . Details and deadline for applications to icrafhru@cgiar.org is 19/1