Politicians never change just like leopards never change their spots. The president may now be having deep regrets over rescinding his earlier decision NOT to include politicians in his cabinet. (Actually the latest information I have is that an extremely influential personality very close to him pleaded with him to change his mind. The revealing article is in a recent issue of my Kumekucha's raw notes.)
After the incident a few months ago where we give insider info on how Balala is said to have asked for a bribe from a mining company in exchange for NOT cancelling their license, Ngilu is now at the centre of a major land scandal.
This clearly justifies the policy of never appointing politicians to cabinet slots. You really can never teach old dogs new tricks. Most of the other members of the cabinet are professionals and people eager to retain their reputations and good standing which is critical to enhancing their careers further after their terms in cabinet come to an end as they inevitably will. In sharp contrast politicians in the banana republic don't care and use their positions of influence to make as much money as they can in the shortest time possible.
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Mutula GOK autopsy confirms shocking Kumekucha book
------Incidentally the adage easy come, easy go comes into play here because former legislator Ferdinand Waititu is said to be very broke and penniless at the moment and is living on handouts. Quite amazing for somebody who earned a million bob a month for 5 years and had access to all kinds of perks and loan facilities to enhance his financial standing. This is excluding the other numerous money making "deals" that are always available in the august house. He is hardly the exception. For instance yet another former legislator is rumoured to be now walking to town all the way from Runda for lack of matatu fare. Supporting the widely held view that in the banana republic once you enter politics and then lose an election you are finished in every sense of the word.
You will be shell shocked to discover the real reason for the recent well publicized spat between Nairobi senator Mike Sonko and embattled Rachel Shebesh. The information is in my latest Weekly Intelligence Briefings.
Kumekucha,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote "Most of the other members of the cabinet are professionals and people eager to retain their reputations and good standing which is critical to enhancing their careers further after their terms in cabinet come to an end as they inevitably will."
Some homework for you for your future raw notes: which freshly appointed cabinet secretary, "eager to retain their reputations and good standing", just bought a piece of land in Karen for 65m in August and where did the cash...yes, they paid CASH... come from?
As our resident professor, Herr Mwarang'ethe, keeps on telling us, we are living in a fool's paradise. Make yourself comfortable.
That's one of the latest tales or so-called recent urban Karen legends that are making their rounds in the former reclusive royal neighbourhoods that were better known as horse country during colonial Kenya.
ReplyDeleteSo far, there are certain envious, idle and long term Karen residents who are really pissed off because they are afraid that their way of life and mostly wannabe - potential - baron and baroness status is being threatened by a flood of newcomers who are snatching up every piece of sub-divisions in the area.
For you information, more plots of land have been sold and bought in the area for over hundred or even two hundred mill in cash since January of 2013.
Back in the days, it was the European and American missionary groups who were the first exclusive buyers to benefit from behind the scenes land deals that went one in Karen starting from the late 60s, 70s and 80s because they were not only able to pay in cash but in the much needed foreign currency that was very rare during the era of the two previous despotic administrations.
Times did change in the early-mid 80s when corrupt high ranking government officials, senior military officers, Indian-('Kenyans') businessmen and women and Kenyans in their fifties and sixties returning from the diaspora started securing a piece of the Kenyan dream, what was better known at the time as their over due double matunda ya uhuru.
Then the floodgates of local and foreign - Somali, Rwandan, Ugandan, Ethiopian, Tanazania (ex-UNEP/IMF/WB/UN/ICIPE/ICRAF/ILRAD/WHO et al employees and envoys), Italians and Germans (based in Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu) - land buyers and greedy speculators went wide open during the early-mid-late 90s at a time when eighty Kenyan shillings could only fetch one dollar through official channels and a hundred shillings fetched one American dollar on the black-market.
The rest became history that wrote itself during Kibaki's administration when formerly repressed segments of the country's population started investing - pumping and flooding - their old as well as new money into prime land in and around Nairobi metropolitan area as if there was no tomorrow.
It's no longer a secret that Kenyans who are loaded with new-money are known to follow existing investment trends and each other businesses like sheep when it comes to spending - investing - their fortunes as the case has been in the last thirty to foutry years.
Unfortunately for the country's economy, new-money does make strange things happen such as creating very few powerful people, granting financial stability to others who maybe lucky, while the rest of them end up left more vulnerable than ever to the never ending quick money schemes that have fleeced so many unsuspecting novice investors in Kenya and rest of East Africa.