I watched a story on television the other day about a young Kenyan ICT student who has been dreaming of being a pilot ever since the age of 5 years old. The long and the short of his ambition is that he has finally come up with a prototype aircraft that was scheduled to commence its trial flight somewhere in Naivasha recently.
It was obvious that his parents are extremely proud of their son who rode to the venue in a convoy of boda boda motorcycles while the aircraft was majestically perched atop a lorry as a frenzied and exited crowd of onlookers followed his every move with a keen eye for surely history was in the making. Not a single policeman or any other person representative of officialdom such as those from the Department of Civil Aviation or the Aerodromes Department (if it still exists) appeared to be on site to ensure proper crowd control and that safety measures were in place.
The kinetic energy for the aircraft was to be provided by a Toyota salon vehicle to which the craft was attached with a tow rope and then dragged behind it presumably until it attained take off speed when the tow rope would be uncoupled ready for flight. For some unknown but seemingly technical reasons that us mechanically challenged individuals will never fathom, the aircraft with its inventor firmly perched on his pilot seat, motor cycle safety helmet providing the required safety to his cranium was unable to take off notwithstanding the impassioned prayers by the father prior to the pre-flight event for journey mercies and such like issues usually reserved for those about to embark on a safari as well as the concerted efforts of helpers to push the craft towards attaining take-off speed since it appeared that the Toyota was unable to accomplish this!
Much as I am a confessed ignoramus in matters mechanical, my own assessment of the situation is that the aircraft was probably aerodynamically challenged and was not streamlined enough and probably did not adhere to the general principles of aero dynamic flight which was surely a monumental disaster in the making had it miraculously attained lift off not only to the pilot but also to the excited bystanders and helpers in dangerous and close proximity to spinning rotors and hot engine parts. The attempt to attain some semblance of flight capability was probably more of a public relations exercise designed more to to get recognition and probably attract some funding from a donor or donors so as to see the project through to its logical conclusion rather than achieve actual flight time.
The inventors' mother who was interviewed on TV had mentioned that she had parted with a princely sum of money (close to 40K shillings) to make this dream a reality but you can bet that the project probably requires millions of shillings before the rudimentary aircraft powered by an underpowered Chinese motor cycle engine could ever take to the skies!!
Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit exhibited by a lot of young Kenyans today who embark on their projects with gusto and enthusiasm sometimes making it big but more often than not burning their fingers and meager savings badly.
What concerns me more is if there is any official body within the Kenyan system that provides guidance and an enabling environment for our young inventors to successfully achieve their dreams given that many often come from relatively poor backgrounds and are technically gifted but lack the resources to even acquire the necessary tools, jigs and molds or suitable workshop premises to manage the whole process of inventing and pioneering a Kenyan made prototype of anything? Do we have technical people who can provide advice and mentor these young inventors & innovators so that their dreams become a reality or even people who can assist them get sponsors to fund their dreams to fruition?
I recall a series that aired on Discovery Channel sometime back where inventors in the US are given the opportunity to showcase their prototype inventions to a panel of potential seed investors who look at the practicality of the prototypes on display and then after a rigorous round of elimination challenges, they pick on one prototype which in their own assessment has a possible future practical use and therefore qualifies for seed funding to enable additional research and development of that prototype to full production including pre and post-production marketing and advertisement.
Why not for example set aside part of our very own Youth Enterprise Fund for such a purpose so that with close supervision and management and administrative structures to ensure that the funds are not diverted to other uses by the beneficiaries we could have our own pool of avid inventors in the not too distant future. The fund could hire advisors and mentors would also be responsible to ensure that all the issues regarding design options, safety considerations, patent applications, copyright violations, statutory approvals and all other related issues are taken care of so that we do not have situations as I observed in Naivasha where the runway somewhere in Naivasha was awash with human beings eager to assist and with no regards to their own safety and where no one in authority was there to police and provide guidance for the whole exercise! It is actually a miracle that no one was injured or killed.
I came to learn at a recent seminar that some of the most innovative companies in the world today devote millions of dollars of their annual profits towards encouraging their employees to be inventors and innovators and even pay substantial amounts of money towards these efforts by providing grants to individual staff members to develop their ideas with no strings attached.
Somehow this earth shattering event is nowhere on the internet though other earlier attempts to build an aircraft by a Kenyan innovator are well documented online. Perhaps in time the heroics of this young man shall appear online but in the meanwhile the young inventor is gearing up for another attempt at attaining take of speed but this time within the confines of a prison (I didn’t know that prisons have runways) perhaps in view of the safety issues that I have already mentioned.
I wish him all the best and journey mercies because surely the sky is the limit for this chap!!
Thursday 10 April 2014
Tuesday 8 April 2014
Of a careless government and social corruption:
I wrote the following article in 2010 long before my blog became a reality. It was a reaction to the goings on of the day hence may not be entirely relevant in its reference to some of the characters mentioned thereon but nonetheless in my opinion is a synopsis of the current state of insecurity dogging up today..................The Uhuru government, I should hasten to add, has probably found itself in this situation due to historical reasons but that does not absolve it entirely of blame simply because many of the leading political lights today were well entrenced in government even then and therefore from the collective responsibility angle are also culpable.
Read on and make your own judgement...........!!
____________________________________________________________
If I were Minister for Immigration, Otieno Kajwang, I would be having sleepless nights wondering how I dug myself and my country into such a deep hole in this saga involving persona non grata Mr. Abdullah al-Faisal. I would be wondering if I really have dedicated officers manning our border posts into the country or if I should just open up all the border posts to allow all and sundry into the country without so much as a cursory glance at them.
I would also wonder whether all the recent hullabaloo about illegal immigrants in the country is merely a smoke screen because since time immemorial, all manner of Somali, Ugandan, Tanzanian, Ethiopian and Sudanese have been waltzing in and out of Kenya through the very porous borders we have with our neighbors without the courtesy of announcing their arrival into Kenya whenever they have an overwhelming urge for the taste of Tusker, Blue Band, miraa and other assorted Kenyan goodies which may or may not be contraband in their countries. But off course this is Kenya which, as the Tanzanians say is a dog eat dog society, and Minister Kajwang probably lulls himself to sleep blissfully unaware of his role in this whole saga as he hums to himself the last few stanzas of his favorite ‘mapambano’ song!
The casual manner in which al-Faisal a person known to have terrorist links crossed over into Kenya from Tanzania because “the computer system that would have identified him as a terrorist was not working” points to a careless government. The online Encarta Dictionary defines careless as ‘not giving enough careful attention to the details of something’ and ‘disregarding or showing no concern about something.’
A government intent on protecting its people and its sovereignty should be a government that pays attention to detail and shows concern about issues that could be a threat to its security. It should be a government that is bent on ensuring that its mandate as a protector of its citizenry is not mortgaged to the highest bidder and one that genuinely strives to protect itself and its people from international opprobrium and ridicule. I would expect that such a government would have invested in the highest levels of IT and communication software so that in the event of a failed computer system it would have a back up contingency plan to continue the very necessary and expensive business of vetting visitors into our country. Therefore this business of a failed computer system indicates a careless government! In any case what was to stop Mr. al-Faisal from bribing an over zealous immigration official at Lunga Lunga who noticed that he was persona non grata so as to be allowed entry into Kenya?
This careless government has exposed us to the H1N1 virus after a very public announcement by Minister Beth Mugo assured Kenyans that no visitor would be allowed into our country if they so much as sneezed while on their way into Kenya only for tens of students from the UK to land at our very own JKIA and find their way to Kisumu where it was discovered that several of them were exposed to the virus. The ensuing circus was a study in how not to (re)act in such circumstances. Over the years this careless government has exposed us to the Artur brothers, the General Mathenge joke, the Anglo Leasing scandal, hiding of Felicien Kabuga, theft of funds from donors meant for free primary education, Triton petroleum scandal, Kenya pipeline scandals, gagging of the press though the recently gazetted Media bill and a myriad other scandals all in the last 8 years. I recall the words of Kiraitu Murungi in a moment of bravado telling retired President Moi to go back to his farm and look after his ‘ngoats’ and watch how a government is run and now we can see what he meant, a government ran at the whims and the foibles of a few to put the majority at risk!!
Which brings me to the issue of social corruption!!? In the last few days, there has been a concerted effort to arrest illegal immigrants in Kenya. The target of this exercise seems to be focused on the people of Somali origin across all major towns in Kenya……….including the wife and daughter of former MP Billow Kerrow (by mistake)! I would like to think that this sudden energetic activity has been after a carefully planned and coordinated (co)operation between the Police and the Immigration departments that had already identified who was illegally in Kenya and therefore would be arrested and deported back to wherever they came from. Coming so shortly after the mass protests in downtown Nairobi that left several dead and scores injured and whose blame appears to have been laid squarely on the shoulders of the Al Shabbab militia whose origins are in Somalia then I am persuaded otherwise.
It is generally known that Kenya is a Mecca that attracts illegal immigrants from as far as Asia, the DRC, Eritrea, Djibouti, Rwanda, Burundi and many other countries that have no common border with Kenya. Of the immediate neighboring countries that share a common border with Kenya I will not comment since our borders are so porous as to give a ‘kichungi’ a good name. Common sense therefore tells me that a well planned operation would be geared towards arresting ALL illegal immigrants and not merely those of Somali origin. This careless action by the government targeting people of Somali origins only exposes the rest of us to the risk of retaliatory attacks and continued protests. Or is it just recently that our careless government has woken up to the realization that persons of Somali origin pose a threat to the security of this country by their sheer numbers and combined economic acumen?
It is also suspected that much of the ill gotten wealth in the form of ransoms paid to pirates who hijack ships in the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean finds its way into Kenya though one way or another and is one of the factors that has raised property prices across the country to astronomical proportions as these ill gotten funds are laundered through purchase of land and property at whatever price. I am convinced that the people who have been buying up prime chunks of land at exorbitant prices have not escaped the eagle eye of the Kenyan intelligence and security services and are therefore very well known and perhaps have godfathers who ensure that their investments are protected at all costs probably with handsome profits shared in the process.
I also believe that many of these people have paid handsomely for the privilege of acquiring Kenyan citizenship since it is widely known that in Kenya so long as you can pay the going price or facilitation fee then becoming a citizen of this great country is the easiest thing in the world as is acquiring a valid work/business permit to work as a supervisor on a construction site while thousands of well educated Kenyan have no jobs. This explains why we have so many people strutting around arrogantly holding Kenyan work permits, Kenyan ID’s and Kenyan passports who cannot construct a coherent sentence in English and/or Kiswahili because they can always fall back on their masters when they need to………….at a price off course! We have mortgaged our country to all kinds of bidders and we are paying the price for this!
This payment of a facilitation fee for acquisition of Kenyan work/business permits, Kenyan ID’s and Kenyan passports is what I refer to as social corruption since both the corrupter and the corrupted get a benefit and neither has the motivation to report such corruption since they would be stripped of the benefit that one has gained from the other. Often the fee is paid over a cup of coffee or a beer after office hours at an agreed social venue, hence the term social corruption. Often this fee is shared out in a certain proportion to a cabal of willing officials at a preset agreed percentage making it a very difficult cartel to infiltrate and break up. Since the final decision on Immigration matters rests with the Minister for Immigration, it is safe to assume that over the years consecutive Ministers have been aware of these shenanigans and perhaps directly benefits from it though I hope I am wrong and that they have been duped over the years by their underlings.
This is endemic corruption at its best and some of the wealthiest and most well connected individuals in this country have very definitely profited handsomely from such facilitation fees either directly or as go betweens to whisper in the ear of the relevant official in the relevant Ministry for special exceptional consideration for a well connected so and so foreigner to have their citizenship/work/business permit issues fast tracked through the system another feature of a careless government. The level of corruption under this social corruption could easily reduce the Police Dept, that bastion of corruption year in year out, into position No. 2 in the Kenya corruption index if only those paying such fees would talk!
It is high time that the government shows us that it is a caring government by putting in place systems and processes to protect its borders and its people as well as properly vet those who aspire to live work and do business in Kenya. It is incumbent on the relevant investigative and intelligence organs of government to audit the activities of the Immigration Ministry in order to establish who over the years has not met the minimum criteria for living, working and doing business in Kenya and who should then be stripped of their ill gotten citizenship and work/business permits and then shipped back from wherever they came from.
Let us not have another al-Faisal debacle so that we stop being the clown, cartoon and laughing stock of the international community due to the sheer ineptness and carelessness of those who have sworn to defend our country in the handling of small matters that have the potential to spiral out of control due to careless and ill coordinated statements and press conferences
Read on and make your own judgement...........!!
____________________________________________________________
If I were Minister for Immigration, Otieno Kajwang, I would be having sleepless nights wondering how I dug myself and my country into such a deep hole in this saga involving persona non grata Mr. Abdullah al-Faisal. I would be wondering if I really have dedicated officers manning our border posts into the country or if I should just open up all the border posts to allow all and sundry into the country without so much as a cursory glance at them.
I would also wonder whether all the recent hullabaloo about illegal immigrants in the country is merely a smoke screen because since time immemorial, all manner of Somali, Ugandan, Tanzanian, Ethiopian and Sudanese have been waltzing in and out of Kenya through the very porous borders we have with our neighbors without the courtesy of announcing their arrival into Kenya whenever they have an overwhelming urge for the taste of Tusker, Blue Band, miraa and other assorted Kenyan goodies which may or may not be contraband in their countries. But off course this is Kenya which, as the Tanzanians say is a dog eat dog society, and Minister Kajwang probably lulls himself to sleep blissfully unaware of his role in this whole saga as he hums to himself the last few stanzas of his favorite ‘mapambano’ song!
The casual manner in which al-Faisal a person known to have terrorist links crossed over into Kenya from Tanzania because “the computer system that would have identified him as a terrorist was not working” points to a careless government. The online Encarta Dictionary defines careless as ‘not giving enough careful attention to the details of something’ and ‘disregarding or showing no concern about something.’
A government intent on protecting its people and its sovereignty should be a government that pays attention to detail and shows concern about issues that could be a threat to its security. It should be a government that is bent on ensuring that its mandate as a protector of its citizenry is not mortgaged to the highest bidder and one that genuinely strives to protect itself and its people from international opprobrium and ridicule. I would expect that such a government would have invested in the highest levels of IT and communication software so that in the event of a failed computer system it would have a back up contingency plan to continue the very necessary and expensive business of vetting visitors into our country. Therefore this business of a failed computer system indicates a careless government! In any case what was to stop Mr. al-Faisal from bribing an over zealous immigration official at Lunga Lunga who noticed that he was persona non grata so as to be allowed entry into Kenya?
This careless government has exposed us to the H1N1 virus after a very public announcement by Minister Beth Mugo assured Kenyans that no visitor would be allowed into our country if they so much as sneezed while on their way into Kenya only for tens of students from the UK to land at our very own JKIA and find their way to Kisumu where it was discovered that several of them were exposed to the virus. The ensuing circus was a study in how not to (re)act in such circumstances. Over the years this careless government has exposed us to the Artur brothers, the General Mathenge joke, the Anglo Leasing scandal, hiding of Felicien Kabuga, theft of funds from donors meant for free primary education, Triton petroleum scandal, Kenya pipeline scandals, gagging of the press though the recently gazetted Media bill and a myriad other scandals all in the last 8 years. I recall the words of Kiraitu Murungi in a moment of bravado telling retired President Moi to go back to his farm and look after his ‘ngoats’ and watch how a government is run and now we can see what he meant, a government ran at the whims and the foibles of a few to put the majority at risk!!
Which brings me to the issue of social corruption!!? In the last few days, there has been a concerted effort to arrest illegal immigrants in Kenya. The target of this exercise seems to be focused on the people of Somali origin across all major towns in Kenya……….including the wife and daughter of former MP Billow Kerrow (by mistake)! I would like to think that this sudden energetic activity has been after a carefully planned and coordinated (co)operation between the Police and the Immigration departments that had already identified who was illegally in Kenya and therefore would be arrested and deported back to wherever they came from. Coming so shortly after the mass protests in downtown Nairobi that left several dead and scores injured and whose blame appears to have been laid squarely on the shoulders of the Al Shabbab militia whose origins are in Somalia then I am persuaded otherwise.
It is generally known that Kenya is a Mecca that attracts illegal immigrants from as far as Asia, the DRC, Eritrea, Djibouti, Rwanda, Burundi and many other countries that have no common border with Kenya. Of the immediate neighboring countries that share a common border with Kenya I will not comment since our borders are so porous as to give a ‘kichungi’ a good name. Common sense therefore tells me that a well planned operation would be geared towards arresting ALL illegal immigrants and not merely those of Somali origin. This careless action by the government targeting people of Somali origins only exposes the rest of us to the risk of retaliatory attacks and continued protests. Or is it just recently that our careless government has woken up to the realization that persons of Somali origin pose a threat to the security of this country by their sheer numbers and combined economic acumen?
It is also suspected that much of the ill gotten wealth in the form of ransoms paid to pirates who hijack ships in the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean finds its way into Kenya though one way or another and is one of the factors that has raised property prices across the country to astronomical proportions as these ill gotten funds are laundered through purchase of land and property at whatever price. I am convinced that the people who have been buying up prime chunks of land at exorbitant prices have not escaped the eagle eye of the Kenyan intelligence and security services and are therefore very well known and perhaps have godfathers who ensure that their investments are protected at all costs probably with handsome profits shared in the process.
I also believe that many of these people have paid handsomely for the privilege of acquiring Kenyan citizenship since it is widely known that in Kenya so long as you can pay the going price or facilitation fee then becoming a citizen of this great country is the easiest thing in the world as is acquiring a valid work/business permit to work as a supervisor on a construction site while thousands of well educated Kenyan have no jobs. This explains why we have so many people strutting around arrogantly holding Kenyan work permits, Kenyan ID’s and Kenyan passports who cannot construct a coherent sentence in English and/or Kiswahili because they can always fall back on their masters when they need to………….at a price off course! We have mortgaged our country to all kinds of bidders and we are paying the price for this!
This payment of a facilitation fee for acquisition of Kenyan work/business permits, Kenyan ID’s and Kenyan passports is what I refer to as social corruption since both the corrupter and the corrupted get a benefit and neither has the motivation to report such corruption since they would be stripped of the benefit that one has gained from the other. Often the fee is paid over a cup of coffee or a beer after office hours at an agreed social venue, hence the term social corruption. Often this fee is shared out in a certain proportion to a cabal of willing officials at a preset agreed percentage making it a very difficult cartel to infiltrate and break up. Since the final decision on Immigration matters rests with the Minister for Immigration, it is safe to assume that over the years consecutive Ministers have been aware of these shenanigans and perhaps directly benefits from it though I hope I am wrong and that they have been duped over the years by their underlings.
This is endemic corruption at its best and some of the wealthiest and most well connected individuals in this country have very definitely profited handsomely from such facilitation fees either directly or as go betweens to whisper in the ear of the relevant official in the relevant Ministry for special exceptional consideration for a well connected so and so foreigner to have their citizenship/work/business permit issues fast tracked through the system another feature of a careless government. The level of corruption under this social corruption could easily reduce the Police Dept, that bastion of corruption year in year out, into position No. 2 in the Kenya corruption index if only those paying such fees would talk!
It is high time that the government shows us that it is a caring government by putting in place systems and processes to protect its borders and its people as well as properly vet those who aspire to live work and do business in Kenya. It is incumbent on the relevant investigative and intelligence organs of government to audit the activities of the Immigration Ministry in order to establish who over the years has not met the minimum criteria for living, working and doing business in Kenya and who should then be stripped of their ill gotten citizenship and work/business permits and then shipped back from wherever they came from.
Let us not have another al-Faisal debacle so that we stop being the clown, cartoon and laughing stock of the international community due to the sheer ineptness and carelessness of those who have sworn to defend our country in the handling of small matters that have the potential to spiral out of control due to careless and ill coordinated statements and press conferences
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