It is interesting that this has come up at a time when the government seems to have declared war on hawkers ad small traders in general.
Alnoor Kassam admits in the Standard articles that he cut his business teeth selling his book matches door to door and quite often he would set up temporary street stalls to sell the matches to passersby. That is hawking.
One of he reasons why the government and many Kenyans have no time for hawkers is because of the culture we have promoted that is really a bad hangover from the colonial era. Kenyans have no respect for the small trader or hawker who starts small and grows their business to success.
In the minds of Kenyans (and especially the current government) these are petty (nuisance) traders who take ages to grow their business. Or to quote my favourite regular lady commentator and supporter of this blog, who recently told a story about how she had somebody referring to the whole hawker issue; hawkers are riff raff that need to be cleared from the streets. These are actually stupid people who are not serious business people.
I will tell you the kind of people Kenyans respect. They respect thieves of public funds and corrupt entrepreneurs who give a bribe and make their money overnight. These business people, in the minds of many Kenyans will dress smartly and have flashy offices and cars.
Sorry guys. Those are not business people. They are not entrepreneurs. They are thieves, thugs and the real riff raff that Kenya does not need. Period.
But it was clear from the President's speech last night on KBC TV that "his government" (as he is always so fond of referring to it) prefers big business. Small traders should operate as far away as possible from the city and pieces of land have in fact been purchased for them in the furthest outskirts possible. The whole idea is so that the "riff raff" can do their business as far away from the city center as possible.
The situation has been made worse by the fact that in Kenya we allow senior government officials to do business. They use their positions to make quick money at the expense of the public and then call themselves businesspersons. These are the businesses that want all riff raff taken as far away as possible from the city.
I am not saying that hawkers should be given a free hand in the CBD (Central Business District). What I am saying is that we need to be a little more creative than the colonial government (those are the bylaws being used here) and what looks like a nuisance can be "the engine" to create jobs and turn Kenya into a major African Tiger. What's wrong with hawkers being licensed to trade in small side streets in downtown Nairobi? Or on major streets on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning when other shops are closed?
=======
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Friday, October 27, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Kikwete Blames God For Power Crisis
Breaking News From Tanzania
Is Tanzania On The Verge Of Shutting Down?
President Jakaya Kikwete was in the news this morning according to one of my sources in Tanzania, apologising for the power crisis to ordinary Tanzanians for the first time. But the real news was what he said after the apology.
The President says that the crisis is the Almighty himself, testing his government and it is not man made in any way.
This is NOT TRUE.
But I will get to that in a minute.
This latest development clearly illustrates the gravity of the crisis in Tanzania. The reason that the president is apologising is because there is worse to follow, possibly a total blackout in some major commecial centres in the country (as experts have been continously warning for sometime now). This is unprecedented because even in the darkest days of Nyerere's Ujamaa, the country did not have this sort of electricity shut down.
It is clear that President Kikwete's government is facing the sort of crisis that will definitely spill over and affect Kenya in one way or another in the coming weeks. The widely quoted (old figures) about Tanzania's good economic performance are about to start sticking out like a sore thumb.
Any of my Tanzanian brothers reading this who thinks this blogger is happy at being proved right (after blowing the whistle months ago) is badly mistaken. My closest friends live in Tanzania and most of the are Tanzanians. I love this beautiful country deeply (othewise why bother commenting?). What has happened is tragic and may have the effect of even slowing down Kenya's rapidly risisng economic growth. Foreign investors kenya will try to woe over the next few years will warily look at what is about to happen in Tanzania and get cold feet about investing in neighboring Kenya.
Anyway, here is to story of how corruption in high places played a major role in bring about the current Tanzanian crisis;
Impeccable sources in Tanzania close to the ministry of energy told this blogger the following fascinating story.
Immediate former President Benjamin Mkapa had forseen the coming energy crisis and had ordered two huge generators to help alleviate the coming crsis. However when Kikwete's new government came into power, the then Minister for Energy, Dr Ibrahim Msabaha, cancelled the order pointing out that there was corruption involved which the incoming government of President Jakaya Kikwete wanted to clean up.
My source said that the minister then went ahead and called in his Asian friends (from the kariakoo commercial area in dar-es-esalaam) and gave them the tender to supply the generators pronto. Apparently delivery for such big generators takes a little while - a couple of months at the very least (which his Asian friends found out later. Long after the Mkapa contract had been cancelled and the ordered generators sold to another client in South Africa. What this meant was that even as the crisis was starting to bite, the government was starting afresh the whole process of ordering generators.
But this sad story does not end there. The company given the contract does not exist in America where they say they claimed they were registered. To make matters worse something went wrong and the company ended up supplying some unservicable Boeing engines which cannot generate any power. (Read the revealing article that talks about this in detail).
So it is not God to blame as President Kikwete is saying, but corruption and simple human greed.
My source tells me that the Energy minister and his colleagues were eager to recover cash spent on the campaign trail quickly and were keen to get a huge contract to do this (almost identical to the Anglo-Leasing saga in Kenya).
I have made a decision to allow all the abusive comments by readers of this blog claiming to be Tanzanians that are heavy in empty rhetoric and abuse and lacking in facts and objectivity. I find it a very effective way to show evidence (in writing) to anybody (whether Tanzanian or Kenyan) that Tanzania is not ready for The East Afrian Federation and that with this kind of attitude there is a serious crisis in this nation that will virtually be impossible for Tanzanians to get out of in the near future. You can help somebody in trouble who wants to be helped, but how do you help somebody who is sure they are doing well?
The saddest thing about it all is that the vast majority of Tanzanians are convinced that Kenya is finished without the East African Federation or Customs Union. The truth is that Sudan beckons and dozens of other countries worldwide including the United States and Britain, two western powers that are desperate for Kenyan nurses and medical personnel. The evidence on the ground is that Kenya's huge well-trained idle work force is about to dissapear and became as precious as electrical power currently is in Tanzania.
History will prove that the very East African Union that Tanzanians are fighting so hard to kill (while giving hypocritical lip service in favor of it at Arusha) was the last boat that would have saved a sinking nation.
=======
Join in the raging debate over this thorny Luo-Kikuyu relationship issue
(Please scroll down to the bottom of the page (and click on the "Post A Comment" button) to post your comment.)
========================
See also Problem Tribes in Kenyan politics
Get more help with you invention ideas by reading this invention ebook by a man who has sold millions of units of his own inventions.
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Is Tanzania On The Verge Of Shutting Down?
President Jakaya Kikwete was in the news this morning according to one of my sources in Tanzania, apologising for the power crisis to ordinary Tanzanians for the first time. But the real news was what he said after the apology.
The President says that the crisis is the Almighty himself, testing his government and it is not man made in any way.
This is NOT TRUE.
But I will get to that in a minute.
This latest development clearly illustrates the gravity of the crisis in Tanzania. The reason that the president is apologising is because there is worse to follow, possibly a total blackout in some major commecial centres in the country (as experts have been continously warning for sometime now). This is unprecedented because even in the darkest days of Nyerere's Ujamaa, the country did not have this sort of electricity shut down.
It is clear that President Kikwete's government is facing the sort of crisis that will definitely spill over and affect Kenya in one way or another in the coming weeks. The widely quoted (old figures) about Tanzania's good economic performance are about to start sticking out like a sore thumb.
Any of my Tanzanian brothers reading this who thinks this blogger is happy at being proved right (after blowing the whistle months ago) is badly mistaken. My closest friends live in Tanzania and most of the are Tanzanians. I love this beautiful country deeply (othewise why bother commenting?). What has happened is tragic and may have the effect of even slowing down Kenya's rapidly risisng economic growth. Foreign investors kenya will try to woe over the next few years will warily look at what is about to happen in Tanzania and get cold feet about investing in neighboring Kenya.
Anyway, here is to story of how corruption in high places played a major role in bring about the current Tanzanian crisis;
Impeccable sources in Tanzania close to the ministry of energy told this blogger the following fascinating story.
Immediate former President Benjamin Mkapa had forseen the coming energy crisis and had ordered two huge generators to help alleviate the coming crsis. However when Kikwete's new government came into power, the then Minister for Energy, Dr Ibrahim Msabaha, cancelled the order pointing out that there was corruption involved which the incoming government of President Jakaya Kikwete wanted to clean up.
My source said that the minister then went ahead and called in his Asian friends (from the kariakoo commercial area in dar-es-esalaam) and gave them the tender to supply the generators pronto. Apparently delivery for such big generators takes a little while - a couple of months at the very least (which his Asian friends found out later. Long after the Mkapa contract had been cancelled and the ordered generators sold to another client in South Africa. What this meant was that even as the crisis was starting to bite, the government was starting afresh the whole process of ordering generators.
But this sad story does not end there. The company given the contract does not exist in America where they say they claimed they were registered. To make matters worse something went wrong and the company ended up supplying some unservicable Boeing engines which cannot generate any power. (Read the revealing article that talks about this in detail).
So it is not God to blame as President Kikwete is saying, but corruption and simple human greed.
My source tells me that the Energy minister and his colleagues were eager to recover cash spent on the campaign trail quickly and were keen to get a huge contract to do this (almost identical to the Anglo-Leasing saga in Kenya).
I have made a decision to allow all the abusive comments by readers of this blog claiming to be Tanzanians that are heavy in empty rhetoric and abuse and lacking in facts and objectivity. I find it a very effective way to show evidence (in writing) to anybody (whether Tanzanian or Kenyan) that Tanzania is not ready for The East Afrian Federation and that with this kind of attitude there is a serious crisis in this nation that will virtually be impossible for Tanzanians to get out of in the near future. You can help somebody in trouble who wants to be helped, but how do you help somebody who is sure they are doing well?
The saddest thing about it all is that the vast majority of Tanzanians are convinced that Kenya is finished without the East African Federation or Customs Union. The truth is that Sudan beckons and dozens of other countries worldwide including the United States and Britain, two western powers that are desperate for Kenyan nurses and medical personnel. The evidence on the ground is that Kenya's huge well-trained idle work force is about to dissapear and became as precious as electrical power currently is in Tanzania.
History will prove that the very East African Union that Tanzanians are fighting so hard to kill (while giving hypocritical lip service in favor of it at Arusha) was the last boat that would have saved a sinking nation.
=======
Join in the raging debate over this thorny Luo-Kikuyu relationship issue
(Please scroll down to the bottom of the page (and click on the "Post A Comment" button) to post your comment.)
========================
See also Problem Tribes in Kenyan politics
Get more help with you invention ideas by reading this invention ebook by a man who has sold millions of units of his own inventions.
Use Software To Earn Millions From Adsense And Blogger
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========================
See also Problem Tribes in Kenyan politics
Get more help with you invention ideas by reading this invention ebook by a man who has sold millions of units of his own inventions.
Use Software To Earn Millions From Adsense And Blogger
There may never be a better time for buying silver bullion than right now. World demand for silver now exceeds annual production, and has every year since 1990. As an investment product, silver is very convenient because it is available in coin or ingot form. Ingots are generally silver ingots of pure bullion cast in a convenient size and shape. Coins have a currency value or they are actually defined as ingots.
Through the Monex Deposit Company (MDC) you can purchase all the silver or other precious metals that you require, easily and conveniently.
========================
See also Problem Tribes in Kenyan politics
Get more help with you invention ideas by reading this invention ebook by a man who has sold millions of units of his own inventions.
Use Software To Earn Millions From Adsense And Blogger
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