John Githongo, the self exiled former PS in Ethics and governance jetted back into the country late Tuesday and even before his jet lag had worn off, he, in the company of his former associates in the activism world, gives controversial advice about economic amnesty to perpetrators of grand larceny. On this one, I agree with him since these crooks have learn't to take advantage of the loop holes in law using the looted wealth to hire the best lawyers to delay the cases for ever. Give them amnesty, but lets have what they looted back. A good example being the Grand Regency Hotel in which Kamlesh Patini engaged the government in unending legal tussles which had dragged on for over a decade with no end in sight.
To label Githongo as either a villain or hero, to be fair, really depends on the side of political divide one is inclined to. There are those who applauds him for his contribution in tagging Kibaki's regime as a hoard of corrupt scoundrels which justified the political backlash the regime has suffered this far. On the other hand there are those who view the man as a traitor who committed treasonable acts of playing to the gallery of neocolonialists at the expense of his motherland.
I would like to take a middle ground and objectively look at this matter without any political clouds in my vision. Yes, Githongo is a hero in as much as he prevented deals of the levels of Anglo leasing to get checked, for now and the future. However, his modus operandi in going about this, in my opinion was all wrong. First, as a senior government official you do not demean yourself by strapping yourself with a recorder and tape your seniors. I am sure there were other means at his disposal which he could have employed towards this end without degrading himself to a private sleuth. Secondly his claims of fear for his life, and hence justifying his fleeing were, again according to my opinion, not sincere. Kibaki may be many things, but, a murderer he definitely isn't.
His first appointment on return, though telling, the company he chooses to keep way forward should give us an inkling us to where Githongo is coming from.
For me, I will reserve my conclusion about the man and wait for the success of his endeavors. This is the only means to establish whether all the hullabaloo he raised was worth it, or it was just a means of upping his CV.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
ASPIRATIONS: NEED TO MAKE CONSTANT REVISIONS
With the current Bear run at the NSE causing the not so brave hearts unending jolts, and having to watch our portfolio values getting eroded by the day, I would wish to momentarily veer off from the intentioned content of this blog and share some experience.
I recently had to go bury my uncle who in my tradition should be more accurately be referred to as my "Elder Father". This was happening at place about 300 kilometers from the capital. About 200 Kilometers of this was on good road taking up 2 hours of the 7 for the whole journey. The final part is a mere 95 Km but the torturous road condition, which took the remaining 5 hours made me understand why infrastructure is so key to a modern economy
I have made three trips to this place in my life time. The first one was when I was quite young, at Primary 2. The trip made in the company of my brother and Dad is clearly etched in my memory. Just like us, my uncle's sons were young and in the innocence of youth, time spent with them, playing funny games in the fields was enthralling. My uncle was then an enterprising man with successful businesses in the "foreign" land. He had this Zeal about him and had so much hope in his young Family and the future. Since we made the journey overnight, in the morning, on our way back home, the taste of the tea and the toast, coated with a generous layer of margarine, known as "bandika" in our local lingua, taken at some hotel at the then "Machakos airport" bus station was so relishing to my young mouth, that to this day, I still remember it, but I digress.
Fast forward, my second trip was around ten years later. I was on holiday waiting to get admitted to a higher institution of learning. By this time, the economy had under the hands of one D T Moi, been taking a serious beating. The hitherto thriving businesses in that area were visibly struggling. Most of my cousins had dropped from formal schooling with their father taking advantage of them as unpaid or cheap labor in his then apparently ailing businesses. Being adolescents, we still had a lot of bonding interests, like "hunting" for beautiful lasses who made our raging hormones go hyper.
Over the years, though, I never went back there again; I became a constant SOS target to both my uncle and cousins for some unending problems about this and that
My latest trip back there was an unfortunate one. After persevering a long stressful period of having to see what he had acquired in his younger days go to waste, with some of his charged properties to a Farmers credit source, AFC, being threatened with auction, while in other properties, having being invaded by squatters, who even armed with eviction court orders but with no financial capacity to effect, refused to budge from the land, and with most of his sons village idlers and visible abusers of substances; alcohol or more potent stuff, he had decided that some pesticides were not only made for annoying pests like rats or bedbugs but could be turned to some other uses like ending his life. So determined to die was he such that, some stuff he vomited was so potent that as I was told, ten domestic fowls, which unfortunately in a quest to get nourishment, on the place the vomit landed, met early death
So here I was, along with my kin, having to make the torturous journey just to throw a handful of soil into his grave and hence participate in burying him. Sometimes when I think about the amount of resources we spend, both financial and time so as to conform with our cultural norms, I wonder whether this "Africaness" of ours is worth it, but again I digress.
The moral of this sad story is that we must keep reassessing our ambitions and aspirations, constantly modifying them along the way, otherwise we might just end up like my uncle; frustrated, disillusioned and tired with life
I recently had to go bury my uncle who in my tradition should be more accurately be referred to as my "Elder Father". This was happening at place about 300 kilometers from the capital. About 200 Kilometers of this was on good road taking up 2 hours of the 7 for the whole journey. The final part is a mere 95 Km but the torturous road condition, which took the remaining 5 hours made me understand why infrastructure is so key to a modern economy
I have made three trips to this place in my life time. The first one was when I was quite young, at Primary 2. The trip made in the company of my brother and Dad is clearly etched in my memory. Just like us, my uncle's sons were young and in the innocence of youth, time spent with them, playing funny games in the fields was enthralling. My uncle was then an enterprising man with successful businesses in the "foreign" land. He had this Zeal about him and had so much hope in his young Family and the future. Since we made the journey overnight, in the morning, on our way back home, the taste of the tea and the toast, coated with a generous layer of margarine, known as "bandika" in our local lingua, taken at some hotel at the then "Machakos airport" bus station was so relishing to my young mouth, that to this day, I still remember it, but I digress.
Fast forward, my second trip was around ten years later. I was on holiday waiting to get admitted to a higher institution of learning. By this time, the economy had under the hands of one D T Moi, been taking a serious beating. The hitherto thriving businesses in that area were visibly struggling. Most of my cousins had dropped from formal schooling with their father taking advantage of them as unpaid or cheap labor in his then apparently ailing businesses. Being adolescents, we still had a lot of bonding interests, like "hunting" for beautiful lasses who made our raging hormones go hyper.
Over the years, though, I never went back there again; I became a constant SOS target to both my uncle and cousins for some unending problems about this and that
My latest trip back there was an unfortunate one. After persevering a long stressful period of having to see what he had acquired in his younger days go to waste, with some of his charged properties to a Farmers credit source, AFC, being threatened with auction, while in other properties, having being invaded by squatters, who even armed with eviction court orders but with no financial capacity to effect, refused to budge from the land, and with most of his sons village idlers and visible abusers of substances; alcohol or more potent stuff, he had decided that some pesticides were not only made for annoying pests like rats or bedbugs but could be turned to some other uses like ending his life. So determined to die was he such that, some stuff he vomited was so potent that as I was told, ten domestic fowls, which unfortunately in a quest to get nourishment, on the place the vomit landed, met early death
So here I was, along with my kin, having to make the torturous journey just to throw a handful of soil into his grave and hence participate in burying him. Sometimes when I think about the amount of resources we spend, both financial and time so as to conform with our cultural norms, I wonder whether this "Africaness" of ours is worth it, but again I digress.
The moral of this sad story is that we must keep reassessing our ambitions and aspirations, constantly modifying them along the way, otherwise we might just end up like my uncle; frustrated, disillusioned and tired with life
Saturday, August 9, 2008
BEAR RUN
The post SAFARICOM IPO effect has caused the longest bear run witnessed at the NSE in a long while. Market Capitalization has lost a staggering close to 300B in the last seven weeks or so with no signs of abating yet. My own portfolio which had shown signs of inching upwards after the post election fiasco has moved into the red zone. What strategy should investors take?
First it depends on ones rules of engagement at the bourse. For speculators, dumping positions here and there and cashing on the discounted counters with a view to even out in the long run is the way to go.
For those on a long haul, hopefully with extra cash to invest, buying more into those counters one has taken a position on should see a reduction in the red figures. Woe unto those whose total investing cash is already tied down on the fast sliding counters. My advice to the latter category; just make observation of the market trend in general, without too much focus on your counters, this way, even though you are losing value daily in the bear run, you save your heart from too many unhealthy jolts.
Which category am I in? I am a long hauler and has never sold any stock at a loss. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this thing is ending soon otherwise there is no economic fundamentals to justify the massive losses that have been experienced.
First it depends on ones rules of engagement at the bourse. For speculators, dumping positions here and there and cashing on the discounted counters with a view to even out in the long run is the way to go.
For those on a long haul, hopefully with extra cash to invest, buying more into those counters one has taken a position on should see a reduction in the red figures. Woe unto those whose total investing cash is already tied down on the fast sliding counters. My advice to the latter category; just make observation of the market trend in general, without too much focus on your counters, this way, even though you are losing value daily in the bear run, you save your heart from too many unhealthy jolts.
Which category am I in? I am a long hauler and has never sold any stock at a loss. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this thing is ending soon otherwise there is no economic fundamentals to justify the massive losses that have been experienced.
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