The much-talked-about Youth Development fund was launched in Nairobi yesterday.
The president had some interesting remarks in launching it at the KICC that confirmed the obvious—that this is nothing more than a campaign tool to bribe his way back to power in the forthcoming elections. He said that the fund will be made larger and funds will be allocated in the next budget towards this. The president said that he did not want o reveal "how much bigger" the fund will be made, but he promised that it will be "a much bigger" (his exact words in quotes).
There are just two points I would like to draw to the attention of Kenyans. The first is in the form of a question; why is this happening in 2007 instead of 2003 as part of the campaign that was never implemented to create the 500,000 new jobs annually? The answer to that question is really simple. It is because the Youth Development Fund is not designed to succeed. That is not its' chief objective. It is designed to distribute cash to impressionable young voters in an election year. The full results of it's failure will only be fully realized after 2007 and by that time President Kibaki and First Lady Lucy will be safely back in State House for another 5 years.
Secondly the correct approach for anybody who wants to promote an entrepreneurial spirit in the country is to start with intensive training first. The initial government funding should have gone towards this. The truth is that with the right training, funding is never the key factor in the success of a business. It is the business idea and skills that come first. Over and over again in history it has been proven that a good idea will literally finance itself or easily find eager financiers. Not to mention the fact that we have quite a number of NGOs whose big problem is finding enough viable enterprises to fund.
By starting off with the funding component, what will happen is that the whole project will fail and anybody who comes in later wanting to promote enterprise amongst the youth will be told that the idea has already been tried out and it failed. This is really sad because my firm belief is that this is exactly where we need to put emphasis in order to reverse the dangerous direction the country is hurtling towards which is rapidly increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
This emphasis on cash is what has brought about talk of Kshs 50,000 being too small an amount to launch a business. I can give you a list of 101 businesses that can comfortably be launched with Kshs 50,000 or less. It seems that in the minds of many would-be recipients, all they want is to receive the money, divide it amongst themselves and then swagger off into the sunset.
But then we understand why the deliberate emphasis is on cash don't we now?
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Friday, February 02, 2007
Why Mwalimu Mati Was Hounded Out Of TI
It has now emerged that the unceremonious exit of Mwalimu Mati from Transparency International was a case of corruption fighting the eloquent and steadfast chief executive officer who zealously guarded the institutions' integrity and reputation.
A recent report released by the anti-corruption lobby group clears Mati from all wrong doing while it implicates some of his accusers who have now been shown the door as it cleans house to restore the probity of its Kenyan chapter.
After watching Mati speak on television during a talk show last night on corruption, one does not need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Mati is not only highly intelligent but he is thorough and swiftly gets to the crux of the matter—whatever it is. These are qualities, which the current administration abhors. Incidentally John Githongo fits the same bill and that's why he is exile today even as the government says that he is no investigator and his tapes are not audible, when we have all heard them very clearly on the net.
It was Mati who came to the rescue of Kenyans when the finance minister, Mr Kimunya, attempted to lie to Kenyans about promissory notes being cancelled. The government as payment issued the notes for some of the multi-billion Anglo Leasing projects.
During the highly charged talk show, it was only Mati among the other three visitors who was armed with written facts and figures about the scandal and from his point of argument it was evident that he had thoroughly researched on the topic beforehand.
When he was kicked out of transparency international, he came out fighting and even accused some of the directors of engaging in corruption and nepotism by hiring unqualified relatives to the organization but many thought it was just a ploy he was using of painting others black so as to appear white. Mercifully the truth is now out.
True to his word, when TI launched independent investigations, Mwalimu was cleared from any wrongdoing while his accusers were sent packing in a purge that affected most of the local directors of the anti corruption lobby group.
Having secured another job as chief executive officer of Mars International, Mwalimu Mati is still an important face (that will grow in stature) in the local anti-corruption war which is far from over, especially if the dark day that president Kibaki manages to be re-elected comes to pass.
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A recent report released by the anti-corruption lobby group clears Mati from all wrong doing while it implicates some of his accusers who have now been shown the door as it cleans house to restore the probity of its Kenyan chapter.
After watching Mati speak on television during a talk show last night on corruption, one does not need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Mati is not only highly intelligent but he is thorough and swiftly gets to the crux of the matter—whatever it is. These are qualities, which the current administration abhors. Incidentally John Githongo fits the same bill and that's why he is exile today even as the government says that he is no investigator and his tapes are not audible, when we have all heard them very clearly on the net.
It was Mati who came to the rescue of Kenyans when the finance minister, Mr Kimunya, attempted to lie to Kenyans about promissory notes being cancelled. The government as payment issued the notes for some of the multi-billion Anglo Leasing projects.
During the highly charged talk show, it was only Mati among the other three visitors who was armed with written facts and figures about the scandal and from his point of argument it was evident that he had thoroughly researched on the topic beforehand.
When he was kicked out of transparency international, he came out fighting and even accused some of the directors of engaging in corruption and nepotism by hiring unqualified relatives to the organization but many thought it was just a ploy he was using of painting others black so as to appear white. Mercifully the truth is now out.
True to his word, when TI launched independent investigations, Mwalimu was cleared from any wrongdoing while his accusers were sent packing in a purge that affected most of the local directors of the anti corruption lobby group.
Having secured another job as chief executive officer of Mars International, Mwalimu Mati is still an important face (that will grow in stature) in the local anti-corruption war which is far from over, especially if the dark day that president Kibaki manages to be re-elected comes to pass.
Search engines can give you huge traffic. Here's how a Kenyan company can get thousands of visitors to their site daily.
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