New Credit Cards from NIC and Equity banks

This week, NIC Bank launched a platinum credit card and Equity Bank formally announced their expanded their impressive card portfolio that now includes American Express. 

The NIC Bank Visa Platinum credit will be offered to a select few clients like professionals, senior government employees, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. The card comes with a variety of privileges in terms of shopping discounts, priority pass access to 600 VIP airport lounges in 100 countries (with complimentary snacks, free internet at many, and card holders can bring in companions), a portfolio relationship manager, and purchase protection for 90 days. 

For frequent travelers around the world, it also provides useful facilitation in emergencies like payment of hospital deposits of up to $2500,  and arranges for emergency evacuation, legal advice, transport of companions or children.  

The annual fee is Kshs 6,000 (~$70) and there is no joining fee. NIC will also have a rights issue and a bond issue that shareholders will kick-off next week at an EGM.

Equity Bank is signing up merchants to accept American Express cards - for which they are the exclusive card issuer in Kenya. They have already signed on Nakumatt,  ArtCaffé, Heritage Hotels, Best Westernm Laico Regency, Leopard Beach, Boma and some other hotels.

Speaking when he confirmed the development, Equity Bank Managing Director, James Mwangi, said the bank is now a partner for American Express, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Google, China Union Pay, SWIFT, JCB, VFX (Equity Direct) and Diners Club.

As per Central Bank stats, Kenya had about 162,000 locally issued credit cards as at February 2014, compared to 114,000, three years ago.

Mobile & Card Payments across East Africa

A new unsecured card solution was launched by afb last week that will allows customers to instantly spread the cost of their purchase at participating shops into affordable 6 month repayments. afb have signed up 52 merchants like Baus Optical, Cambridge Opticians, Fabguru Shoes, Kitengela Glass, and local supermarkets (Tumaini, Home Depot, Homemade) and are also signing up other merchant shops where consumers will be able to apply for cards and get them approved & issued in the stores ahead of making a purchase.  afb settles the transaction amounts directly into the retailers bank account, and the the customer makes repayments via M-Pesa. afb next hope to venture into loans and insurance in Kenya.

How large is the card market? A Central Bank of Kenya reports showed that there were 9 million debit cards and 140, 000 credit cards in use in Kenya in 2012.

In terms of mobile money, CBK data showed that 21 million Kenyans moved Kshs. 141 billion ($1.65 billion) via 53 million mobile money transactions during February 2013.

CBK has also come up with new mobile money rules that target money laundering. They require that operators link different accounts opened by a user with a single ID card, flag accounts that move more than Kshs. 100,000 (~$1,175) per day or 300,000 (~$3,530) per week, have audit trails, institute systems to handle customer complaints and retain transaction data for 7 years. 

KCB and Western Union who have an account-based money transfer service (ABMT) in Kenya will extend it across East Africa this week, enabling KCB customers to receive money from Western Union directly into their accounts.

Kenya Airways has a 1.5% fee on all credit card transactions (owing to high processing bank charges).

Following a spate of fraud incidents last December, the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) has launched an ATM safety campaign dubbed “Be Alert” or “Kaa Chonjo” which include tips such as cover the PIN with hand, and sharing PIN number with anyone (including spouses) 

KBA also  announced the shift by Kenyan banks to the new Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) technology to ensure better security of cards.

90% of KenyaPower pre-paid electricity tokens are now purchased using #Mpesa - according to an Safaricom Business ad.

Diners can now pay restaurant bills via M-Pesa under a new partnership between Kopo Kopo, Eat Out and Safaricom. Restaurants accept payments at 1.5% per transaction.

 

MasterCard and Equity Bank introduced PayPass enabled debit cards in 5 African markets which will enable merchants to receive payments via low cost add-ons linked to applications on their mobile devices (such as a smart phone or tablet) 

Mastercard and I&M Bank launched a multi-currency (Dollars, Pounds, Euros) prepaid card which enables users to load up  to $10,000 and make foreign currency purchases without incurring exchange rate or other charges.

MasterCard also released a study called the MasterCard African Cities Growth Index that showed that Accra, Lusaka and Luanda offer the highest growth potential in Sub-Saharan Africa. Other ranked cities included Dar es Salaam (4), Addis Ababa (5), Nairobi (6), Kampala (7), Johannesburg  (8), Cape Town (11), Mombasa (12), Lagos (13),  and Khartoum (19).

Credit reference bureaus like CRB Africa and Metropol are expanding across East Africa.

The inaugural Mobile Money Africa Awards will be held in Johannesburg next month, to award the best mobile money app, mobile banking service, and mobile money platform for Africa, among others.  

Nation Hela launched last year has 8,000 active cards in use.

With PesaPal, Kenyans in the Diaspora can send school fees payment directly to 12,000 schools in Kenya using their credit cards (no need for money transfer service). 

Shell Kenya have a visa card promotion to encourage motorists to swipe their cards and pay for fuel The platform is powered by Equity Bank POS at all Shell stations, and station owners are not charged commissions for card sales (Shell pays all commissions).

Tangaza321 is said to be the second largest mover of mobile money behind M-Pesa. The Tangaza system uses biometric data (fingerprints) as many customers don't possess national ID cards and allows them to send money across all networks, even to people who don’t have mobile phones.

A team with the University of Nairobi’s University Students Community Organization (Uniscoo)  has developed a prepaid card for university students. Uniscoo which has 25,000 students seeks to encourage good money management among students through the use of the prepaid card powered by MasterCard.

Credit Scoring the Informal Worker

Documenting the informal economy has been a challenge, the importance of which is increasingly being seen in recent banking, real estate, consumption and other economic statistics that, thanks to data from Telco's about m-pesa and other money transfer systems, shows up as a grey ocean of money flowing (daily) through the economy that amounts to a significant fraction of Kenya's GDP. 

But how about the users who are moving this money? Can they derive credit worthiness value from  this information that is being captured? i.e. These are the self-employed workers, and people without payslips or steady banking habits, but who have some scanty history with banks, savings societies, church groups, or utility companies. 

But now with services such as SelfCare from Safaricom, one can see three months of M-Pesa transactions – and in the last three months, funding a project outside Nairobi, I’ve deposited about $3400, sent about  $2800, withdrawn $200, received $150, and bought $100 of airtime.

All that should qualify for more than a Khs 2,000 ($25) instant loan from Safaricom/CBA's, M-Shwari, but since it's a new system, it may be too early to determine the credit worthiness of a borrower, using their  M-Pesa history alone. Selfcare could, with time, become more useful, allowing users to export or print statements,  older than three months, and other financial institutions to access & review the data  - and with that, a hawker, taxi driver, or other self-employed worker, without a formal banking history could generate a decent, mature,  credit position to discuss with a new bank. 

Kenya's Top Banks

as at June 2010

Bank Assets Pre-Tax-Profit
1. Barclays Kshs 173 billion ($2.16 billion), profit of Kshs 4.75 billion ($59.3 million)
2. KCB assets of Kshs 207 billion ($2.59 billion), profits of Kshs 4.34 billion ($54 million)
3. Equity 117,578 4,282
4. Standard Chartered 131,348 4,037
5. Cooperative 133,322 2,848
6. Diamond Trust 54,109 1,508
7. Citibank Kenya 63,812 1,499
8. Commercial Bank of Africa 60,229 1,465
9 Investment & Mortgages 56,630 1,239
10. National Bank of Kenya assets of 59,390 million ($742 million) and profits of Kshs 1,200 ($15 million) - then CFCStanbic (falling out of the top 10), NIC, Baroda, Imperial, and Bank of India.

Notes- KCB is the largest bank (and group) but is less profitable than Barclays which is the most profitable bank
- Equity may be the most profitable bank by next year: Five years ago (2006) they had 1/6 (Kshs 500m) of Barclays profits (Kshs 3 billion), now mid-way into 2010, they are the country's 5th largest in assets, and 3rd in profits - and are about 7X large by both measures compared to five years ago, while KCB is 1.5X larger and Barclays is 0.5X larger than it was in 2006.
- Equity is perceived better in market terms than KCB though its half its size and has the same profits this year.

Changes since last year
- Credit sharing between banks is now being enforced
- Anti-money laundering law now in effect
- The Government of Kenya has set out to raise Kshs 31 billion ($388 million for infrastructure projects; Kenyan banks currently have almost half as much money invested in government securities as they do with loans to customers
- The new constitution passed this month means we will have currency without the face of a president (virtually all existing currency bear the portraits of Kenya's past presidents)

- Equity and several other Kenyan banks have decided to embrace and work with M-Pesa and other mobile money channels instead of fighting them
- Micro-finance institutions (MFI's) are stepping up into the commercial banking sphere

Incoming banks (all of which have micro-finance origins)
- Faulu Kenya
- Jamii Bora (formerly City Finance)
- KWFT

Gone banks
- Southern Credit (bought by Equatorial)
- S&L (absorbed into KCB)

Data Collected but Not Processed

So much data is being collected from Kenya citizens these days at various points of transactions by citizens. This is largely in the form of being asked to produce more and more documents to authenticate/verify information that some of the organizations already know or have in their archives - these include:

- Last week (June 30) marked the tax filing deadline Kenyans who rushed to the revenue authority offices and returned forms, while some even managed to file online
- Government workers & civil servants have been filing their annual income and asset returns for about six years now in a wealth declaration exercise – but the forms are just filed away, and for some who participate such as members of parliament, the rules stipulate that no one can look at their forms ever!
- Mobile phone companies have began to comply with a directive (not a law) that asks mobile phone subscribers to register and verify their data in a bid to crack down on terrorism, money laundering, hate crimes etc. A lot of this information’s is already in the hands of the companies e.g. with Safaricom, post-paid subscribers, M-pesa users and any shareholder who registered for dividends by m-pesa last year has already given all of this information – and Safaricom have now issued a statement that m-pesa and post-pay customers won’t have to re-submit their information. Kahenya views the mobile phone registration exercise as being for national security to build a database on citizens that they can tap into if/when they choose to scrutinize.
- From July this year, it has been mandated that there will be Kenya banks share information in a program to improve the assessment of borrowers capability to repay loans and which is hoped will lower the cost of credit (to good re-payers) and amount of bad debts at banks (by filtering out bad re-payers)
- Some banks have changed, others have not. Some like Barclays ask you to bring in a passport photo to open an account, while others like Equity snap your digital picture in their banking hall after you fill out the forms. Still in a single bank you may have an account, but to open another savings or credit card account, you may be asked to produce photocopy of ID, passport photo, and your bank statement
- My problems with custody registrar services who are one of the largest collectors of photocopies of documents, continues to this day; and CRS appear to have been vindicated by the Kenyan stockbrokers fraternity who have endorsed the Kenya capital markets proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering efforts by way of obtaining as much information as they can to ascertain a customers risk profile, nature of business, sources of funds and they are also to report any transactions greater than $10,000 (~Kshs 800,000)

A lot of the information is in paper photocopy form, and in application forms which thousands of people fill out without reading the fine print of what the information can be used for e.g. Safaricom m-pesa dividend mobile phone dividend payment form explicitly stated

Safaricom recognizes the importance of protecting privacy (3.1)… Safaricom collects personal information that we use to profile m-pesa users (3.2) and administer accounts …Safaricom does not share your information with unauthorized persons (3.3)…and you expressly consent and authorize Safaricom to disclose data relating to your dividends to (among others) Kenya police, central bank of Kenya, Kenya anti corruption commission, the central depository & settlement corporation (11.2)

So there is a massive amount of information being collected, but is it being processed? No and Yes. No because it may at most be at most scrutinized at the point of receipt/approval (mainly only in the case of banks) and then filed away to only be retrieved if an account goes bad.

This time around: Kenya Stockbroker collapse, Report leaks, Credit Reference Live

Time for another this time around post which looks at stories that recur in the business environment

Mars Group Kenya: The an anti-corruption watchdog group is the wikileaks for Kenya, re-publishing hitherto top-secret government reports at their website.

Mars Group research and produce their own reports, but their archives contain a growing list of reports of corruption in Kenya that is worth checking out. This week they have reports done by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the government of Kenya on the collapse of Triton Oil Company and on the misuse of funds for Maize famine relief in 2008. Last month they also released the report on the sale of the Grand Regency hotel. The Triton report shows that:
- At Kenya pipeline company (KPC) the oil collateral agreement was poorly drafted and ambiguous. Also managers had great discretion, procedures were lax /there was inter-departmental conflict (oil was released without verification) and documentation was poor (since documents would get lost at KPC, financers would exchange documents then present them all to KPC at once)
- Triton was aggressive with financing and would arrange for shipment before they got financing. They were stuck at some point and KCB entered into a finance agreement for goods when the ship was already in Kenya
- Bad banking Ecobank have no claim against KPC, while the Fortis claim against Triton is suspect. Also Glencore had stopped financing Triton in June 2008 as they were suspicious about KPC fuel stock claims
- KCB and other financiers did not cooperate with the PWC investigators
- The debt owed to KCB may be substantially lower than KCB claims and they have provided little information to assist in verification of the Triton debt.
- Kenya anti-corruption commission should investigate further staff named in the report

GoK Bond The Government of Kenya is going to raise Kshs 14.5 billion for infrastructure via a third infrastructure bond. How does that compare to a similar bond a year ago?
2009: Kshs 18 billion ($240 million), interest rate 12.5%, minimum bid Kshs 100,000 (~$1,250), maturity 8 years, principal repaid in 2015, 2017, 2021. Funds used for road, geothermal, water projects
2010: Kshs 14.5 billion ($188 million), interest rate 9.75% tax exempt, minimum Kshs 100,000, maturity 8 years, principal repaid in 2016, 2018. Funds used for water, sewer, irrigation, road, and geothermal projects
The 2009 bond was over-subscribed and the only notable difference in 2010 is the lower interest rate offered. The CBK has decided the high cost of loans offered by commercial banks and perhaps by offering the same banks a lower return on government bonds; they will offer more competitive borrowing rates to the public

Credit Reference: February has also seen the licensing of Kenya’s first credit reference bureau – CRB Africa by the bank regulator, the Central Bank of Kenya. Following this, commercial banks have apparently commenced sharing information with the agency. Some of the rules governing sharing of data were highlighted when the credit reference rules were gazetted almost two years ago. These include
- Bureaus may share info only with a customers’ permission (which happens when you sign for a loan)
- They may only share information for business decision making (evaluate credit prospects) and must keep track of all information they share
- Customers are entitled to one free report a year, and within 30 days of a negative referral.
- If a customer complains, and bureau not able to complete an investigation of disputed information within a month, information will be deleted as request by customer
So what information will they compile?
- For individuals: Name Citizenship ID / PIN Postal/ Telephone Credit history (as reported) Court judgments (as reported) Referees
- For companies: Company registration details postal/physical/telephone Credit history (as reported), Court judgments (as reported), Guarantees
Shareholdings/directorships

Stockbroker collapse: This month saw the placing of another stockbroker under statutory management – this time its Ngenye Kariuki Stockbrokers [Last year in March it was Discount stockbrokers that was placed under statutory management]

Despite strong defense from the Kenya Association of Stockbrokers & Investments Banks - KASIB who say the brokers problems were manageable and did not warrant the intervention of the authorities the broker was in a weak financial position.
A summary by Faida Investment Bank, based on the published un-audited results of Ngenye Kariuki showed this
Half year June 2008 versus 2009
June 08 income 35m, expenses, 21 million, pre-tax profit of 10 million
June 09 income 3 million, expenses 10, pre-tax loss of 11 million
Share capital of 50 million, capital reserves of 251 million (which many brokers draw from the sale price in 2006 of Francis Thuo stockbrokers) [and the same amount appears as an intangible asset) at June 2009, the broker had an overdraft position of 63 million and receivable of 127 million which KASIB is laying at the feet of Citibank for withholding funds from the 2008 Safaricom IPO that are owed to several stockbrokers.

Old Mutual, Credit Reference, Insular TZ

Old mutual loosens up: Old Mutual , the pioneer of unit trusts in Kenya has made some radical changes to it contractual savings plans to cope with a changing market place with many unit trust choices from a competitive fund and insurance industry. Changes include;
- Plans will no longer lapse if premium payments are stopped. E.g. when people get retrenched
- Savings (in a lapsed plan) will remain invested until maturity or can be paid out early
- If your saving plan was terminated without a payout, consider it reinstated!

Credit reference rules: Former finance minister Amos Kimunya was able to gazette the rules for operations of credit reference bureaus in Kenya before he left office. Provisions include;
- Bureaus will be licensed by the central bank
- Signup costs are 100,000 shillings ($1,500), a bank guarantee for 1 million and another fee of 100,000 per year
- Bureaus may share info only with a customers’ permission (which happens when you sign for a loan)
- They may only share information for business decision making (evaluate credit prospects)
- Bureaus must keep track of all information they share
- Customers are entitled to one free report a year, and within 30 days of a negative referral
- if a customer complains, and bureau not able to complete an investigation of disputed information within a month, information will be deleted as request by customer

Undugu at work: More Tanzanian IPO news with the upcoming sale of 21% of the Tanzanian Government shares of the National Microfinance Bank (NMB) to raise 63 billion shillings ($54 million) and later to be listed on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. But the offer is open to to individual Tanzanians and companies that are whole owned by Tanzanians - unlike Stanbic (Ug) and Safaricom (Ke) (which Tanzanians were also barred from subscribing to)

The trouble with Celtel

are free calls enough?

[I am not a customer, but I have probably bought and discarded three of their SIM cards to coincide with some ongoing promotions. Too many people I call are on Safaricom, and until number portability comes along, (carrying my number to another networks) I am stuck with Safaricom]

Beside number portability, there are other things they need to sort out; Celtel has been losing customers (23% down from a year ago), executive staff (compared to the ‘stable' team at Safaricom and direction. The change of brand from Kencel to celtel to Zain only benefits paint and marketing companies (but there’s already a 'Z' brand in Tanzania and a couple of other African countries)

My biggest peeve with them is there are too many products; these are never promoted long enough to mature or register with subscribers and potential customers.

This week
- For internet/data users - they have Uhurunet - unlimited internet service, whose equipment is a USB modem costing 6,000 shillings [$95] and 3,000 [$48] per month for unlimited internet which is not bad [and this compares well against Safaricom]

- For callers: Earlier this week they launched a six-month tariff with free airtime for people who purchase cheap phones (targeted at rural subscribers). And now from the skunkworks group we learn that they have another new tariff with Free calls from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day (top up with 100 shillings to take advantage) - will this be the one that gives them an edge over Safaricom? That's the problem with Celtel - great products, big marketing budget, but jumbled messages that confuse subscribers. In the last year they have advertised their lowest rate at 6 shillings (Mambo 6), 4 shillings (to 3 preferred numbers) and now 3/= ($0.05)per minute. That is three times cheaper than Safaricom, but who has the masses and who has the right message?

Other tales

- Opportunity: Nominate a worthy Kenyan to the Generation Kenya program

- From Uganda and GTV comes pre-paid premium TV - subscribers can pay for their GTV pay TV packages using scratch cards

Experian Kenya: joining the Kenyan credit reference pool is Experian in partnership with Quest Holdings.

- Day 19 of the Safaricom IPO has 4,121 deals, worth 342 million ($5.42 million) Closing 7.20 High 7.40 Low 7.00 Last 7.20 and volume of 47.5 million shares. It’s well supported and Buyers must be sniffing out a conclusion to the de-leveraging process. Commentary and data from Rich.co.ke - NSE data vendor [with Free real time prices between 0930 -1500]

Record Bank profits expected

No doubt, there will be very strong, embarrassingly record profits (esp. from Equity Bank), which will shock Kenyan’s but the results are for the year (2007) which was virtually over by the time that the country plunged into chaos. The impact of the economic disruptions, violence, and framework may not be seen at banks until after June 2008. Meanwhile one bank that was in expansion mode has put off the program and staff recruitment until further notice.

SME Finance: EABS Bank, soon to be Eco Bank (after the West African bank takes over 75%), has partnered with Enablis to provide young and upcoming entrepreneurs with bank loans this year.

Check your own credit: what has been personal right for millions of US consumers is now available in Kenya – the self credit check. The service is offered by CRB Africa, Kenya’s leading credit reference bureau, but many here have no credit at all. Still it’s a free service, which someone should try out.

Corporate governance; KCB has an ethics help desk at its site to receive confidential reports on fraud and workplace abuses within the organization.

Bug-me-not: From the bankwatch blog comes results of a survey that shows bank customers do not want bothersome SMS’s sent to their phones that don’t add value or inform them much e.g. account balance messages that cost 30 shillings ($0.4). I think it would be useful to have services that tells you when a cheque is about to bounce, or the CFC chip card alerts which inform account holders each time their credit card is charged

opportunities
- EADB: Project Officers, Senior Project officers,
- I&M Bank: Credit Officer, Treasury Dealers/Officers, (Asset) Relationship Manager, (Liability) Relationship Manager, and Relationship Officer
- Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) : Webmaster, HTML text editors, Editor, Marketing Manager, and 3-month internships for year 2008. Apply to the Programs Manager, info@irenkenya.com by 15/2

Money Transfer within Kenya - Part II

Part I has come to pass with Safaricom’s new M-Pesa service enabling money transfer via cell phone.

Mzansi Kenya: The new technology does not pose a threat to banks as it operates outside banking circles. What banks should look out for is a populist attempt introduce mzansi style banking as they continue to report super profits year after year which are unfairly attributed to excessive fees they levy on their customers.

Visa, watch out: The next group to watch out for what's happening at Safaricom should be Visa and other credit card manufactures in Africa. Cell phone airtime is virtual money - which is what debit and credit cards are - enabling customers and merchants to exchange virtual payments settled days later - at a substantial fee to both parties.

With cell phones this is already happening but it's just not formalized. The Option - Safaricom's free magazine publication has a letter to the editor this month from Joe Nickson of Kerugoya (central Kenya) who paid his fare in a matatu (bus) by transferring 50 shillings airtime to the conductor's phone and he received 30 shillings actual cash as change.

Airtime offers many more possibilities - 7 million cell phone (including more post-paid cell phone customers) vs. 100, 000 credit card users in Africa. Alongside his credit card terminal, a merchant can have a terminal with a dedicated cell phone line to receive virtual payments of airtime from safaricom users making small purchases. At the end of the day, he'll be able to check his virtual balance - and either re-sell the airtime to customers or use it to purchase other goods.

Another advantage of cell phone payments is they require no background checks or credit history.

Could Safaricom go to a higher level and enable online payments to enable their subscribers to buy over the web and pay by transfering payments to a website like Mamamikes or is that already happening?

Banking law amended in 2007

The banking amendment act (2006) and finance act (2006) were gazetted in January 2007. Some changes that will affect the banking system in a busy year, in addition to possible merger activity, include;

- Ban on bank charges within savings accounts. In fact banks must pay interest as long as the account minimums are maintained
- Section 44A (in duplum rule) – banks can only recover principal amount lent, interest to an amount not exceeding principal, and recovery expenses from bad debts. (Fortunately for banks this will not be applied retroactively)
- CBK gets a deputy governor appointed by the president
- CBK also gets to vet the professional and moral suitability of owners (of more than 5%), directors, and senior managers of banks
- All banks must get permission from the finance minister to open branches or establish subsidiaries outside Kenya
- Banks are allowed to invest in real estate. They can also hold land for as long as it takes to realize/recover debt
- Allows sharing of non performing assets information with the Central bank, others banks and credit reference bureaus

Credit Reference Kenya

The Finance Bill expected to be passed early in 2007 will require banks to share information on non-performing loans and bad debts through credit reference bureaus. Previously.

Credit reference & bad debt collection in Kenya

In the East African this week, Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) Kenya Country Manager Wachira Ndege, expects more bank’s to use expert evaluation before making lending decisions especially when advancing (unsecured) personal loans. He reveals that Barclays, NIC, Stanbic, KCB card, Fina, and Southern Credit use CRB services.

Also a CRB subsidiary, Collection Africa, is bidding alongside Transunion and Metropol to purchase the bad loan portfolio of National Bank of Kenya at a discount’s of 60%o. Collection Africa has been contracted by collect bad debts by Stanbic Kenya, Stanchart Tanzania and Barclays (in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana, Zamia and Ghana)

Our Elected Leaders: The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The Good
Parliament passed the finance Bill yesterday, which means that it is finally illegal to issue a bouncing cheque. For years now MP’s, who are reputed to be repeat offenders, have resisted passing such a Bill (Standard 9/12 page 1)

The Bad
The Parliamentary Select Committee brushed aside Constitutional Affairs Minister Kiraitu Murungi’s opposition to the Bill and endorsed their own recommendations, which they will present to the Attorney general. The last year has shown the folly of crossing paths with Kiraitu – and it will only lead to delay in completion (if ever) of the very expensive new constitutional process. (Nation 9/12 page 2)

The (Very) Ugly: Ngilu’s sucker-punch
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=21431
Late on the 2nd last day of the parliamentary year, while most of her cabinet opponents were settling down to plan their retreats and holidays, parliament unanimously passed Minister Charity Ngilu's controversial National Social Health Insurance Fund Bill. The Nation errs in using the word ‘unanimously’ because other reports indicate that there were only about 30, mostly opposition, MP’s in the house at the time of the debate and voting. However good or bad the bill will turn out to be next year, the fact that 30 non-working, non-taxed, wealthy people who will not pay for, or use, the new scheme can pass such a momentous Bill in the middle of the night defies logic.

Other Good and Bad Events

(Almost) Good http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=21430
All top parastatal jobs will in future be advertised and open to competition, says Muthaura (yeah, right!)

Bad (Sign) – Somali Peace Plan in Jeopardy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4078251.stm
A Somali minister and two deputies have resigned from the country's newly-formed transitional government. While the trio complained that the administration was too large and not representative enough, correspondents say they may have simply been unhappy with the jobs they were awarded in the new team.