Safaricom IPO here

'Reliable sources' indicate that the Safaricom IPO will open on December 3 and close on December 14. With the elections scheduled to be after mid-December, this will allow inventors to sort out their business before they sit down and vote. Hat Tip to AKS

Ndungu Land Report

Its the season for leaks; We have seen the Kroll and Charterhouse reports in the last few months, and now it's the never publicly released Ndungu Land Report courtesy of anti-corruption watchdog, Mars Group Kenya.

End of Parliament

The 9th Parliament is over, paving the way for general elections to be held in December 2007.

NTV Reporter Robert Nagila had a nice piece on NTV last week about the 222 vacancies in Parliament – terming them among the best jobs in Kenya. [A member of parliament gets 5 years security of tenure (while no CEO job is safe when profits fall), and millionaire status guaranteed from an annual salary of about 10 million shillings ($142,000) a year - higher than most developed countries]

Professionals of all sorts are lining up to win the seats this year - including one constituency with over 40 candidates.

Looking back over the five years past, this parliament was doomed in the public mind when upon entering the house they immediately raised (almost doubling) their salaries. And as much as they blame the media for carping on each and every salary increase, it struck a nerve with many poor Kenyans.

So, long before the government got its act together to tackle civil servants, teacher and police and other workers salaries, MP’s had already taken care of their welfare, and continued to do so as a ritual.

And for the good work they did on passing procurement and sexual offences bill, conducting a credible investigation on Anglo leasing, and constituency development funds, and 60 other bills those were overshadowed by the inter-party bickering, lack of quorum (even during passage of some said bills) and needless salary hikes. It has been estimated than over ½ of them will not make it back to parliament in 2008, and for that we hope to have a more sensible crop of leaders.

What worries me is that all the MP’s I have personally met are sensible, smart people who are professional with degrees, but when they enter the parliament a herd mentality seems to take over and you see the same people on TV spewing childish taunts and obscenities at their opponents and perceived enemies.

For more read the light and the intrigues of parliament

Other Pro’s
- high self awareness
- Can lump even more personal bills onto the tax payer by accepting a useless assistant minister’s post.
- You get to sign a whole page in any visitors/condolence book (instead of one line)
- Can use the prefix “Honorable ___ ” long after you leave parliament
- groupies

Some drawbacks
- Getting there is expensive and dirty which scares away many decent people.
- Vehicle to parliament is called a political parties which has no purpose these, but they have to be paid to secure a certificate.
- Low public esteem.
- But the public/constituents, still expect MP’s to fund them since they are multi-millionaires
- Stalkers

other opportunities
most from the weekend papers

Acumen Fund Fellows: New York, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, India, Pakistan, D/L is 24/10

Barclays Africa Leadership Program

IFC investment officer, infrastructure advisory. D/L 2/11

Managing Director at KCB Uganda . Apply to recruitement@kcb.co.ke by 5/11

Business writers at Nation media group. Apply to hrrecruit@nation.co.ke by 30/10

Associate editor - business at the <Standard
Other management vacancies (several each) include Kenya Airways, National Bank, National Oil Corp of Kenya, Safaricom and the Kenya ICT Board (but no web site)?

Kenya petroleum refineries (14) trainee refinery operators apply by snail mail

The Broadband Gap

Earlier this month I received (though the mail) a DVD pack of all the talks from the organizers of TED Global. This is the first time I have seen any TED videos – ever!

While they have been online all this time, it’s not easy to watch any videos online because of the slow speeds – a 3 minute video can take ¼ hour to download, and they you have to rewind it to watch .

Also as more and more local video content and jazzed up websites, go up online, it is unfortunately still not possible to for many intended viewers to access the content watch. Or even bother to try until speeds are fast enough.

I’ll save the links and wait till I find a place that has very goods speeds. Some have impressive free speeds but can’t concentrate and watch there, besides have to lug around a heavy laptop to enjoy them

More Connectivity

Great news that Safaricom are going to roll out video on phones, broadband speeds and a host of other goodies soon. They paid about ½ of what they did for their mobile phone license less than 10 years ago for a 3G license. Maybe I can see some TED video’s from my phones.

Strathmore University have rolled out a campus wide Wi Fi network at the Madaraka campus to enable students with laptops to access the internet from all over the campus. And next students will be able to access the network from their homes via the Kenya Data Networks (KDN)'s infrastructure.

John Gakuo: Restoring Nairobi’s Glory

Like former Mayor (and now Presidential Candidate) Rudy Giuliani did for New York in the mid 1990’s, John Gakuo, the town clerk of the City Council of Nairobi, is credited with the clean up of the city, making it a cleaner, safer, and a more beautiful place to visit.

So how did he do it? He gave a Leadership Forum talk on October 17 on his time at City Hall

Who: John Gakuo is a University of Nairobi Graduate and had been an administrator (provincial administration) for over 20 years. He was appointed Town Clerk (effectively CEO) of the Nairobi City Council in 2004. He is inspired by history – France’s recovery since WWI, the Arusha Declaration (Tanzania) - and believes that Nairobi can be restored to its glory, which last shone in the 1970’s.

He gave his talk on the challenge of effective resource management and began by saying that resources were not the key to change, noting that some countries with abundant mineral resources, have their citizens living in extreme poverty, while others with less resources, have prudently managed what they have to achieve great things. And that was the theme of his talk – use what you have to get what you want

The success he has had at city hall has been though effective resource management and he decried leaders who use the ‘we have no money’ excuse for not doing things, noting that they should solve problems in other ways

Beginning: He was transferred there from the Ministry of Health and initially believed someone wanted him fired (from government) by having him posted to the ‘chaotic’ office – one that attracts insults in the media every day, for the poor conditions in the city. He found the city dirty because they had no brooms, and was told there was no money to buy brooms. He thought about it and decided that the staff could not be idle, so he asked them to cut tree branches to sweep up the city. In no time, this led to money becoming available, and soon brooms were procured and work continued.

And from that point on he decided to set out priority areas that he could tackle with his limited resource base, and which produced visible results, since he did not have money to do what people wanted most.

These included;

Recreation areas: Nairobi city was planned for ½ million people, but now had 3 ½ million, and even up to 4 million during the daytime – and there were no places for recreation. Two parks - Central Park and Uhuru Park were very dirty, un-maintained, and controlled by gangs of urchins who molested anyone who dared go near the parks. So he fixed the one tractor and grass cutter and began a long attempt to mow the grass and clean the parks of trash. They also set up lighting for the park and security so that couples and families could begin using the park. He is gratified by the numbers of people (couples, families) who now visit and rest in the park, in relative safety. Later he extended his campaign to Uhuru Gardens (Langata Road) even though it is not under the Council’s jurisdiction – and it is now a popular weekend rest point for people.

Statutory (legal) powers as a resource for service delivery: He said, even when you have no money, you still have to be seen to be at work, and that people always want to see new things from leaders. So he undertook measures which were visible and which he could maintain, but which did not require money. He took advantage of very powerful, but dormant, by-laws in the city council code, which he combined with the abundant staff resource at his disposal. These efforts included curbing down on garbage dumping at Kangemi (though it took over 2,000 arrests for the message to sink in), and requiring buildings owners in Nairobi to fix & paint their buildings prior to license renewal. Also littering, public urination, and zebra crossing, and numerous other (unfortunate ‘violations’ were punished by the councils various inspectorate teams.

Lighting & beautification

Lighting is an essential feature of beautification and security in the city. He set out to put lights that would give visitors a positive impression of the city, right from Jomo Kenyatta airport and into the city, as well as on Langata Road and Waiyaki Way up to the city boundaries – and plans to light up Thika Road up to Kenyatta University. Within the city, lighting, combined with other inspectorate crews were used to rid the streets of urchins who used to snatch women’s purses and who made several parts of the city no-go zones after sunset. They plan to light up the other side of Tom Mboya Street up to Nairobi River and Khoja Mosque as well.

In addition to urchins he also cut down on the women who’d beg with children on their back all day, believing that few of them were genuine cases. He does not know where they went, but they are not on the streets anymore as they can be charged with ‘idling’. He joked that when you see him coming up with a new by-law to enforce, you know the City is broke again

Trees are relatively cheap to plant; they make the city beautiful and filter the exhaust fumes from vehicles. So the council has planted thousands of evergreen trees in the city and along the major highways

Roundabouts and fountains are being resorted in parks and at strategic point in the city after years of disuse

Kiosks often harbor undesirables, some can do, but they are a very sensitive political matter and he gets a lot of pressure when he cracks down. However with the ones outside Nairobi Hospital, he was able to accommodate them by asking that they rebuild them in a manner that they were not an eyesore

Matatu’s He described the transport minibuses as a menace. Some measures he has taken to reign them in include stationing 2 tow trucks at the Westlands to intercept any matatu dropping of picking up passengers on the road, instead of suing the bus-stop, while on Thika Road, they are digging trenches to prevent matatu’s from driving down the side of the road.
Roundabouts are archaic and they will all be ripped up along Uhuru Highway
Garbage Disposal The Dandora dumpsite been around for 50 years to the detriment of their residents’ health. They City Council is seeking an international company to tackle solid waste disposal soon

partnerships
He said business & residents associations have not provided meaningful assistance – all they do is have endless meetings and resolutions with no action thereafter, while most who have pledged to restore/beautify some roundabouts have not done more than put up their own advertising. He welcomes anyone or business that has a plan/action to beautify/restore any project in the City to contact his office, noting that majority of city residents have been impatient but not helpful

media relations: He has engaged the public through the media by responding/replying to each accusation of report he read in the news about the City Council. This has helped the media come around to understand the challenges he faces

numbers: he was questioned later about revenue and staff numbers. On staff he said that they have about 13,000 staff and ideally should have 7,000. he says when he has enough money he will retrench some of them, but for now he’ll continue to use them as effectively as he can so they earn their keep. On revenue he said when he joined 2 ½ years ago, city was collecting 3 billion, now they are up to 11 billion and growing. Earlier on he took over aspects of the finance department, since treasury was receiving very little of what was collected

succession: one questioner dropped a Tom Peters quote on him challenging that ‘leaders are not judged by how many followers they have, but by how many leaders they create’ – to which he replied that all he can do is let others see his strategies and actions and see if they are worth emulating.

summary: The Town Clerk is a man who believes in action, not talk. And with his style and achievements, you can expect him to probably, like Rudy Giuliani (minus the personal baggage), step into politics in a few years.

Email: townclerk@nairobi.org

America Calling

Wharton MBA: The University of Pennsylvania business school will have a reception in Nairobi on October 16. RSVP Here. Another event was held in 2005.

Green Card rush: The 2009 DV Program - US Diversity Visa Lottery is on again, with applications accepted from October 3 to December 2, 2007

other opportunities
from the daily papers this week

DCDM: accounting & audit seniors, audit managers, fund administrators. Apply to admin@dcdnkenya.com by 22/10

Project accountant at EADB. D/L is by 19/10

Jetlink aviation: marketing executives (travel) customer care agent, reservations officer. Apply to hr@jetlink.co.ke by 23/10

Kenya airways: Project coordinator (civil engineer) D/ L 18/10

KCB: branch manager, business banking managers, business banking officers. Apply to recruitment@kcb.co.ke by 23/10

Kenya safari lodges: Sales executives for Nairobi and Mombasa. Apply through cv@kenya-safaris.co.ke by 19/10

Mabati Rolling Mills: accounts executive, treasury executive, forex executive, costing & MIS executive, accounts assistants. Apply to hr@mabati.com by 25/10

Graduate clerks at NIC Bank.

Safaricom: Head of customer management

World Bank team assistants (3). D/L is 19/10

Reprieve for small banks

Opposition MP’s in Parliament yesterday appeared to shoot down a proposal by the Government requiring commercial banks to have a minimum share capital of 1 billion shillings ($14m) by 2010 – up from the current minimum of 250 million shillings.

This has been seen as likely to cause several smaller banks to merge or be absorbed into larger entities. So for at least, another year, the barriers to entry to the banking sector remain low.

Rant: Change the Channel

Next Friday, we are having a talk on AIDS – again! This may be the third this year, as there’s one every quarter. That’s because the company has committed (and arranged) for employees to receive these talks and the Ministry of Health can afford to send people out to give such talks. Or there’s a there’s a huge donor funding for HIV programs that the government has ample capacity to spend

I am not diminishing the impact, significance, or message about HIV but what about malaria? I’m sure it causes more deaths than HIV. It’s not just expectant or new mother who need lessons in malaria. What about cancer - ok its breast cancer awareness month? Cholesterol, high blood pressure & hypertension, pneumonia, and other diseases that also wipe out thousands of young people? Cirrhosis and the dangers of drunk driving! Any why it always about VCT’s not full medical checks – for cancer, high blood pressure etc? The kind of stuff people use Capital FM and other radio stations to promote new hospitals & equipment.

This rant should be directed at the personnel manager, but he’ll only come up with programs that fund themselves so we’ll continue to hear about HIV since that is FREE and funded.

I’d like to have more workplace talks that address overall health problems, beyond HIV, or assuming we are all healthy how about some internal uplifment though a fulfilling enlightening talk on money? - advice on investments, real estate, small business, opportunities, and entrepreneurship.

Isn’t there government funding or a donor package for that? Or is that left to AID workers in rural areas only?

Diamond Trust rights issue

1 ½ years ago, Diamond Trust Bank raised 735 million from shareholders, and now they are back this time targeting another 1.6 billion shillings ($24 million). NIC bank also has a rights issue on-going while that of Housing Finance has stalled temporarily.

The rapid growth of assets, loans and deposits has created a gap in capital that banks will need to fill up to maintain capital adequacy and Basel II requirements. Other banks likely to require to raise capital could include Kenya Commercial (after a previous right issue 2004), Cooperative, National Bank of Kenya, Commercial Bank of Africa, Standard Chartered, Stanbic, Investment & Mortgages, Barclays, Equity, and even the new CFC/Stanbic Bank.

Election year inflation

The elections are a few weeks away and assets are disposed of and savings converted into consumer spending and other election-related services. People are being warned to be careful with their SUV’s (lest they are stolen to be used in rural campaigns and dumped)

There are 210 constituencies in the country and one estimate of the cost of running a viable campaign is set at about 10 million shillings ($150,000) - and this can be as high as 100 million shillings (where titans are battling it out to enter Parliament)

Scenes from the Nairobi show
Also known as the Nairobi international trade fair (which ended on Sunday October 7)
- Traffic to the showground was so bad along Ngong road, that it was better and faster to detour along Kibera. I asked one very tired policeman about this and he replied that the heavy traffic was not related to the trade fair – just that vehicles never cease coming no matter how long directs the traffic (too many cars)
- Visiting an impressive stand, I’m reminded that long before Vice President Moody Awori spruced up the Prisons Department, it was highly regarded for the good quality furniture that they i.e. prisoners used to (and still) produce and which the department would sell to the public
- A yellow Humvee is a big draw for all the school kids even though they are not allowed near it
- I was able to get my social security statement from the NSSF stand, but my stockbroker could not give me a statement! (They were not online). The NSSF also gave a friendly reminder to patrons to top up their contributions otherwise they would receive very little when they retired
- Ice cream vendors almost every 10 yards. And the way it was hot, they were all doing roaring business
- JKUAT (University) enterprises produce a variety of juices, jams, soaps and lotions.
- A drunk high school student being hauled out of the show grounds by his colleagues. I later passed them outside the showground and noticed they have wisely removed their school uniforms – otherwise they could have bundled into a police wagon to be paraded on the evening news.

Kutwa Tuesday: death of the cyber café

Once, long ago, I wrote a paper about a business case to put up a cyber café in an airport terminal – for transit passengers to browse there as they waited for the flight to connect. That model is in place today in airports all over the world (not my doing) but its’ time may already have passed with wi-fi zones and wireless laptops whose users don’t need to use cyber cafe facilities anymore.

But even cyber cafes’ that are in town may be under threat.

Until three months ago I’d spend about an hour in a cyber cafe each Saturday and Sunday. I’d go there to my check my-email and then browse quite a bit when I was done.

But all that has stopped as I now check my email and browse for information I need to know instantly – from hotmail, gmail, sports scores, stock prices - using a plain old phone (not bambanet, or blackberry) as the Safaricom EDGE service is available on most of their phones even some of the cheaper ones. I get the information wherever I am and don't have to visit a cyber cafe unless it's to print a document or download a PDF report.

Oil slick
The sale of Somken petrol stations to the National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK) has been put on hold ever since the previous NOCK MD resigned from the company. Haggles remain over the high price bid for the stations.

BAT smoke-out
BAT Ghana has voluntarily de-listed from the Ghana Stock Exchange.

Does that portend anything for BAT Kenya one of the blue chip stocks on the Nairobi stock exchange and one of the highest paying dividend stocks? Cigarette smokers have had their smoking freedom curtailed in Nairobi and other urban areas (Nairobi city has less than a half dozen outdoor smoking points) making them clandestine smokers who hide on staircases and bathrooms (but at least most bars retain a smoking section). What impact will that have on sales?

BAT Kenya manufactures cigarettes here and exports a significant amount to other regional countries (who have not curtailed smoking) which should cushion it slightly from the new laws.

Stockbroker still frozen
The statutory management of Francis Thuo stockbrokers (by the Nairobi Stock Exchange) has been extended for another six months.

the pyramids that collapsed
Much has changed in the one year since nyramid schemes were highlighted here. Since then they have come under increasing pressure from the government, SACCO’s and most important the banks who frozen account necessary for their operations (and who probably still hold the schemes ‘missing billions’ that investors are crying for).

The latest collapse was Amity and it was preceded by Sasanet investment co-op (suspended operations), Spell investments (suspended operations), Circuit investments (suspended operations), CLIP (suspended operations), DECI (suspended operations), and the Kenya business community savings & credit society (Kenya akiba) (suspended operations)

Kenya news on Youtube
Some people say they are tired of political news, while others can’t get enough of it. But the Nation Media Group has gone ahead and made their new clips available on Youtube

Pesa point wins
Two yard ago Pesapoint was launched and it began a battle with Kenswitch - another network of banks sharing ATM facilities. But today Pesa Point has signed up most mid-size banks and have a network of almost 200 ATM machines – and last month added corporate banking giant Standard Chartered to their network.

The Press Filter

A glance at the weekend newspapers shows government departments putting up paid advertisements in the newspaper. These include the permanent secretary - Ministry of Finance setting the record straight on the country’s domestic debt position, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice on parliament’s recent amendment to curb powers of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission and even the government spokesman (who’s the equivalent of a permanent secretary) on thetribal balance of the government (through an ad placed in all papers including the Nairobi star)

Of course its’ not just the government that has trouble getting their ‘facts’ out before the media – the Kenya land alliance on the Land Bill, former MP Basil Criticos claiming the government 'grabbed' his sisal farm, the National Bank of Kenya defending the government in the Criticos land sale etc.

With four major TV stations and a dozen newspapers and radio stations, the amount of stories churned out by the media is endless. But with politics dominating most of the media channels during this election year, it is easy for important facts to be addressed by interested parties – and the only way they can be assured that their story will be transmitted verbatim - no editing, slanting, filtering, or even buried by the media - to the public is by paying for an advertisement themselves - at a cost of about 70,000 shillings (about $1,000)

However, there’s a flip side to this. A media story is supposed to be balanced – and by placing a statement in the papers, they are telling their side of the story without challenge, or argument – and without an opposing view, a paid up statement is just an advertisement.

Election briefs

- The Electoral Commission of Kenya has enabled registered voters to check on the status of their vote eligibility online - just by entering a nation ID number or voter’s card number.

- Botswana residents living in Kenya have been invited to register to vote at the country's high commission in Nairobi this month. That’s something Kenyans in the Diaspora can pressure for their local embassies to do for them also in future.