You, I we are all corrupt !

I am disturbed today! In fact I am extremely disturbed and disgusted with myself because I am corrupt so says Transparency International (TI) in the Global Corruption Barometer report released recently. Kenya is at number four globally on the list, with only Sierra Leoneans, Liberians and Yemenis more corrupt than us!

The report says that I bribe the cops, I bribe my way at the Lands office, I bribe my parliamentarians, I bribe the headmaster to get my kids into schools as well as bribe the judges and magistrates who dispense justice. But is this really the case?

A recent case of a local MP in Nairobi nabbed red-handed topping up his Kshs. 1,000,000.00 plus salary with a bribe of Kshs. 100,000.00 is probably an indicator that the report is not too far off the mark as are cases of petty bribery that cause our rotund and portly police officers to assume the ‘Usain Bolt’ position when caught as they flee unsuccessfully, distended midriffs dancing a discombobulated jig, from the clutches of the anti-graft officers composed of swift, slim and trim graduands as hundreds of Kenyans become yet another damning statistic as they fall victim to yet another avoidable road accident as unwitting victims of corruption.

Who can forget the sad scenes of palatial mansions costing millions of shillings being demolished a couple of years ago and the hysterical wailing of those who were affected as they watched their life savings brought down by a bulldozer and who knew all along that they had cast iron title deeds in their hands victims of scheming and bribing of Lands Office staff or those languishing in prison in perpetual misery having been found guilty of non-existent offences their only crime being tried by corrupted judges and magistrates willing to sell justice to the highest bidders!

But why is there no hue and cry? Why is there no national uprising if we feel that we have been slandered? Is it because TI is right? Is it true that we are actually corrupt? You, I and all Kenyans have been branded with the branding iron of corruption and we should hang our heads in shame as we once again become the laughing stock of our neighbors!

Shame on us!!

The thanksgiving function:

I had the privilege to attend a function recently in rural Muranga the land of my ancestors. Muranga is a beautiful, verdant and bountiful place that starts 40 kilometers from Nairobi though the place where the function was held is about 85 kilometers from the capital city of Kenya in Kigumo Constituency of Muranga County.

The occasion was a thanksgiving function for Mr. James Macharia who also happens to be my relative and who was the immediate former CEO of NIC Bank Ltd and who had recently been appointed as a Cabinet Secretary for Health by his Excellency the President of Kenya after a rigorous vetting process.

After an uneventful drive broken only by a stop at Blue Post Hotel in Thika where those invited had congregated so as to leave together in a convoy, we arrived at Kamunganga ACK Church the venue of the function to find a huge tent packed with a multitude of probably 2000 strong all expectant and eagerly awaiting the forthcoming festivities. In attendance was a strong contingent of Muranga politicians led by the County Governor, The Senator, the local MP, MP’s from other constituencies in Muranga and elsewhere, the Muranga women’s representative, members of the local county assembly, the area deputy county commissioner, ward representatives and local chiefs. Also present was an 11 strong clergy led by the ACK Bishop of Mount Kenya Central as well as captains of business and industry, representatives of the banking fraternity, friends, family and well-wishers. The local administration was in full swing backed up by armed uniformed and plain clothes police officers to ensure that security prevailed.

I have known James for a very long time as a close family member and he has come across as a genuinely caring and down to earth person notwithstanding his high status in society. He attends family functions without much prompting even on relatively short notice and is always quick to offer a word of encouragement and advise when needed. The multitude that had gathered were here to celebrate the recognition of the hard work and determination of an individual who had chosen to exit the relative safety and security of the private sector for the rough and tumble of the public service for the greater good of his country!

The ceremony started with a church service with much singing and powerful spiritual messages being delivered by the Bishop and his team with a famous Kikuyu gospel musician adding spice to the service by belting out some favorite and well known gospel hits that many sang along to. The local administration, family members, friends, banking fraternity representatives and politicians were then invited to give their brief comments  by the presiding MC’s who all extolled the virtues of James and his appointment to this high office as well as the expectations (by the politicians) as one of their own.

The most memorable of these speeches was from the obviously overjoyed father who talked about his joy and happiness that his son was now in the Health docket and since he and his wife suffered from Diabetes they were now almost cured knowing that their son was in charge of not only their health but that of millions of Kenyans across the country! It was priceless!!

Then it was the turn of the guest of honor to make his speech and a moving and memorable one it was as he recalled his days while growing up and studying in rural Kenya and having never dreamt of being in the position he is at today and explaining the process of how he had been requested to submit his CV (which he did though he was out of the country), how he had then been called personally by the president, how his interview went, how the vetting process went……………..there was pin drop silence as the audience lapped up this first hand narration up and raucous applause as he introduced those present who had made this possible.  

To me the most poignant part of James’s speech was in extolling the virtues of getting an education and the fact that whatever seed that one sowed would eventually bear fruit and that hard work and determination were key in developing a successful career and this from a person who reported to the office at 6.15 am a message directed at those in schools and colleges as well as those just starting off in their professional careers!! But the icing on the cake was that this was not just idle talk. His hard work had paid off because, he went on, NIC Bank his former employer in recognition of the hard work he had put in over the 8 years he had led the institution in the process growing the assets of the bank more than 10 times over had written off a substantial amount outstanding on his mortgage loan and had also given him a parting gift of a brand new BMW 4x4. He was quick to point out that this was not bragging but a true reflection and statement of what had transpired.

In retrospect, I guess the message that he was conveying was that in life, what appears to be on the surface was not always what was on the ground. He had no reason to tell the congregation that his home loan had been paid off nor that his brand new car was a gift from a grateful employer and could have left such matters unsaid for all to believe that he had purchased these items from his own resources content and basking in the glory of owning them free of any encumbrances title and all. But no, not James full of humility to the end willing to bare all so that those present could understand what a person of integrity was all about. It will not surprise me if many of our fellow brothers and sisters out there have similarly been gifted items of a substantial worth by their employers in recognition of their unparalleled contributions to the success of their organisations but who choose to hide this information from the world for their own reasons!!

That show of utmost humility flanked by his wife, son and daughter was I am sure an emotional prick on the conscience of many since it was delivered without any fawning, bragging or overly justifying the reasons behind such ostentatious gifts and I have no doubt in my mind that James will make a significant impact on the provision of health services in this country that will continue for many years to come.

That was one thanksgiving that I was glad I attended that finished with a delicious lunch served at 5.00 pm to all those present hungry as we all were after a marathon 6 hours and I wish him and his team at the Ministry of Health all the success as they embark on this difficult journey of ensuring good health care to Kenyans now and in the future.

Men are hopeless at multitasking:

The fact that men are hopeless at multitasking came to me literally with a thud and rather painfully at that recently. I had attended a meeting at one of the offices where I work and unbeknownst to me the venue had changed from one floor to another. The new meeting venue was just four short flights down, so I chose to take the stairs rather than the lifts.

So there I was walking down the stairs and decided in the interest of time to also send a text message on my phone, while clutching onto my tablet an important business tool to me. One careful step at a time I made steady progress down the first flight of stairs and then I rounded the corner to the next level of stairs still texting away when disaster struck!

Up until now I have no idea what happened, I am not sure if I missed a step or miscalculated the distance to the next step or what because one minute I was busy texting away and a Nano second later, I was on my butt and bumpity, bumpity, bumpiting down the stairs. Instinct kicked in and I reached out to get a hold of the bannister to stop my rapid decent and possible serious injury forgetting for an instant that I was holding onto my tablet, which naturally flew out of my hand and fell two levels down to the next landing where it fell flat on its back the impact thankfully absorbed by the protective case that I had bought along with the tablet.

By this time my rapid gravity aided descent had been halted by my grabbing onto the bannister but not before sliding down four, possibly five stairs thankfully not witnessed by anyone the sound of the tablet slapping down on the landing below the only noisy interlude to a fairly action packed but quiet and tense few seconds.

I gingerly stood up unsure if there was any physical injury on myself, but thank God all seemed fine as I was able to curl my fingers and flex my joints and appendages without any serious pain save for the soft tissue bruising in my nether regions and possibly a mild sprain in my wrist where I had grabbed onto the bannister that is expected in such a situation! I made my way slowly to the meeting having collected my still functional tablet on the landing below, now suitably mollified and chastised having escaped with what could have been a nasty injury, my text message now forgotten and phone in the pocket holding onto the bannister for dear life lest a similar fate or worse befalls me before I got to the meeting.

It was only several days later the lingering pain on my backside now a distant memory and the embarrassment of falling down the stairs almost forgotten, that I retold the incident to my rather bemused wife. Nowadays I avoid multitasking as much as possible particulary when doing something physical lest I find myself in similar and painful situations.

So truly if something so mundane and everyday and as simple as walking down a flight of stairs while texting on the phone can go so awry, what hope is there for us men in a world that will soon be dominated by our multitasking sisters!!

It’s winter in Kenya:

It’s winter in the +254……..…..at least from where I sit (stand, squat, sleep) in the Nairobi Metropolitan area and toes, ears and fingers are freezing. Temperatures have plunged and are now hovering around 13 degrees Celsius at night. This is cold by Nairobi standards though I am told 30 minutes out of Nairobi around Limuru the mercury has been reported at 9 degrees Celsius and we are not yet into July the traditionally coldest month of the year!

I have had a heater in the house that has not been working for a few years thanks to a blown fuse that caused the plug to fuse with the extension cable. A few days ago I decided that this cold was the type to consign me to an early grave and I broke the extension cable and liberated the heater’s plug from its imprisonment by the extension cable. Then to add insult to injury on the unfortunate extension cable, I used its plug to connect to the heater and threw away the now useless cable and voila, I now have a working heater and a nice toasty bedroom. It’s the only place I want to be in these days after work where I can lie down in relative comfort, socks off, half sweater off the only tough decision being when to venture out of the room for one reason or another. Thank God that I have the essentials in my bedroom, a TV and a loo, so those forays are few and far between!

In this weather, those long forgotten heavy jackets, vests, scarves and (yes) gloves have been dusted off and now seem to have become ‘nom de plume’ with majority of Nairobians dressed up warmly to shield themselves from the elements. I see gloves being sold along the highways nowadays and wonder who had the foresight to import them in advance, or are they a product of some sweat shop in Kariobangi running full throttle 24 hours a day to meet the insatiable demand for them?

 I wonder how the young school going kids in those traditionally cold climes in Kenya like Limuru, Meru, Nyeri, Burnt Forest, Kinangop, Eldoret and Nyahururu (in no particular order) are faring since I noted a few years ago that a balaclava a.k.a ‘boshori’ was a necessary item of school clothing and that was in the summer (do we have such a thing in Kenya?) months. Now that it is winter which additional items of clothing to ward off the freezing temperatures will their parent be saddled with? Thermal underwear, full body woollen suits, blankets or hot water bottles perhaps!!! Essential items of clothing considering that many of the public schools require more than a coat of paint to make them spick and span – like windows, doors and roofs.

This is despite the fact that if the current government has its way future public primary school kids will be the proud owners of solar laptops to be used in drafty cold classrooms bereft of windows, doors and roofs!! Maybe they should have a heater app developed for those laptops as an added bonus for the children in the colder parts of this country and to give them an incentive to attend school so as to keep warm or a fan app to keep them cool when in the ravages of a heat wave.

But some Kenyans (and most tourists) in our capital city still don’t get it. They still walk around half dressed in tee shirts and shorts, tank tops and boob tubes as if they are in sweltering Mombasa not realizing that this is our winter season. It makes one wonder who is mad, them or us well draped people or if God, in his haste to create some of us, omitted to add the mandatory thermostat that the others seem to have been given a 2^nd dosage of in his infinite wisdom……….or to mock the rest of us!

Come on people you are making the majority of us look bad and what would your mother say, you going out half dressed when more sensible people are warmly wrapped up! You will catch your death of cold and will have no one to blame but yourself.

But ‘ngai baba’, what shall we do when July rolls in?

Are we there yet!

I have come to the rather sad conclusion that we are not yet ready as a nation to use the Thika Super highway, that expensive piece of real estate that cost us a pretty sum and lots of aggravation for the four years that it was under construction, or any other really great piece of architectural road project for that matter!! The Thika Road project including pedestrian bridges, service roads, vehicle overpasses and underpasses, pedestrian and cycling lanes, road furniture works and street lighting etc while a sight to behold seems to have brought out some of our most primitive and Stone Age tendencies amongst us!

Why have I come to this conclusion? Picture this if you may.

It is rush hour and you are finally and comfortably out of the maddening Nairobi city centre traffic jam and on your way home. At the Globe Cinema section, the nightmare begins with a traffic gridlock caused by impatient drivers not wanting to yield at the Kipande Road junction and drivers using the wrong outside lane and then forcing their way back into the lane intended for traffic proceeding to Ngara.

At Ngara you encounter a hoard of people jostling for position to cross the road on foot a scant 50 yards from the pedestrian overpass doing their best to block traffic and get run over by a vehicle in the process. To add to this confusion,’mkokoteni’ pushers are struggling to maneuver their carts piled high with assorted merchandise through the vehicular traffic oblivious to the danger to themselves and the other roads users while the cacophony is stepped up by  ‘matatus’ picking and dropping off passengers willy nilly on the road ignoring the bus stage a few yards away.

As you proceed towards Pangani, the same foolhardiness continues to manifest itself on that stretch of road with pedestrians casually crossing the road where cars are speeding past, while cyclists nonchalantly cycle their way along the road competing with the buses and trucks speeding dangerously close to them while studiously ignoring the cycling lanes intended for their use.  As you approach Pangani, matatus have converted part of the road into a bus stage and impeding the flow of traffic seems normal to them.  Further down the road, someone’s car has broken down or most likely run out of fuel and the hazard lights are blinking to warn other road users to be aware. There are no warning triangles as required by law, placed some distance before the vehicle. Traffic is flowing but with no formula because the slow traffic is on the fast lane, while the faster traffic is forced to bob and weave between lanes to maintain the speed required.

The speed limit is a fallacy as any casual glance will tell you because that bus just charged by at a speed way in excess of 100 kms/hr while the speed limit is 80 kms/hr for those monolithic public service vehicles while that decrepit pick up that has no business being on the road in teh first place is struggling to maintain a speed of 50 kms/hr and it is in the fast lane, the wrong lane for it!

All along the highway, all the rules and regulations of safe motoring are being ignored by all and sundry motorists, cyclists, pedestrians…………ALL! From the pedestrians walking on the roads and vehicle overpasses and underpasses, to the motorcyclist riding on the pedestrian walkway against the flow of traffic, to the cyclists and 'mkokoteni' guys oblivious to the dangers of using the vehicle overpasses as convenient shortcuts to where they are going, to the myriad of public service vehicles and private motorists who stop on the highway to drop off and collect god knows what and then speed off at a mad cap pace to catch up with lost time............ perhaps!

Let me also not forget the pedestrians jumping over safety barriers to make a mad dash across the road dicing and dueling with death in the process and inconveniencing the driving motorist. All of us have a role to play in terms of safe usage of these infrastructural masterpieces however harried and busy we are and we should take the trouble to understand and use them responsibly lest the usual refrain ‘serekali ingilie’ starts once the death toll escalates due to the carelessness exhibited by all of us.

It’s a tough job and someone has to do it!!

The mood was glum, the tension palpable. Those present at this meeting were trying their best to be upbeat but failing miserably none the less. We were here to make some tough decisions, elephantine in nature you might say, the kind of decisions that whatever the outcome it was going to backlash on us. The phase ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ took on a whole new meaning because, I was not at the periphery looking in, but right in the middle of the damn situation and I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t.

The usual agenda items were dispensed with in a routine manner, the usual exuberance and jocular manner replaced by a tense and somber mood obvious to all. Eyes were mostly cast down and not making eye contact with each other. The business of the day dispensed with, one of our own was politely asked to leave the meeting as whatever needed to be discussed touched on them personally and under corporate governance rules any interested party on whom a matter touched upon needed to absent themselves, either physical exclusion or by not participating in the deliberations.  Should the rest of us also have been asked to leave the meeting room, weren’t we after all interested parties in any case?

This was it, the diplomacy of previous weeks, the efforts to resolve the impasse, the misinformation and twisting of facts in the media that had preceded this meeting was now behind us, water under the bridge, we had arrived at a point of no return. It was crunch time and hard decisions needed to be made and the consequences of such decisions were weighty and rested on our shoulders. The buck literally stopped with us!

Were we really ready? Were we ready to plunge into this pool of unchartered waters, not sure what the currents of these turbulent waters and fate held in store for us? Were we ready to make a weighty decision on one of our own and others caught up in the aftermath? Uncertainty was writ large on the faces of several as the Chairman outlined the issues that had brought us there and what our role was going to be at the end of the day, a matter that had to be concluded one way or another however long we took.

The questions and comments began, hesitant at first but slowly taking on the desired momentum. A probing question here, a clarification there, a rehash of the documents of the company to see that all loopholes had been sealed and that we had done everything by the book, a query as to whether the recommending committee had been properly constituted. Was their recommendation unanimous? This was now getting serious and it appeared clear that this was but a tactic to draw out the decision making process as long as possible  because clearly no one was looking forward to moving to the next step!!

Were there any exit clauses? Did we have any options other than making the hard decisions? Could we postpone this for some time in the future, sleep over it perhaps? But no, this thing needed to be concluded and it needed to be finalized immediately because too much was at stake.........................!

The above is a personal narrative meant to show the depth of helplessness that confronts someone when a weighty decision has to be made. If this is what being a president means then the presidency is not something I can wish on even my worst enemy because day in day out it is a never ending rollercoaster of a ride. Just as you think you have stabilized the ship another rogue waves comes along and threatens to sink your vessel once again. Just as you think all the ducks are in a row, some other issue comes along and pushes them out of kilter. But this is the world of leadership, of decision making where hard decisions have to be made despite opposition to whatever decision you may make.

At the pinnacle of leadership in any organisation, in any country, in any situation the buck screeches to a halt in front of you and not in a methodical, slow tap on the brakes kind of way but in a bone jarring stand on the brakes kind of way!  It is an emergency however you look at it and some people could lose their livelihoods, others their sanity and still others their dignity whichever decision is taken. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. It does not matter, how methodically you study the situation and look at it from all angles, at the end of the day the decision has to be made.

That is why, I think it is quite naïve and disingenuous that the majority of Kenyans see that the recently elected government of the day is not doing enough, and has been unable to meet its pledges and has been bedeviled with challenges ever since the president and his deputy were sworn in. This is the honeymoon period when all the sweet nothings mentioned as you wooed  the voters come back to haunt you because the structures are not in place, your detractors want to ensure that you do not succeed and as the structures of government are changing to the county system confusion and disorder rule the day.

So I posit that it is necessary to give our leaders sometime and cut them some slack so that they organise their business and get to understand the structures that oil the mechanisms that make things happen. This business of leadership is not easy and takes lots of commitment, spirit and guts and someone has to do it!

Is there fun with a first car any more?

I look at the range of cars available today to first time car buyers and I recall my first car with a trace of nostalgia given that the choices in the late 1980’s were very limited.

My first car was a Toyota KE 70 panel van. I was proud of it and it cost me the princely sum of Kshs. 90,000.00 through a bank loan. The price was courtesy of my father who had bought it from his employer once it had been fully depreciated in their books and as he had another vehicle he sold this one to me at a good price which was actually just below valuation.



A replica of my Toyota KE 70 panel van. The two rear panels were modified into sliding windows

In those days, there were no reconditioned vehicles from Dubai, Japan, UK, Singapore and what not. All vehicles then were used cars that had been bought brand new from a showroom somewhere in Kenya. This particular model was an experimental locally assembled car from AVA in Thika (I think) meant for the local market and it had been a best seller for The Motor Mart Group (Toyota East Africa Ltd today) then for many years being attractive to a wide variety of users.  My panel van was therefore about 9 years old (just below the threshold of 10 years for a vehicle to be financed then) by the time I bought it. I did not have a fancy name for it, it was just my car!!

It was one of those models that had three doors, the two front doors and the rear boot door through which you loaded luggage or any excess passengers that you had to carry. Being a panel van it had a modified passenger seat behind the driver and co-driver that could seat three. I have intentionally avoided using the word “comfortably” after three because that would be pushing the reality too far. Entry to the passenger seat was by lowering the driver or co-driver seat to gain access.

The rear seat could also fold down to increase the boot space for extra luggage where 5 children could comfortably sit if need be which we had done many times in the previous year’s as we grew up. The passenger rear had sliding windows as a result of knocking out where the rear panels had been, much like what some of the bus windows are like, but the waterproofing had been done so poorly that every time it rained, whoever sat at the window was sure to be drenched. Locking these windows was through a simple lever that jammed the window shut!

As is wont to happen and given that with one’s first car one hardly has the extra cash to maintain it in tip top condition, with time the car aged (more!) and developed many problems starting with the hydraulic boot system failing, breaking the spring mechanism that kept the driver’s chair at a comfortable 60 degrees angle, the handbrake cable snapping, the tires wearing out, the battery always on the fritz etc. In addition, none of the gauges worked. Not the fuel gauge or the speedo or the temperature gauge.

With all these problems the most serious incidents were a torn fan belt while on a lonely stretch of road between Nyeri and Naro Moru that entailed three back and forth trips to Naro Moru each time coming back with the wrong belt and the second time being stopped by a shop security grille one late night in Nairobi after the brakes failed thanks to a ruptured brake hose with my brother in law in the driver’s seat.

It meant that I had to have a collection of broom handles, stones, masking/electrical tape, jerry cans, bottles of water and tools with me at all times. The broom handles to hold up the boot or engine hood and the drivers chair to stop it collapsing, and the stones to prop against the rear tyres to prevent it from rolling backwards were the gear to disengage while stationery. The bottles of water would prove very handy were the radiator to spring a leak and become extremely thirsty while the jerry can was to salvage my pride when I ran out of fuel, a frequent occurrence. The tools – spanners and screwdrivers of all sizes - off course were to tighten anything that may have come loose along the way while the masking/electrical tape to tie any wires that had come apart.

The litany of problems bedeviling that car was like a classic “how not to maintain a car” manual. The silver lining of all this was that I became an accomplished trouble shooter who knew most of the time where the problem was with the car. I would take it for repairs and quickly isolate where the most likely problem was given the banging noises, or the rattling, or the change in engine tone a skill that helped me become a ‘hands on’ fellow ever ready to ‘do-it-yourself’ at home.

That car was my first experience of managing anything and despite the problems I faced on that maiden journey with that Toyota it took me to places and parts of Kenya that I could not have been able to visit with public means…….pun fully intended!

That is why when I look at the range of vehicles available to the first time car buyer today; I wonder if it teaches them to be a ‘do-it-yourself’ guy and an accomplished trouble shooter and if it gives them the fun of having a problem riddled car that keeps you constantly on your toes as you wait for the next hole in the pocket!