Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 13, 2005 13:35:51 GMT 3
Getting the Kenyan show on the road
From: Al Kags - alkags@gmail.com Tue, Dec 13, 2:25 AM
Getting the show on the road
A DIGITAL ESSAY BY AL KAGS
DECEMBER 13 2005.
NAIROBI, KENYA
I am writing this at 2am on the night concluding Jamhuri day – December 13th 2005. It has been an easy day for me where for the first time in months I have been able to sleep for more than 13 hours – indeed; it is the first time in months since I have slept more than 5.
It interests me that it is on the day that I have spent more time sleeping than ever before that I have had the strength and the inspiration to write what I think is my second digital essay of 2005. Considering that in 2002 I wrote just about everyday of the week including Sunday, I believe I am remiss. This is going to be long so settle down or print it out.
But so much has happened this year that has opened my eyes to so many things, I have been privileged to meet and learn from many people, and working with East Africa’s best publisher, I have had the privilege of starting Kenya’s first EXCLUSIVELY positive stories magazine. It is a magazine that has ignored politics. Of course, politics is the main subject in the rest of the media and as a result it is the number one topic of discussion with many Kenyans – simply because they are not told about the rest of what is happening.
Doing a positive stories magazine that completely ignores politics has been good for me: it enabled to look under the noise at the beautiful country that Kenya is - and I am not talking about tourism or wildlife, which has been doing tremendously well (the only other positive thing that Kenya’s media acknowledges because it is obvious – as if all that is positive about Kenya is its wildlife).
Smelt the coffee
While I gave only a cursory glance at politics, I woke up and smelt the Kenyan coffee (and learnt that there was an initiative by local coffee farmers to re-brand Kenyan coffee so that it is gourmet coffee – branded by the farm or the region, just like champagne is branded. From what I understand, this will see greater competition in the coffee industry and the cartel that markets coffee, making big profits and seeing the farmers barely getting by is about to die). I drank that coffee with milk that has Kenyan farmers buying more cows (the industry has greater demand than supply) because farmers are now making nineteen shillings on the litre and they are getting paid on time.
In fact, I know that the dairy industry is doing pretty well because as I suggested back in 2002, the government raised taxes on the importation of dairy products (in 2002, soon after Uhuru Kenyatta became minister, I remember) and the government re-acquired KCC from the KCC 2000 Ltd company that had bought it. Not only has KCC posted a profit for the first time in many years, but their network of milk collection points is increasing by the day – if you grew up in shags, then you will remember that KCC used to have drop off points for milk almost in every village. As it went bust so did most of those drop-off points. Many are back.
Camel milk is also doing much better and I know that the Kenya Bureau of Standards and a local camel milk processing company in Nanyuki are working to come up with standards for camel milk production and processing. With just over one million camels, Kenya boasts of the second highest number of camels in the world – after Somalia, I believe and with demand for camel milk looking up, so is demand for camels.
I have seen that Kenya, it’s people and their companies are taking over this region and indeed the world. Examine this: Kenya Airways has just upstaged East African Breweries (another mainly Kenyan company) in the East Africa Most Respected Company survey. Other stars in the survey included Bidco Oil refineries, the oil company that has just acquired acres upon acres of Ugandan plantations to process oil even more and Napuerile swear wordtt holdings (it is perhaps the best supermarket chain in our part of the world and it lives up to its brand promise: if you need it they’ve got it).
Uchumi, the original Kenyan supermarket is fast getting back on its feet and I can tell you this right now: if you buy shares and you have a bit of investment money put aside, buy Uchumi, it’s the healthiest longer term investment on the boards today. Kenyan companies that I’ve heard could be getting into the NSE soon include Napuerile swear wordtt, Wananchi Online Ltd. (an ISP), and several others.
By the way, financial institutions that were little league chaps a short while ago are taking the more established banks at a fast run for their money: what used to be Equity building society is now a bank proper. KCB’s savings & Loan re-branded itself to become the modern S&L and its taking the mortgage market by a storm. Speaking of mortgages, housing is doing unbelievably well.
On investment, by the way: did you know that what was the Investment Promotion Centre is now the Kenya Investment Authority and that is a one stop shop for investment that was first conceptualised in 2003 at the National investment conference. My information is that it was signed into existence by the government and it has finally completed the starting work process and it is in motion. I’ve seen a list of many companies that have only recently invested Billions in Kenya over the last year or so only.
Looking at people, I am proud to be Kenyan: Jeff Koinange is now Africa Bureau Chief for CNN, Linus Kaikai is working up a great storm at SABC, Shem Ochuodho is leading the IT infrastructure development in Rwanda (working for the Rwandese government), and Tito Alai is responsible for the development of the Celtel brand that exists across Africa.
I have learnt that residents somewhere in Mathioya are generating their own electricity using the river and I have met a young boy called Peniel, aged nine, who is a chess world champion. Kenya is scooping awards at the KORA – that’s almost traditional now (big up Kaz and Neema, both of whom have only released one track yet they brought home Kora awards).
I learnt from our very own Dr. Kariuki Njenga, formerly of Minnesota now working with CDC in Nairobi that Kenya is one of the three countries best prepared for an Avian flu pandemic and Kenya is prepared not just for itself, but for the region.
Community policing has kicked in very well and Nairobi feels safer – perhaps more so because of the lights that adopt-a-light have put up all over town. By the way, you will be amazed at what Nairobi looks like nowadays: all the buildings are painted, the roads are painted, the pavements have flowers on them and the Moi avenue palm trees are standing up straight.
The point?
You may be happy to note that all of these has happened while Kenya’s politics raged full force. Then we had the referendum that came and went very peacefully. A couple of things here: many people were afraid of – and expected – violence during the referendum and immediately after and after the president sacked all the ministers, people thought that government would ground to a halt.
I deal with many civil servants in my daily life and it was interesting to see that there was only a marginal slow down in work – and only strategic work at that. Government (civil service) went on with their lives as if oblivious to the fact that there were no ministers present.
“Ministers don’t do too much even when they are here anyway,” a civil servant remarked to me recently, “since our budgets had already been approved and we are at implementation stage of many of our projects, we can work without them for a while.”
Perhaps it is therefore a lesson for us to learn not to take politics too seriously. It is after all a means of getting at making life better but Kenya has demonstrated for years that it prospers without politics – surely the above examples demonstrate it?
It is time we put politics into perspective. No society will do much without it – indeed no society will survive without it and we know how to politic really well – as someone recently said, “Kenyans don’t fight, they talk. They may double-talk, but at least they talk.”
As I see it, we are making too much of a big deal on the current political show that’s running daily on TV so much so we are losing track of what we want. But lets go back a bit on some home truths:
First, the only reason there was any amount of political will on redoing the constitution, was because of one man: Daniel arap Moi. Indeed he was the reason that the second important thing happened, that the opposition got together to front Kibaki under an MoU that, on hindsight, was shaky as a document anyway.
Once they succeeded (or should I say we?), both processes became derailed. They were only important in themselves as far as getting Moi to kabarak and now that he is there, we are unfocused.
I think that in light of this, we must focus on the fundamentals and that is moving on in real life. But that would require the leadership of a brave president, who stopped caring about re-election (even though he would like to be re-elected) and who was not only capable of saying forget the old methods of appointing ministers – such as regional (read:tribal) balancing and the like and get a leaner cabinet that is versatile enough to work and at the same time capable of shifting the focus from politics.
I like, I must say, the appointment of Raphael Tuju, Mukhisa Kituyi, Martha Karua, Amos Kimunya and Mutahi Kagwe because they are young, they are professionals with a proven record outside parliament and in parliament. I still have no idea what people like Njenga Karume and Kiraitu Murungi are still doing there – they are after all career politicians and not workers really – and I wish Peter Anyang Nyong’o was re-appointed. But that is neither here nor there and in my view, neither is the renegotiations and realignments that are going on.
I think that the president simply needs to come up to the people and say, “we may politic all we want but that doesn’t put ugali on our tables. The time has come for us to get down and work.” If he and his team actually got working and they told us what and how they are doing, they will be surprised to know that Kenyans will vote him in.
Why? Because the consumer, as marketers know (and the voter) is not stupid, he is your wife (and mother and sister and cousin).
From: Al Kags - alkags@gmail.com Tue, Dec 13, 2:25 AM
Getting the show on the road
A DIGITAL ESSAY BY AL KAGS
DECEMBER 13 2005.
NAIROBI, KENYA
I am writing this at 2am on the night concluding Jamhuri day – December 13th 2005. It has been an easy day for me where for the first time in months I have been able to sleep for more than 13 hours – indeed; it is the first time in months since I have slept more than 5.
It interests me that it is on the day that I have spent more time sleeping than ever before that I have had the strength and the inspiration to write what I think is my second digital essay of 2005. Considering that in 2002 I wrote just about everyday of the week including Sunday, I believe I am remiss. This is going to be long so settle down or print it out.
But so much has happened this year that has opened my eyes to so many things, I have been privileged to meet and learn from many people, and working with East Africa’s best publisher, I have had the privilege of starting Kenya’s first EXCLUSIVELY positive stories magazine. It is a magazine that has ignored politics. Of course, politics is the main subject in the rest of the media and as a result it is the number one topic of discussion with many Kenyans – simply because they are not told about the rest of what is happening.
Doing a positive stories magazine that completely ignores politics has been good for me: it enabled to look under the noise at the beautiful country that Kenya is - and I am not talking about tourism or wildlife, which has been doing tremendously well (the only other positive thing that Kenya’s media acknowledges because it is obvious – as if all that is positive about Kenya is its wildlife).
Smelt the coffee
While I gave only a cursory glance at politics, I woke up and smelt the Kenyan coffee (and learnt that there was an initiative by local coffee farmers to re-brand Kenyan coffee so that it is gourmet coffee – branded by the farm or the region, just like champagne is branded. From what I understand, this will see greater competition in the coffee industry and the cartel that markets coffee, making big profits and seeing the farmers barely getting by is about to die). I drank that coffee with milk that has Kenyan farmers buying more cows (the industry has greater demand than supply) because farmers are now making nineteen shillings on the litre and they are getting paid on time.
In fact, I know that the dairy industry is doing pretty well because as I suggested back in 2002, the government raised taxes on the importation of dairy products (in 2002, soon after Uhuru Kenyatta became minister, I remember) and the government re-acquired KCC from the KCC 2000 Ltd company that had bought it. Not only has KCC posted a profit for the first time in many years, but their network of milk collection points is increasing by the day – if you grew up in shags, then you will remember that KCC used to have drop off points for milk almost in every village. As it went bust so did most of those drop-off points. Many are back.
Camel milk is also doing much better and I know that the Kenya Bureau of Standards and a local camel milk processing company in Nanyuki are working to come up with standards for camel milk production and processing. With just over one million camels, Kenya boasts of the second highest number of camels in the world – after Somalia, I believe and with demand for camel milk looking up, so is demand for camels.
I have seen that Kenya, it’s people and their companies are taking over this region and indeed the world. Examine this: Kenya Airways has just upstaged East African Breweries (another mainly Kenyan company) in the East Africa Most Respected Company survey. Other stars in the survey included Bidco Oil refineries, the oil company that has just acquired acres upon acres of Ugandan plantations to process oil even more and Napuerile swear wordtt holdings (it is perhaps the best supermarket chain in our part of the world and it lives up to its brand promise: if you need it they’ve got it).
Uchumi, the original Kenyan supermarket is fast getting back on its feet and I can tell you this right now: if you buy shares and you have a bit of investment money put aside, buy Uchumi, it’s the healthiest longer term investment on the boards today. Kenyan companies that I’ve heard could be getting into the NSE soon include Napuerile swear wordtt, Wananchi Online Ltd. (an ISP), and several others.
By the way, financial institutions that were little league chaps a short while ago are taking the more established banks at a fast run for their money: what used to be Equity building society is now a bank proper. KCB’s savings & Loan re-branded itself to become the modern S&L and its taking the mortgage market by a storm. Speaking of mortgages, housing is doing unbelievably well.
On investment, by the way: did you know that what was the Investment Promotion Centre is now the Kenya Investment Authority and that is a one stop shop for investment that was first conceptualised in 2003 at the National investment conference. My information is that it was signed into existence by the government and it has finally completed the starting work process and it is in motion. I’ve seen a list of many companies that have only recently invested Billions in Kenya over the last year or so only.
Looking at people, I am proud to be Kenyan: Jeff Koinange is now Africa Bureau Chief for CNN, Linus Kaikai is working up a great storm at SABC, Shem Ochuodho is leading the IT infrastructure development in Rwanda (working for the Rwandese government), and Tito Alai is responsible for the development of the Celtel brand that exists across Africa.
I have learnt that residents somewhere in Mathioya are generating their own electricity using the river and I have met a young boy called Peniel, aged nine, who is a chess world champion. Kenya is scooping awards at the KORA – that’s almost traditional now (big up Kaz and Neema, both of whom have only released one track yet they brought home Kora awards).
I learnt from our very own Dr. Kariuki Njenga, formerly of Minnesota now working with CDC in Nairobi that Kenya is one of the three countries best prepared for an Avian flu pandemic and Kenya is prepared not just for itself, but for the region.
Community policing has kicked in very well and Nairobi feels safer – perhaps more so because of the lights that adopt-a-light have put up all over town. By the way, you will be amazed at what Nairobi looks like nowadays: all the buildings are painted, the roads are painted, the pavements have flowers on them and the Moi avenue palm trees are standing up straight.
The point?
You may be happy to note that all of these has happened while Kenya’s politics raged full force. Then we had the referendum that came and went very peacefully. A couple of things here: many people were afraid of – and expected – violence during the referendum and immediately after and after the president sacked all the ministers, people thought that government would ground to a halt.
I deal with many civil servants in my daily life and it was interesting to see that there was only a marginal slow down in work – and only strategic work at that. Government (civil service) went on with their lives as if oblivious to the fact that there were no ministers present.
“Ministers don’t do too much even when they are here anyway,” a civil servant remarked to me recently, “since our budgets had already been approved and we are at implementation stage of many of our projects, we can work without them for a while.”
Perhaps it is therefore a lesson for us to learn not to take politics too seriously. It is after all a means of getting at making life better but Kenya has demonstrated for years that it prospers without politics – surely the above examples demonstrate it?
It is time we put politics into perspective. No society will do much without it – indeed no society will survive without it and we know how to politic really well – as someone recently said, “Kenyans don’t fight, they talk. They may double-talk, but at least they talk.”
As I see it, we are making too much of a big deal on the current political show that’s running daily on TV so much so we are losing track of what we want. But lets go back a bit on some home truths:
First, the only reason there was any amount of political will on redoing the constitution, was because of one man: Daniel arap Moi. Indeed he was the reason that the second important thing happened, that the opposition got together to front Kibaki under an MoU that, on hindsight, was shaky as a document anyway.
Once they succeeded (or should I say we?), both processes became derailed. They were only important in themselves as far as getting Moi to kabarak and now that he is there, we are unfocused.
I think that in light of this, we must focus on the fundamentals and that is moving on in real life. But that would require the leadership of a brave president, who stopped caring about re-election (even though he would like to be re-elected) and who was not only capable of saying forget the old methods of appointing ministers – such as regional (read:tribal) balancing and the like and get a leaner cabinet that is versatile enough to work and at the same time capable of shifting the focus from politics.
I like, I must say, the appointment of Raphael Tuju, Mukhisa Kituyi, Martha Karua, Amos Kimunya and Mutahi Kagwe because they are young, they are professionals with a proven record outside parliament and in parliament. I still have no idea what people like Njenga Karume and Kiraitu Murungi are still doing there – they are after all career politicians and not workers really – and I wish Peter Anyang Nyong’o was re-appointed. But that is neither here nor there and in my view, neither is the renegotiations and realignments that are going on.
I think that the president simply needs to come up to the people and say, “we may politic all we want but that doesn’t put ugali on our tables. The time has come for us to get down and work.” If he and his team actually got working and they told us what and how they are doing, they will be surprised to know that Kenyans will vote him in.
Why? Because the consumer, as marketers know (and the voter) is not stupid, he is your wife (and mother and sister and cousin).
Al Kags:
As you may have surmised by now, I am breathing from the same regional air supply as you are.
As usual, I marvel at your lucid writing style and commend you for your literary flair.
Having dispensed with the niceties, let me rip into your digital intervention without wasting time.
What do you mean by saying that you have set up "Kenya's first exclusively positive stories magazine"?
Can you define "positive"?
Back in the day when apartheid raged, one of the most "positive stories magazine" was a publication called
Sechaba produced by the African National Congress of South Africa. Every single month, the magazine would be full of positive stories of South Africans- workers, women, youth, intellectuals- striking another blow against the edifices of apartheid. I enjoyed similar positive news publications put out by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador,the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Communist Party of the Phillippines and so on and so forth.
In the almost two decades that I lived and worked in North America, my source for positive stories was the alternative media- the community-based radio stations, magazines like Mother Jones, Utne Reader, Z, Covert Action, Guardian Weekly etc. In the community, my positive stories came from visiting indigenous people during their Pow Wows; participating in Black History Month and Kwanzaa festivities and activities; visiting the tables set up at Toronto's Ryerson University on International Women's Day.
In short, Ndugu, or should I say Bwana Al Kags, one person's "negative" stories are another person's "positive stories".
Truth be told: no one can or should begrudge the Jeff Koinanges, Shem Ochuodhos and Linus Kaikais their achievements in the corporate,media and IT worlds. When Kenyan milk production shoots up, we must give our cows a standing ovation. Who will sulk when we read of increasing economic growth indicators?
Having said that,these days I get very, very wary or worried (or wery, wery vary and vorried as my Muhindi pals would prefer)when I hear Kenyans talk about not talking about politics.
This wacha siasa mind set, is a very political, and may I add, very CONSERVATIVE and RETROGADE stance by apologists of the Kibaki led neo-colonial status quo. We hear Kibaki- the chief political animal in Kenya mouth the same platitude during his public pronouncement. I have heard it from some of your colleagues in the KCA leadership and I see it in the newspaper columns.
Quite frankly, it is a DISHONEST position by people who have benefited POLITICALLY, ECONOMICALLY and otherwise from the elitist and tribal strategems of the NAK parvenu schemers.
Your digital essay coming hot on the heels of the ridiculous cabinet line up by Kibaki a few days ago, is a very overt political statement telling the entire Kenyan online world that look: "I, Al Kags, nimefika do not disturb me by raising pesky issues about tribalism, dictatorial and corrupt tendencies on the part of the Kibaki regime." Al Kags, you are telling me, Onyango Oloo that you, Al Kags have officially become an ideologue and propagandist of the system. You are telling me that you have been recruited to be a defender of the indefensible, a junior spin doctor giving an assisting hand to one of Kenya's most notorious liars- Dr. A. Mutua.
Strangely enough, I do not blame you. You have the democratic right to be a sell-out and salesman for a regime that has become thoroughly discredited by the very people who elected it to power.
It is in this light that I see your alacrity in coming out in the open to applaud Raphael Tuju-even though our new Foreign Minister has the blood of four innocents, including a primary school kid on his hands; it is in this light that you can praise to the skies the elevation of Mutahi Kagwe, even though we all know that this is an incestous and nepotistic appointment directly linked to the fact that Mr Kagwe is married to Michuki's daughter; you have the gall to endorse the same Martha Karua who openly told Uhuru Kenyatta that he had betrayed the Agikuyu by supporting the NO side, not speaking of her trashing of Kenyans in the north east as "refugees"; the icing on the cake is your glowing tribute to the fat cat golf club impresario Amos Kimunya who has expressed so much disdain for so many Kenyans.
Al Kags: These are your new heroes and sheroes. I sure hope that they are NOT your new employers. And I am definitely hoping that you Al Kags have not been expressly recruited to attempt a "positive" spin on the disaster that Kibaki unleashed recently. I am hoping that you have not forgotten that fighting for a new constitution is directly linked to determining the number of sufurias of ugali that Kenyans will have:
jukwaa.proboards58.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1129229001&page=1
Anyways, I saw your piece on rcbowen.com and I thought I should tell you what I think about it.
By the way, is your mobile # still the same?
Drop me an e-line to confirm because I want to meet you for a cup of Kenyan coffee(or Kenyan beer) so that we can chat some more.
Your Nairobi-based fellow Kenyan,
Onyango Oloo
Nairobi
