[goigoi]

As a Kenyan who has suffered under poor leadership.
Yaani why am i called internally displaced person? here are my thoughts.
You don’t have to agree with me.

There are 11 fundamental aspects of governance that i think form the basic ingredient of a good modern country.
These are;
A working and operational health care
Reliable security apparatus-police and army
A proactive education system
A country-wide and well maintained communication infrastructure-a not a few highways to nowhere.
A reliable and cost-effective energy-for domestic and industrial use.
A well establish industrial sector to absorb trained labour force
Aworking and functional civil service
A well honest and demand - led private sector
Aworking and functional judiciary
A reliable and functional consumer protection regime
Genuine democratic political structures without the above a country will not achieve human and economic development.

So what is wrong with Kenya? my quick thoughts.

We lack many things but the main problems in my opinion are as follows;
1.a working and operational health care health has become a preserve of the rich, no medicine, doctors have fled. The ministry of health has not even expanded city morgue for decades yet population has grown ten-fold!
2. Reliable security apparatus (the police and army) a compromised and corrupt police means that hard core criminals do not fear the law because they have co-opted the police and the judiciary into their fold and common law breakers repeat their feat because they know they will get way with it hence the law abiding citizen is the threatened species. The army has not helped protect kenya from the invading militia in the north and eastern provinces!

3. A proactive education system- we have a costly education bereft of government subsidy leading to low enrollment. Colleges without facilities mean poorly equipped graduates-universities that do not subscribe to basic facilities such as on-line journals can no be excused. Yes internet is expensive but surely universities can afford broadband and a few dozens of computers!

4.a country-wide and well maintained infrastructure-a not a few highways a city council that can not afford to erect bus shelters leave alone toilets speaks volumes about our commitment- or rather our version of development. When a half of the population can not travel on gravel road in a country that produces bitumen then you need not look further for signs of mediocrity. Even politicians from the deprived regions such as northern Kenya say nothing- each year you see them defecting to the ruling party and singing praise of the government yet they live like aliens in their own country. What is the excuse for not having major trunk roads from Mombasa to lokichoggio, busia to ijara, lamu to migori? lack of one is a cheap excuse yet we know in the budget billions are allocated in june every year to cow-boy contractors to do the road! worse , this sum includes what all of us with cars pay as petroleum levy every time we fuel our vehicles. It is pure insanity!

5. A reliable and cost-effective energy-for domestic and industrial use. So we get taxed rural electrification tax for every watt we consume and june each year the ministry of finance allocates millions for rural electrification-- how nice. This drama has been going on since 1963? to enhance the comedy, we are often asked to pay for pylons/posts and transformer when we apply to be connected to power? so what is the connection here-what does the money do in the first place? expensive power means high cost of production-higher prices. Often every body has to go to town where there is electricity to get the simplest of the things such as photocopying! or we have to travel to Nairobi to get the most basic things that the local do/dc should provide. You call that development?

6. A well establish industrial sector to absorb trained labour force there are no real incentive to the industrialists. They want cheap power, security of their property and staff, people with a higher purchasing power to buy their goods and services, cheap loans. But in our case, it is the government which is borrowing all the money from the private sector fund phantom project such as anglo- leasing and in the process increasing inflation rates hence cutting down customer base and hindering expansion hence low employment opportunities!

7. A working and functional civil service you do not get a paper signed on time. Time is of no essence to civil servants, you travel all the way to the capital to get a paper signed as a favour. Most of the time the pen-pushers (remember those kenyans who used to leave a coat on the seat in the office then they go away the whole day?) are absent so you have to lodge somewhere to get it signed the next day if ever. No computers for record keeping, computers effectively replaced typewriters and that is it. How much does it cost to buy servers and store everything electronically? the police do not know whether a car on the road is registered, they have to go in person to the registrar of motor vehicles to ascertain that the driving license is genuine after dusting tones and tones of paper files! all these could be computerised such that a constable can check online and act accordingly from the road or at the local police station. They say it is expensive, really? how come safaricom knows all the details even the time used in seconds of their 9 million subscribers yet they company has less than 1000 members of staff? so universities can not tell, if asked, within a period of say 30 minutes the certificate number of their graduates...ostensibly because they are not properly computerised yet they train computer students. Why not employ their own it graduates as volunteers to computerise their own facilities!

8.A honest and demand driven private sector the private sector has learnt to bribe to get through red tape, and even to get favourable judicial rulings such as is the case in bad debt portfolio. So they have become dodgy as well in order to survive meaning the consumers are the ones hurting. They charge clients more and unfairly but they know as a customer, you can not complain or beat them in court. That is why even banks that do not charge for withdrawal abroad do so only in Kenya-ask standard bank and barclays bank. They never levy their uk customers back in the uk the charges they levy here in kenya.

9.a working and functional judiciary.This is a bigger problem than most of us would want to accept. If you have money, you will get court adjournments, injunctions and restraining orders however frivolous your claim is. You can actually strike a deal for these orders to be permanent in the true sense of the term! nothing can thrive in such a judicial wilderness.

10.a reliable and functional consumer protection regime. Currently there is no government backed consumer protection and that is why bread is still 100 g under weight and high density mattresses with a bureau of standard mark, wear out in three months. If you want judicial redress, you can not be backed-up by government standards because standards exist in books not in reality. This is a serious flaw.

11. Genuine democratic political structures parliament has existed for itself for years. They do not attend sessions, they increase their salaries but they can not set minimum wages for poor workers. They are always fighting to become ministers-even those in the opposition-so that they can get the state largesses i.e free top of the range cars for their wives, girl friends and their children, chauffeur driven limos to take their kids to school Hollywood-style and free shopping trips in Europe for their wives. Never mind the poverty of their electorates. Yet even tony Blair's wife takes the train and Tony himself had only one official jaguar. He bought a house through mortgage yet people thought it was too expensive and beyond his salary.mmmmh?

What a farce in a country of paupers! all these things can be corrected by a strong leader who will demand for action from his cabinet. It does not happen in this continent though. When our leaders claim to achieve industrialisation by the year 2030 and gdp of 12 % , you can help but think it is all but a phantom idea. Haaa you know what i call phantom, it is a name or a ghost with an identifiable form, such as that of a human, animals, ships, etc. Maendeleo is something that exists in perception only,

[Hannah-h]

That is as true as it could possibly be. In Africa we don't talk about policies, hapana-wacha watu wetu wakule.

Constructive things like this sounds tedious to African leaders, even here in the forum. That why they seldom comment to such serious thought. Talk about nani analala na nani and see how comments come in a rush:-)

[Kabunja wa Gathuita]

Agriculture (some may argue tourism or remittances!) is the backbone of the Kenyan economy. Though the cabinet is to be finalised, we have no Minister for Agriculture. But the technocrats (PS and team) are in place. There have been many early warning and alerts on possible food shortage.
Nationmedia.com | Daily Nation | EDITORIALS | Food deficit: Things are not looking good
So far no any policy or postion statement from the govt and its technocrats has been issued on how to address the looming food shortage,and the drought at large as it will have an impact on the entire nation.

As usual, the govt will be caught with its pants down,and will continue playing the reactionary (catching up) when they have all the time to pre-empt the situation

[manvikta]

Originally Posted by goigoi

As a Kenyan who has suffered under poor leadership.
Yaani why am i called internally displaced person? here are my thoughts.
You don’t have to agree with me.

There are 11 fundamental aspects of governance that i think form the basic ingredient of a good modern country.
These are;
A working and operational health care
Reliable security apparatus-police and army
A proactive education system
A country-wide and well maintained communication infrastructure-a not a few highways to nowhere.
A reliable and cost-effective energy-for domestic and industrial use.
A well establish industrial sector to absorb trained labour force
Aworking and functional civil service
A well honest and demand - led private sector
Aworking and functional judiciary
A reliable and functional consumer protection regime
Genuine democratic political structures without the above a country will not achieve human and economic development.

.........................
What a farce in a country of paupers! all these things can be corrected by a strong leader who will demand for action from his cabinet. It does not happen in this continent though. When our leaders claim to achieve industrialisation by the year 2030 and gdp of 12 % , you can help but think it is all but a phantom idea. Haaa you know what i call phantom, it is a name or a ghost with an identifiable form, such as that of a human, animals, ships, etc. Maendeleo is something that exists in perception only,

Good read. However, if you deeply consider it, the problems arise from an uninformed population.From who they vote for, to the way people treat work and government.
In many instances people view the government as a big and rich...and anything you do will not really affect it overall. So the policeman asking fro 100bob, the office lady taking time to manicure her nails, the mother bribing the judge so that her son can be released...all add up to the failed government.

Nobody wants to accept the fruits of their labor...they just want the best for themselves, even if it means stealing.

[Sankara]

its actually refreshing to enter a thread of well read, patriotic and well meaning kenyans.

one of the things i've never understood about kenya is how we still use an archaic postal box address system. most countries around the world have a physical address system e.g.
1 apple tree lane,
banana estate,
coconut city

countries like nigeria and ghana have already implemented it (for the big cities and towns) and yet we still use a P.O BOX to register driving licences, IDs, cars, credit cards etc. so what if a bailiff or police wants to find you?? do they write addresses to your P.O BOX inbox until they run out of paper?? even credit card transaction processors such as CCBill don't recognize P.O Boxes. Which means that online we provide ourselves with impediments to e-commerce. Yet we are talking about becoming a middle income country in 22 years when we are still using address systems that were used almost 200 years ago

[goigoi]

Good response. Sorry guys. I see a lot of typos and misplaced commas and even missing full-stops on my post above. When I am passionate about something, I get furious and careless. When I first wrote this, I wanted to make it a full article but I changed my mind and made it a post.
But I hope we are getting the gist.

Yes, there are things that annoy me. In UK people pay 25 pence for stamps and get letters delivered o the house. Why do we pay so much for letters in Kenya?

[Kabunja wa Gathuita]

Originally Posted by Sankara

its actually refreshing to enter a thread of well read, patriotic and well meaning kenyans.

one of the things i've never understood about kenya is how we still use an archaic postal box address system. most countries around the world have a physical address system e.g.
1 apple tree lane,
banana estate,
coconut city

countries like nigeria and ghana have already implemented it (for the big cities and towns) and yet we still use a P.O BOX to register driving licences, IDs, cars, credit cards etc. so what if a bailiff or police wants to find you?? do they write addresses to your P.O BOX inbox until they run out of paper?? even credit card transaction processors such as CCBill don't recognize P.O Boxes. Which means that online we provide ourselves with impediments to e-commerce. Yet we are talking about becoming a middle income country in 22 years when we are still using address systems that were used almost 200 years ago

We are still stuck on the P.O. Box system, yet many are not using the mail boxes! We are taliking of IT in all sectors and even started it in pilot schools - yet many govt offices are still stuck on paper work. This sluggish change has been and will continue being a big challenge to our development efforts.

Govt services at district and lower levels are yet to be computerised. This means networking govt depts is a challenge, yet it would cost minimal compared to huge expenses incurred in shady deals.

It is also amazing how poor we are in replicating successful service provision. For instance (the disgraced) ECK manages to bring voter registration to the village level (even more than one vote registration and voting station per village).What would be wrong in replicating that when it comes to issuance of IDs to the youth - I know it happens for students completing 4th form in some areas, but doesn't happen to all.

[goigoi]

Man a few minutes ago I tried to Open a CDS (shares) account with Dyer and Blair.

The form is poorly designed and can not load. Yet they are reputed to be the best stockbroker in Eastern Africa. The form is stuck here- cant open
http://41.411.15.213:8005/web/WebAddClient.asp

Think of it this way, Mashada is a private project but it works. Yet serious corporations based in Kenya can not maintain a simple web site or get a decent hosting. Can you blame it on mzungus and wakoloni?

[tic tac]

good read.i think it goes back to the question, what can you do to your country not what the country can do for you.we are the people of the land and we have no idea what power we have to get things done.that bring you take, the incompetent you potray inyour work area comes back to bite you directly or indirectly.
ive been reading the news and it seams like the govt have a lot to offer to the citizens like this article Nationmedia.com | Daily Nation | NEWS EXTRA | Mass transport could ease congestion
not yet time to smile cause its the same bull since 1963 and no one takes the blame but ordinary citizens feel the pain.
check this one on road constraction.......same shi.t. Nationmedia.com | Daily Nation | NEWS EXTRA | Road contractors in tight spot over failure to meet deadlines

[Sankara]

True, ideally we should 'do' more rather than expecting others to do for us. But stuff like implementing a functioning physical address system should be initiated by the govt. I was thinking about it and it could net kenya BILLIONS. Think about it. People can start our own versions of credit card processors which target the east african community, established retail outlets can start web-sites from where you can do your own line shopping and have it delivered to your house, a parallel mail system can be developed where the post man actually comes to your door - of course this would be at a premium. I don't understand how countries like jamaica and nigeria have had this for YEARS yet we are still using postal systems that the neanderthals used.

I love kenya with all my heart, but whenever im back home i cringe at the amount of inefficiency and bureaucracy that is exhibited (almost proudly). I remember having to fill in the clan i belonged to when i was getting my ID - and this was only 4 years ago.

any1 feel me??