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!!
Tuesday 24 March 2015
Thursday 5 March 2015
How a difficult customer met is match!!
Many years ago I was employed in a certain financial institution in Nairobi.
One of the clients that I served was a sour puss and a particularly difficult person who wore a permanent scowl on his face. His soul(pun intended)purpose in life semed to be to make everyone's life miserable and his mantra whenever he came to the office was that someone would shed tears that day and many (ladies particularly) had indeed shed tears when he was in one of his fantastically foul moods and complaining bitterly about none issues and making up stories and reporting to the superiors completely out of context. Consequently, no one wanted to serve him and many were completely scared by him unable to construct a single coherent statement or even utter a feeble good morning to him lest he spews his verbiage on you..........except for yours truly that is!
He was one of the larger depositors of the institution and was therefore well respected mostly by the seniors who seem to take his word for the gospel truth. He was hated by everyone else that had the misfortune to serve him. After all wasn't the customer always right? Mr. Sour Puss had no grace and would barge into an office oblivious of the fact that one could be serving another customer and insist that he be served first as he was always in a perpetual hurry over every one else upsetting clients and staff alike. No one seemed to have the guts to tell him off lest he takes his money away and you lost you job in the process. We weren't even sure if he loved his wife at all because so nasty and loutish was his behaviour he was probably the same at home!
Now I was another thing all together, blame it on the innocence of youth or the foolhardiness of inexperience, I will never really know. On my first encounter with Mr. Sour Puss he barged into my office when I was serving someone and I gave him the one minute finger to show that I would be with him shortly and that he should close the door on his way out thank you! He stood there looking confused and not knowing what to do, "didn't this young whipper snapper know who the f*** he was dealing with" probably writ large across his face. I was too busy then to notice his face turn an unhealthy shade of red in anger but he stepped out nonetheless!
As fate would have it, Mr. Sour Puss had gone to God knows where (probably to report me to my boss for gross insubordination I suspect) when I opened my door to let out the client I had been serving. Naturally I took on the next client who was waiting to be served. A few minutes later he poked his now decidedly annoyed face through the door to indicate his presence but by now I was well ensconsed with my client and I was having none of his bullying so another one minute finger went up.
The next thing I heard was a tirade of unprintable words and explectives from the other side of the door because as I came to learn, Mr. Sour Puss could curse with the best of them, then my door was flung open and Mr. Sour Puss now accompanied by one of the Managers strode in almost at the point of a fit and shaking in uncontrollable rage glaring at me with his red eyes and his moustache shaking on his top lip like a frightened mouse!
It was a sight to behold and that ladies and gentlemen was my first encounter with a difficult customer! I shall not go into the details of that shambolic maiden visit with Mr. Sour Puss but I shall mention that he was rude and abusive and a real war monger but somehow I survived that encounter pretty much unscathed.
I am not sure Mr. Sour Puss had ever met someone like me younger than his youngest child as he told me later but completely nonplussed by his scowly face and irrascible behavior. I was the opposite of all my colleagues calling out a cheery "Good Morning" whenever he stepped into my office (after waiting for the person I was serving to conclude his business by the way) even if his only response was a grunt and concluding with a "see you next time" as we ended our meeting. I was determined to ensure that his famously belligerent behavior would never make me have a bad day and if anything a cheery, positive and right attitude would eventually win the day and from then on my mission in life was to make him break into a smile however pained it looked when he came to the office.
Over the next few months, my strategy seemed to work because eventually he started coming to the office in a better mood and even took to greeting the staff members he met as he made his way to my office and even began staying a little longer to share stories and his experiences of life this time with a smiling face, a real contrast to the haughty and arrogant man I had encountered a few short months ago that was ready to eat me for lunch on our first encounter for not recognising the important man that he was.
Over the years,experience has taught me that a positive attitude is everything. It does not matter how difficult a person is, they all have a spot that you can touch and change them to a more pleasant human being in time!!
One of the clients that I served was a sour puss and a particularly difficult person who wore a permanent scowl on his face. His soul(pun intended)purpose in life semed to be to make everyone's life miserable and his mantra whenever he came to the office was that someone would shed tears that day and many (ladies particularly) had indeed shed tears when he was in one of his fantastically foul moods and complaining bitterly about none issues and making up stories and reporting to the superiors completely out of context. Consequently, no one wanted to serve him and many were completely scared by him unable to construct a single coherent statement or even utter a feeble good morning to him lest he spews his verbiage on you..........except for yours truly that is!
He was one of the larger depositors of the institution and was therefore well respected mostly by the seniors who seem to take his word for the gospel truth. He was hated by everyone else that had the misfortune to serve him. After all wasn't the customer always right? Mr. Sour Puss had no grace and would barge into an office oblivious of the fact that one could be serving another customer and insist that he be served first as he was always in a perpetual hurry over every one else upsetting clients and staff alike. No one seemed to have the guts to tell him off lest he takes his money away and you lost you job in the process. We weren't even sure if he loved his wife at all because so nasty and loutish was his behaviour he was probably the same at home!
Now I was another thing all together, blame it on the innocence of youth or the foolhardiness of inexperience, I will never really know. On my first encounter with Mr. Sour Puss he barged into my office when I was serving someone and I gave him the one minute finger to show that I would be with him shortly and that he should close the door on his way out thank you! He stood there looking confused and not knowing what to do, "didn't this young whipper snapper know who the f*** he was dealing with" probably writ large across his face. I was too busy then to notice his face turn an unhealthy shade of red in anger but he stepped out nonetheless!
As fate would have it, Mr. Sour Puss had gone to God knows where (probably to report me to my boss for gross insubordination I suspect) when I opened my door to let out the client I had been serving. Naturally I took on the next client who was waiting to be served. A few minutes later he poked his now decidedly annoyed face through the door to indicate his presence but by now I was well ensconsed with my client and I was having none of his bullying so another one minute finger went up.
The next thing I heard was a tirade of unprintable words and explectives from the other side of the door because as I came to learn, Mr. Sour Puss could curse with the best of them, then my door was flung open and Mr. Sour Puss now accompanied by one of the Managers strode in almost at the point of a fit and shaking in uncontrollable rage glaring at me with his red eyes and his moustache shaking on his top lip like a frightened mouse!
It was a sight to behold and that ladies and gentlemen was my first encounter with a difficult customer! I shall not go into the details of that shambolic maiden visit with Mr. Sour Puss but I shall mention that he was rude and abusive and a real war monger but somehow I survived that encounter pretty much unscathed.
I am not sure Mr. Sour Puss had ever met someone like me younger than his youngest child as he told me later but completely nonplussed by his scowly face and irrascible behavior. I was the opposite of all my colleagues calling out a cheery "Good Morning" whenever he stepped into my office (after waiting for the person I was serving to conclude his business by the way) even if his only response was a grunt and concluding with a "see you next time" as we ended our meeting. I was determined to ensure that his famously belligerent behavior would never make me have a bad day and if anything a cheery, positive and right attitude would eventually win the day and from then on my mission in life was to make him break into a smile however pained it looked when he came to the office.
Over the next few months, my strategy seemed to work because eventually he started coming to the office in a better mood and even took to greeting the staff members he met as he made his way to my office and even began staying a little longer to share stories and his experiences of life this time with a smiling face, a real contrast to the haughty and arrogant man I had encountered a few short months ago that was ready to eat me for lunch on our first encounter for not recognising the important man that he was.
Over the years,experience has taught me that a positive attitude is everything. It does not matter how difficult a person is, they all have a spot that you can touch and change them to a more pleasant human being in time!!
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