Why am I not shaking in righteous indignation now that discrimination has been exposed as alive and kicking in uptown Chinese restaurants in Nairobi? Why am I not livid about this kick in the groin by people that we have welcomed into our country that have then branded us as possible Al Qaeda operatives hell bent on sending them and their Chinese, Mzungu and Asian diners to an early grave? How many other Africans have suffered the indignity of being turned away by a guard with the now infamous phrase that “waafrika hawakubaliwi hapa baada ya saa kumi na moja”?
Well the writing is now well and truly on the wall that the same people whom we have accommodated as friends in our country are slowly turning against us, and it had to take a couple of journalistic types to expose the shenanigans of our Chinese guests running this restaurant who seem to have grown too big for their britches and are now openly threatening and discriminating against you and me!
A few months ago 50 or so Chinese citizens were arrested in the upmarket Runda area and accused of operating an illegal communication system (as an aside, is that case still alive?) that was not licensed by the competent licensing authority. Now we have come to learn that this discriminatory Chinese Restaurant also had not renewed its license since 2011. Is there a connection here? Methinks that this is just a tip of the iceberg and a scandal of epic proportions is brewing in regards to the Chinese people that we have so willingly allowed into our country to build our roads, homes, hotels and railways while engaging in restaurant and hotel businesses dotted in many of our large towns and cities across the country.
If two incidences of unlicensed operations have been unearthed so close together how many more such cases are out there with the licensing authorities blissfully unaware that they are businesses operating illegally or fully aware that they are unlicensed businesses owned and operated by immigrants in the country thanks to a handsome bribe to look away. It is also highly possible that these unlicensed businesses could be fronts for other nefarious activities because why would a legitimate business refuse to pay a paltry annual license fee of Kshs. 45,000.00 when they expect an African to spend a minimum of Kshs. 20,000.00 before they can be admitted into the hallowed guest list to be admitted into the restaurant after 5.00 pm. Who, pray, is protecting these chaps? I stand to be corrected but it is likely that if they pay no license fees, they also pay no taxes be they VAT, Corporation, NSSF, PAYE, NHIF etc for themselves or their staff members. These foreigners could also be illegally working and running businesses in this country for all I know!!
What is the way forward given that this is a glaring security threat for this country when you allow foreigners to run, own and manage businesses without any seeming audit process in place to ensure that they respect the rules and laws that govern the operations of their businesses?
Let us start by scrutinizing the immigration records of these chaps because there must be some record of how the person came into the country, what type of visa he had and how long his intended stay was likely to be. If there is no record he is here illegaly so throw him out of the country. Then go on to the business records of the outfits that they own and manage.
Have they met the minimum threshold for investment by foreigners in the country? How were they licensed and do their businesses have an element of local shareholding as prescribed under the investment rules? Have the foreign directors been properly vetted and cleared by the CID as genuine investors and do they have the correct paperwork to support their continued stay in the country? Do they have business permits and licenses from the authorities to run the type of businesses that they own and manage? Do they pay taxes regularly as well as other levies and statutory payments required under various laws and statutes in the country?
This scrutiny also needs to be extended to those other beach hotels at the Coast that we time and again read about as being discriminative in their handling of locals seeking to visit their businesses because despite the ‘management reserves the right of admission’ signs plastered all over the place discrimination should not be on grounds of race, sex, gender or creed!
Renewal of licenses for foreigner owned business should be even more thorough than those owned by locals so that they also be required to provide compliance certificates from the tax authorities, NHIF, NSSF and others when applying for license renewals to confirm that they are unto date on all their returns and taxes because were they to pack up and go back to their countries without meeting their obligations then the country and its citizens would be the losers.
And while at it is there a hotline that I can call if I have been discriminated against because I am sure that this practice of discrimination against Kenyans of African descent as well as other Africans living in Kenya happens at very many other restaurants, hotels and other establishments in Kenya but remains unreported because no one know which authority to turn to for seeking redress!
The Chinese seem to be the culprits in this case but I can bet that other races also practice some form of racial discrimination in their businesses albeit in a more subtle way having been in Kenya longer and they are as guilty as the Chinese are naïve in the current scenario and should not be allowed to continue with this nonsense anymore!!
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