afro puffs

05:47 am

04:50 pm

• Most of the firms are based in Nairobi, mostly because of the communication links available at the market for the services outputted.
• The firms are basically middle-sized affairs, which to me is the best
• The firms receive little or no support from the government.

12:19 pm - KENYAN DEMOCRACY

What really is democracy? This is not a rhetoric question because over the past month I have been grappling with it but every moment of thought has brought more questions than answers.

I thought one of the components of democracy is free speech but here where I live it is either ODM or death.  Since 30^th December 2007, we have been living in fear be4cause of perceived support for PNU and Kibaki.  Our thoughts are supposed to be in uniformity with those of other in the area.

I live in Rift Valley, Kericho in particular, which is more or less the heartland of ODM’s support.  Running battles with police and gunshots had become the order of the day as people discussed secession with ease, oblivious of the ramification.  Kibaki’s tribes people, regardless of who they voted for were routed out of their homes and told to go and live in State House.  Luo’s were hacked out of Central in revenge.

Democracy, as I know it doesn’t not entail forcing everyone to agree with you, you try to convince them but if they do not well and good.  They are free to have their own view points.  Nor does it entail voting for someone then having him/her rigged out.

People are destroying property and killing others in the name of democracy while others are using state instruments to revenge in the same name of democracy.  Democracy is invoked by both parties but up to now I have yet to see how the unfolding events are in any way connected to this hallowed principle.

I am starting to wonder if we really need it!

11:19 am - The Rehabilitation of Kamlesh Pattni

Goldenberg for Kenyans is a word that is not mentioned with good intentions.  This is because it is the name of a project that almost everyone will agree brought the Kenyan economy to its knees.  Basically Goldenberg was a company that exported gold from Kenya to Dubai and Britain.  There was and still is an export compensation scheme to compensate and thus boost exporters businesses.  This is calculated as a percentage of the total export.  In Goldenberg’s case, the compensation was increased from 15% to 35% and this is in spite of the fact that Kenya has no gold deposits to support a commercial enterprise.

This means that Goldenberg would export fictitious gold and claim billions of shillings as compensation.  At the height of its operations, Goldenberg had to open a bank so as to handle it large transactions, it had by now roped in senior government officials who smoothed its way around treasury for a piece of the action.

The effects of this were disastrous, interest rates in the country shot up from 21% to 70%.  The deficit caused by payments to Goldenberg forced the government to go back and ask for a loan from Goldenberg which was happy to do so but at ridiculously high rates.  Goldenberg almost single handedly bankrolled the 1992 elections and managed to put up a posh hotel in Nairobi.

The man behind all of this was Kamlesh Pattni, a nondescript Kenyan of Asian origin.  Then the empire crumpled, his business license cancelled by the government which by now was being hounded by the Bretton Woods institutions, his bank closed down as it was in fact trading fraudulently and it was now found out that he had indeed be trading in non existent gold.

A commission of inquiry set up in 2003 found out that he was responsible for the fraud and recommended that he be prosecuted.

What is baffling me now is Pattni’s attempts at rehabilitation into society.  Any right thinking Kenyan will acknowledge that taking into account the damage he wrought to our lives, he should first be tried in a court of law then if guilty, punished and if innocent cleared.

But Pattni is a clever man, after being acquitted of trumped up murder charges he turned to Christianity, which in our society is the great dry-cleaner of reputations.  He now goes by the name Brother Paul.  He then took over a political party ‘KENDA’ and launched himself into politics.  Couple this with charity missions to churches and organizations then you have a suspected conman turned philanthropist.

Kenyan politics being what they are many politicians have trooped into his party seeking a share of his wealth.

I am dismayed at the short memory of Kenyans.  I for one will not approach Pattni nor will I buy his pseudo-preaching until he has gone through the court process only then will I listen to his views.

09:55 am - The Muslim factor in Kenyan Politics

One of Kenya’s presidential candidates, Raila Odinga signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a section of Muslim leaders promising to better their lot so as to get them to support his candidacy.  This MOU, since it came into the public domain has caused furore.  On one side you have the Christian leaders criticizing the document on the other you have a Muslim community supporting it.  In the middle is a confused electorate trying to make sense of the cacophony.

The release of the actual document after weeks of denial of its existence, with a purported version of it doing rounds on the internet has only heightened the tension.  That the two documents are in fact dissimilar only jumbles the situation more.

It is in this backdrop that we view the position of the Muslim community in Kenya’s current political arena.  Previous elections have been met with snubs by the Muslim community who have always cast their lot with the popular party of the day.  Politicians have previously treated them with disdain and ignored them.  Right now we have two major candidates, the aforementioned, Raila and Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent, wasting no efforts to woo them.  During the celebrations to mark the end of Ramadhan both were clad in a kanzu and fez as they persuaded this constituency.  A rare sight in Kenyan politics.

The Muslim community has thus emerged as an important group whose support might influence the outcome of the elections.

They are currently basking in the limelight and making demands which they know will be fulfilled however outrageous.  This is understandable as they have suffered under successive regimes.  The hassles that a Muslim youth undergoes so as to get a National Identity Card and Passport are traumatising. They are treated like second class citizens, more-so those of Arab origin.

That said it is the general feeling here that Raila should not have signed the MOU and this is being used against him as his opponents appeal for the Christian vote.  But the fact remains that Muslims are an aggrieved lot and steps should be taken to right these wrongs.  What is in question is how to do this.

Kibaki in as much as he is trying to convince the community to support him has the fact that he allowed Kenyan Muslims to be taken to Guantanamo Bay by the US government working against him. 

One thing emerges from this entire goings on; the Muslim community is enjoying the attention they are getting from the presidential candidates.  Who they will support in the end remains to be seen.

01:24 pm - Technology + Politics = ?

As you have probably noticed my last post was miles away from what I usually blog on.  Technology and politics seem very diverse subjects.  The main reason for this is that I am majorly into technology, software, hardware and all that.  And if there comes a chance to amalgamate these two subjects I would be in bliss.

Henre says that politicians seem averse to technology.  That is they are afraid to attract and convince voters using the web.  The main thrust of his post is that, if we look at businesses and corporations, they are getting onto the web to reach out to potential customers.  BMW created a page and group on facebook which now has a lot of fans and members.  The corporations are hoping that the fans will turn into customers at one point, and they are.  This is something which is increasingly being done by many other brands.

Looking at party websites, one thing comes out, lack of information.  It kind of feels like the parties are performing perfunctory acts, so as to be seen as being with the times.  I am looking for a situation where I encounter a site which grabs me with its aesthetics and content, a situation where the publishers of these sites really put in some effort to entice me.

As times evolve, businesses are realising that the web is the new catching ground for customers and one wonders why parties and politicians are being left behind.  Lack of know-how in this field should be a bog-down as there are enough techies to advise on, and manage this endeavours.

Try it out it won't hurt

05:04 pm - Africa 2 (point) 0

There is a post by Hash titled Africa 2.0 that got me pondering about IT, start-ups and all that jazz.  IT in Africa has grown in leaps and bounds, every day young and not so young chaps are starting businesses on the net and are proving worthy competitors of start-up in the west.

Hash gives a list, a collage really, of various start-ups in the continent.  As soon as I got that email I start following the links to the various sites and it was mind blowing.

 
Then the word broadband came into my mind, to get the most out of IT, it is a prerequisite that access be available and at pocket-friendly prices.  So it was disheartening to when the Kenyan government pulled out of EASSy, a regional project to connect the continent to the Middle East, to launch their own christened TEAMs, ignoring the funny sounding names, we can find no reason as to why the government pulled out other, [1. show some kind of supremacy to South Africa which was involved in the project] and [2. some people in the gov’t saw a chance to pocket big kick-backs]

Sokari also has something to say about this.

Away from the bureaucratic squabbles, it is notable that most of these start-ups have not asked for funding from governments but rather individuals who are willing to slog it out to get to the top.  From the guys Peupe, a blogging platform from Kenya, to the chaps at RSSza, a South African feed reader, few of them if any got support from governments when starting.  It is encouraging that a generation of Africans has decided to take matters in their own hands and forge ahead.

Also on matters to do with ICT, I have been trying to master this programming language Python and though I learning bit by bit, it can be frustrating sometimes.  If any of you know a book which helps a bit tell me!

10:15 am - MUGABE: ENTRY DENIED!!!

I have written a lot about comrade BOB, this not because I like him but because I think what he is doing in Zimbabwe is wrong.  I would not like to rehash the facts about how life in Zimbabwe is, because they are available in many blog, newspaper and other media.  The long and short of it is that it is not pretty there.

The reason for me revisiting the man Ian Smith called a communist and thief, [though I do not think that is an apt description of the man] is the Afro-European Summit which will be held in Portugal in some weeks time.

Various countries are distressed at him being in Portugal for the meet.  Gordon Brown in particular promises to give the summit a wide berth if Mugabe is let past the immigration desk at the airport.  Others diplomatically ‘question his human rights record’ the likes of the Scandinavian bloc.  Reuters report that Portugal the hosts would prefer Mugabe not come for the summit. 

African countries on the other hand, in a show of sovereignty, insist on his presence there, the usual suspects behind this being the SADC bloc with Levi Mwanawasa saying that if he is not there none of them will be there.

To me this are all side shows, it is unfortunate that we have not seen the summit for what it really is, a talk shop.  The summit will not go any further to promote good governance in the continent nor will it more importantly level the skewed playing field that is Afro-Euro trade.  This is due to the fact that all the summits which have been held all over the world have not brought any tangible benefits.  The G8 summit in Gleneagles being one of them and the CHOGM meets and WTO conferences this is because it not in the interest of the EU to trade fairly with Africa.  That is a fact and I would welcome any positions to the latter.

Robert Mugabe presence there or in other summit will have not effect on Africa present condition other than give the world a chance to scold him at close proximity, which to me is a good thing.

PS

From my previous post I wondered if the CHOGM meet would do anything to Musharraf, it seems that the have suspended Pakistan from the Commonwealth.  I wonder what that will achieve as it did not get them any further in Zimbabwe's situation.

11:34 am - CHOGM

CHOGM or the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting has come to Uganda.  It being the country that it is nothing was left to chance to make the heads of state as comfortable as possible.

Much is being made of the Queen foray into Uganda but I fail to see how this will benefit Uganda or the region as a whole.  This is not to say that no one will benefit, already there are technocrats in Uganda reaping from the conference but in rather crafty ways.  Looking at the CHOGM budget there is an allocation for 200,000 dollars for BlackBerry phones for the officials running the conference, there is also some odd 17,000 dollars for umbrellas.

Away from that, the commonwealth body has in the past failed repeatedly to live up to its role as some sort of conscience of the formerly British colonised countries and has performed dismally in promoting good governance in the bloc.

Take the case of Zimbabwe for instance, while bowing the omnipresence of Britain, the commonwealth secretariat together with its membership allowed the situation to deteriorate culminating in Zimbabwe’s pullout.

As a bloc mainly focused on good governance, (though it occasionally attempts to enter the realm of world economics, mostly without much success) it is disappointing to see individuals committing travesties to their country’s constitutions while a blind eye is the only response from CHOGM.  There has been a failure to uphold the values the commonwealth stands for rather the bloc has been engaging in perfunctory talk so as to be seen as working while in fact it is not.

Very few people in this world are not aware of President Museveni’s dictatorial tendencies but none in the commonwealth has questioned this.  I study in Uganda and daily I witness his actions against the judiciary, media and opposition, in spite of this he still remains one of CHOGM’s blue eyed boys, and as the façade that is now Kampala is shown to the guest he will be congratulated from a job well done.

It is fact that the only instance that you will receive a tongue lashing from the commonwealth bloc is if you are a small country with or few influential friends.  Other than that if you are like Musharraf, do not worry, just a slap on the wrist will be coming your way.  Just enjoy the warmth of Uganda and have a taste of their fried pig while you are at it.

11:27 am - Kenya Elections 2007

I have deliberately ignored the elections which are currently taking place in Kenya.  It being an election year, it is almost impossible to escape the noise levels.

Last Friday the parties held their parliamentary nominations and to say the least they were irregular.  The Standard newspaper called it ‘Rungu Democracy’ literally translating ‘Club’ democracy, the weapon that is.  The exercise not democratic at all this was a complete turnaround from the promises of the various party bigwigs.

And that is the main reason of my disinterest in the current political happenings.  There is no major difference between what all these parties are offering in terms of new ideas and policy reforms.  ODM has tried to do so by promising a radical shift of the system of government to a federal republic.  This is commendable but rhetoric rarely turns to actions in politics.

It is pertinent to note that ODM has had policy announcements on various topics altered due to some outcry not by the public but by moneyed in Kenya.  Raila Odinga, ODMs presidential candidate, moved away from his promise of establishing a restitution instrument for plundered wealth after he realised that he was upsetting the status quo, never mind the fact that the ordinary citizen applauded Raila’s statement and was waiting for it implementation.

Mwai Kibaki is a symbol of continuity.  He exhorts the public to re-elect him for a continuation of project which he says can only be completed by him.  But Kibaki reneged on many pacts he made with the public, one being the size of the government, it still being as bloated as it was.  The fact that he has former President Moi as his re-election advisor puts paid to any anti-corruption efforts.

Kalonzo Musyoka’s past record in the government tells it all he is not and never will be the man that Kenya should look up to lead us to a higher level.  He was in Moi’s government for a very long time and there has not been any discernible shift in his political thoughts and ideals.

All the three men are playing to gallery and trying to win through euphoria and emotion rather than by presenting well thought out manifestos.  A look at their various manifestos shows guy promising heaven but not the means to get there, and that, my dear folk is why this election is of little interest to me.