This summer, a friend of mine was visiting from Kenya and we got into a discussion about the booming real estate market and the growing economy.  During this discussion, she said that her observation was that a lot of people were living off loans because she just couldn’t figure out where they were getting the [...]

So, someone on this blog called “working stiff” left a comment where he/she predicted that this global financial crisis would have an impact on the Kenyan and he/she gave the example of remittances (he/she predicted that they would go down). This week, the chairman of the NSE, in talking about the recent slump at the exchange, [...]

This video is making the rounds on the internet. It’s “pastor” Thomas Muthe.he.he. blessing Sarah Pain-me and praying to the “lord” to help them rebuke witchcraft. Pailin shows up towards the end of the video to receive her blessing and to allow pastor muu-muu to cleanse away those witches from… I don’t know. Her head? or [...]

William Ruto is now telling the people in the Mau Forest not to leave even if they’re forced to by the government.  He has also agreed to take personal responsibility for their non-eviction.  What does he mean? is he going to buy them guns and tell them to fight the army? Who does this guy think [...]

So, I was visiting a friend this weekend and she started talking about Safaricom’s share price.  Apparently, her brother is a member of this investment group that has bought Safaricom shares and they’re getting nervous because the share price isn’t moving up and they aren’t making any money.  According to an article in BD Africa: “Despite [...]

Well, it looks like Kenya will feature prominently in this year’s U.S. presidential election.  First, we got Obama and his Kenyan roots and now, the Vice -presidential nightmare, Sarah Pain-me, is attributing her selection as VP, to a preacher in Kenya who founded his ministry  based on a story about a witchhunt.  The story? He [...]

Did anyone catch this story in the Daily Nation?  Apparently, the “economists” at the Infant Mortality Fund, oh sorry, I meant to say the IMF, are now telling us that Kenya’s economy is set for boom times.  Yes, people.  The rest of the world’s economies maybe crashing, but not Kenya’s.  Am I crazy or are [...]

In reading the newspapers this month, it’s becoming quite obvious (and perhaps even scary) that this man Muthaura is increasingly taking on roles that the president should be performing.  What’s happening to Kibaki’s brain? has it finally relented? Usually, to succeed in government, you need to surround yourself with people who possess two unique skill sets.  [...]

During Moi and Biwott’s time, the NSSF was used as a personal piggy bank to finance their political operations and in the case of Biwott, to fund his various private businesses. The worst thing about this, is that the NSSF contains people’s retirement funds - money that people are hoping to rely on when they [...]

I was perusing the BD Africa Technology section and they’re a whole bunch of companies that are trying to strategically place themselves in the right place in order to take advantage of this high speed cable line that is supposedly coming. Now, I know a lot of Kenyans are still hung up on “old” industries like [...]

Yes, you know who I’m referring to here: Will-kill Router and William “I’m gonna eat your mama” Ntimama. Looks like the names of those people linked to the post-election violence has finally been leaked out. I’m surprised by how short the list of names is because I think they’re a lot more Kalenjin MP’s who should [...]

You have to watch this video. The Nairobi City Council apparently has a list of houses that are built on illegal road structures, which they say have to come down, but if this is how they are going to “attack” this problem, then they are down right crazy! They almost demolished this family’s house, [...]

Once again, I want to get back to this topic about the coming undersea fiber optic cable that is supposed to finally deliver high speed internet services to the East African shoreline. White African has a good summary post on this cable line and I got this image from his blog. The white [...]

I was watching Pamela Jelimo’s win online (because I can never figure out what time these events are happening on tv). Anyway, Jelimo just killed it and she’s only 18! Maybe one day someone will figure out what these Kalenjins are drinking and they’ll package it and sell it to future runners. Is [...]

Have you guys seen this video? The slaughter houses in Dagoretti were closed for failing to comply with health codes and of course, Beth Mugo isn’t happy about it because these are her constituents. So, here she is arguing with the head of NEMA about why he was wrong and the guy stands his [...]

I wrote a post last year on Kencall after someone left a comment here about them not paying their employee’s. Anyway, as I was cleaning out my spam, I noticed that people were still continuing to comment on that post and they’re providing quite a bit of insider information. hmmmm…apparently, people don’t seem to like [...]

The Nation has an interesting article on this new company that is trying to enter the Kenyan beer market and succeed where Castle did not by attempting to compete with EABL. What I found interesting about this article is that while EABL gets it’s barley from local farmers, this new company is going to import it’s [...]

We’ve often heard of NRI’s (non-resident Indians) - These are Indians who who left their country in the 60’s and 70’s when the economy in India was closed and in the doldrums. However, as the years went by, this group began to thrive and they became an important link between India and the west, [...]

Uhuru gets tripped up here when he is asked about his family’s massive land holdings (how can you defend theft?). He gets tripped up again when he is asked about Mugabe. How can you defend Mugabe? Uhuru says land reform is not about a person.  I don’t know what he meant by that.  In [...]

What a pathetic performance by Stephen Sarkur of hardtalk. I’m glad Uhuru Kenyatta corrected him when he said the following: “that the greatest violence was perpetrated by the Mungiki militia”! WTF? half a million Kikuyu’s were displaced from their homes in two days and this idiot Sarkur (or whatever the hell his name is) [...]

I wasn’t going to write a piece on these high school students in Kenya behaving like hooligans, but this video caught my attention because now the girls are behaving badly. They even torched a school. Whaaaat? Women don’t tend to behave like this, so this suggests that something very wrong is taking place [...]

I’ve been observing this war of the roses feud between William “I”m gonna eat your mama” Ntimama and William “will-kill router”. Isn’t this an interesting feud? I must say that I am surprised that no reporter in Kenya has approached Ntimama and asked him what he meant when he delivered that harrowing statement. [...]

Is anyone surprised that there is an ongoing military shake-up taking place? you shouldn’t be because we talked about this extensively during last years election violence. Like I said numerous times (& I got a lot of flack for saying it) - Kibaki has got to get rid of the Kalenjins in the army before [...]

Okay, so, I was trying to get through this article in BD Africa, but I just couldn’t make sense of it. Hello? Did someone forget to edit again? Can somebody here read the above article and tell me what the hell the writer is trying to say? Anyway, I want to move on to [...]

Someone was telling me about this new autobiography by Peter Kuguru. He is the founder of Softa, the soda company in Kenya that gave Coca-Cola a run for it’s money. He’s written an autobiography about his life and about his experiences as an entrepreneur in Kenya. I haven’t read the book yet. However, [...]

It looks like Business Daily Africa is going to start charging it’s on-line customers to read some of their articles. In doing this, they are going against the current trend in on-line journalism where everything is becoming free. Heck, even the Wall Street Journal is heading towards making all the content on their site [...]

Well, Well, looks like Otieno Kajwang has just had a relapse. He’s gone back to his bad habits (Patel? You likey workey?). Kajwang should never have been in the cabinet especially after he got disbarred for stealing a clients reward money and then refusing to pay it back!! This man is a crook. Now, Kajwang is [...]

I’ve had long arguments with my friends about the role of corruption in propping up many wealthy business owners in Kenya. Some of my friends believe that they are many successful business people in Kenya who I’m just not willing to give credit for who have achieved their wealth through sheer genius and hard [...]

Well, Kimunya did himself in. He really did. He got cocky and he didn’t think he’d get caught. I don’t understand why he would even attempt to do something like this at a time when 50% of the country is still pissed off about the election results and then, not expect to [...]

Here is Raila Odinga calling for the resignation of the following people: The minister of finance, the CBK governor and the head of Kenya’s Intelligence unit, the NSIS. Um….Does anyone honestly believe that Kibaki is going to fire some of the most powerful men in the country? and even if Kibaki did, they’d [...]

If there is one civil servant in Kenya whose job is entirely and completely irrelevant, it is that of the Attorney General. Can somebody please tell me what good Amos Wako has ever done for the country? There is no scandal he has ever prevented, there is no important prosecution he has ever [...]

What can I say? The Grand Regency Larceny hotel has been sold for 2 Billion shillings and Orengo was caught unawares. Poor Orengo. Did he actually believe the grand coalition illusion was real? (Did Ghosts buy this hotel?) Like I’ve said before, Kibaki is now a dictator and at the presidential and executive level, [...]

I want to get back to this issue of call centers in Kenya because I believe it’s still a virgin industry and one that has potential for growth. (also, I just can’t spend time talking about Safaricom shares. I mean, how many ways can you talk about whether a stock price is going [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXzoroC5Wdc Forward this video to minute 1:00. I’ was watching this video and I was astounded. If Raila Odinga (as much as I dislike him) is the prime minister and if he has a security detail supplied to him from Kenya’s elite Reece squad, his security men should have the right to accompany him everywhere he [...]

This company continues to amaze. The IPO raised $800 million dollars. That’s a whole lot of mucha-cha. So, what do you think? Who were the biggest winners and who do you think were the biggest losers? I’ll try and answer my own questions: Biggest Winners: The brokers and the millions of dollars in fee’s that they’ll collect from this [...]

Merali’s two companies have issued profit warnings.  He is blaming it on post-election violence, but why do I think it’s more than that?  The CEO of his Sameer Group of companies has effectively been fired and because Merali is an astute businessman, he quickly replaced him with another Kikuyu. Now, I don’t want people here to [...]

I have often wondered whether Raila Odinga has a never ending political curse hanging around his head.  The idea that Kibaki will release suspects responsible for the murder, rape and burning of people’s homes is simply crazy. I don’t know how others are viewing this amnesty issue, but this is my reading of it: Raila Odinga aligned [...]

Every time Samuel “Jesus help me” Kivuitu opens his mouth, I burst out laughing.  I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I don’t know how I forgot to add him to my “funny man’s” list.  This poor man was caught between a rock and a hard place.  On one side was Michuki threatening him with GSU guards [...]

I don’t understand why people are giving James Orengo a hard time about this new land policy that he is trying to enact.  I think it actually has a basis in law and it relates to this concept called “adverse posssession”, which essentially states that the state or even private individuals, do have the right [...]

“A ruling political party cannot also be in the opposition. You are either in Government or out of Government. The role of the backbench is to check the front bench,’’ said Raila in an interview with KTN. Raila Odinga is truly an amazing specimen.  I wonder if he felt the same way when he was [...]

I must say, BDAfrica is becoming one of my favorite reads (who edits that newspaper? they deserve a big clap for doing a good job with their reporting). So, they have another interesting story about this guy called John Kiarie who is suing Dyer & Blair, claiming that they did not give him a return on [...]

I’m becoming increasingly curious about this guy Patrick Gakiavih, the owner/founder of Nyagan’ya Nyagah Stock-”biters”.   The Nation has an interesting story about where he ”invested” all that stolen money: He loves his hometown of Embu because he bought a lot of land there. According to the Nation article, he stole a total of about Ksh. 885 million or the [...]

Someone just emailed me this article that appeared in the British Magazine, the Spectator.  The article is written by a Kenyan based journalist name Aidan Hartley.  The article begins like this: ” I want to say Kenya is a victim of negative press. Shady characters called bloggers are nicknaming the President’s new Peace cabinet of ministers [...]

This is an interview that Will-Kill Router gave on Kenya’s looming food crisis.  He seems to have some of his facts memorized (x amount of maize was planted, x amounted is needed, etc, etc) - but at the end of the day, Africa’s inability to achieve food security is mainly due to it’s inability to [...]

The Nation and the Standard finally have similar stories on the procession of this grand coalition illusion.  From what I read, they’re basically going to try and get along and blah, blah, blah….. The roles however, about who is number one or number two (is it Kibaki or Raila?) are still left undefined.   And you [...]

I’m intrigued by this publicly listed company mainly because of it’s owners/founders.  I read somewhere that the Somen’s are Israeli Jews and their father immigrated to Kenya in the 1960’s or 1970’s (he apparently owns the Fairview Hotel).  Anyway, his sons are now running this company called (Access Kenya). I looked at their website  and it [...]

I am in the process of compiling a list of funny men (public figures who, when they open their mouths, leave me in stitches). So far, the following individuals have made my list: Kalembe Ndile Kamlesh Pattni Otieno Kajwaaaaaaang And now, I’m going to have to add the one and only, Francis Atwoli (this man may actually walk away [...]

I was having a short, but interesting conversation with someone late last night and the topic of Equity Banks’ rapid rise to the top came up (apparently, it now holds 41% of all bank accounts in the country). Anyway, during this short conversation, this guy told me that he attended a speech given by Equity’s MD at the Harvard [...]

My Dear Kenyans: The government does not have enough money to support it’s own oink, hiccup, oink. Um..excuse me for a minute. This picture is distracting me. Is this pig eating a chicken or is it eating a piece of itself? What was I saying earlier? Ah yes, the government has no money to support it’s own [...]

I am continually amused by how much press time the U.S. ambassador to Kenya is given because here in America, he is really a nobody.  If you asked any American to name the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, they would think you were high on something. The president of the United States offers ambassadorial appointments to many [...]

Fast forward the video below to minute 2:30. Saitoti walks over to Raila and tells him that he will get to introduce Kalonzo and then Kalonzo {as the VP} will get to introduce the president. Well, Raila didn’t like this at all because he thinks he has more seniority than Kalonzo and when [...]

If you listened to some of these Kalenjins, you’d think they were the only tribal group in Kenya that has had land stolen from them. You’d also think they were the only tribe in Kenya that is suffering economically.  I was watching the video below and could not believe what I was hearing. Kalenjin MP’s [...]

It appears like there’s been another incident with Kenya Airways. This time they just over-shot the runway at Entebbe. I had a piece on the crash in Cameron and I said then that if Kenya Airways had another fatal accident, it would be a public relations disaster for them. It hasn’t happened yet, [...]

The Nation finally has an article on the intelligence failure that preceded this election violence. We’ve been talking about the NSIS here for months now (I’m surprised it took the Nation this long to write an article on the NSIS). The article points out what two commentators said here two days ago: That [...]

The Standard newspaper is really becoming a joke in terms of it’s blatant ass kissing of Raila Odinga. I mean, please, please, please… As I’m checking the headlines I see this title: “Raila Bounces Back”. Huh? Wait. It gets worse. Look at this quote from the straaaange article above: “Raila, the Orange Democratic Movement [...]

There’s an interesting article in BD Africa about Kenya finally moving towards opening up a commodities exchange where farmers and others (I presume) will eventually be able to trade agricultural commodities just as they trade Safaricom shares. I’ve written articles about this before and wondered why an agricultural country like Kenya did not have an exchange [...]

The Mars group has studied the financial obligations that will come with this new bloated government and they’ve determined that 80% of Kenya’s national budget will go into buying more mercedez benz’s and range rovers for these greedy, greedy, politicians. Yes, my friends, the cabinet will now cost the Kenyan taxpayer $1 billion [...]

Can somebody email Michael Gichangi (the head of the NSIS) and tell him to wake up. A new year has dawned and we are three months into it. The government is now admitting to being outwitted by Mungiki. The pattern of intelligence failures can no longer be ignored. Witness: The Sabaot Land Defense Force was operating long [...]