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Did you hear this?
That Kenyan businessmen and women do not need advice or information on business management and opportunities. The reason, they are all thieves, stealing from public funds.
“The only way to make money in Kenya – real money is to steal it from the public funds,” a London-based Kenyan businessman passionately told us at a meeting of Kenyan media entrepreneurs in Nairobi.
“I thought I could save a little money abroad, come back and start a clean, good, profitable business,” the businessman, whose name I will not mention told us. “I was imbued with a desire and a mission not just to make money but to create employment opportunities to help Kenya’s jobless youth.
“But I was knocked down by corruption. You cannot do much here! At every stage, you have to corrupt. I wanted to put up a small factory. To get the title deed, you corrupt. To ascertain survey documents, you corrupt. To dig the foundation, you corrupt. And you corrupt daily to raise the structure otherwise your structure will be condemned and demolished for being illegal. Soon, you’ll be corrupting for the free air you breathe!”
Incredulous
When we looked incredulous, our man – shall we now call him Joe Mkimbizi – spread his hand and started ticking off his fingers the rich people of Kenya, each with the question: Where did he get his money from? And soon, there was a predictable chorus, “He stole from public coffers!”
Joe Mkimbizi stopped ticking off his fingers and blatantly summarized the whole thing for us, “As you can see, every rich man or woman in Kenya is either a politician or civil servant. Their salaries are known. Even if you multiplied it over a hundred years, these people would never be millionaires. They are millionaires because they are thieves …Thieves of public funds.”
Joe Mkimbizi told us that in all the countries he had visited – and it was obvious he had visited many -there were no politicians or civil servants who were rich. “They can live comfortably, but they can never be rich.” Secondly, he told us, a youth who was rich was a wonder in those countries unless they inherited their wealth. In Kenya, it was the opposite. Young fellows are rich because there isn’t work needed to be rich, he told us.
“Look at the government estates abandoned the construction is finished, roads similarly abandoned and so on and so forth. They were all corruptly awarded. They made millionaires of the so-called contractors and engineers, perhaps fellows who had just completed universities, and who had the connections or were willing to be used. Look at the supplies in every ministry. You heard President Mwai Kibaki tell civil servants to buy local furniture. He told them not to buy abroad just because they are given a bribe, ”unapewa kitu.” So you know even he himself knows.
“Where is the money for free education? Where is the money for the youth fund? Where is the money for subsidized maize? Where is the money for medicine for government hospitals… Add your own questions. The answer is always: In the pockets of corrupt politicians and civil servants.
“As a country, we have lost the shame of being labeled a thief. Imagine going back home to your children, spreading a shining table cloth decked with food and telling them: Let’s eat, my children! When you know that it is something gotten out of theft, food gotten out of the mouth of a child dying of starvation…
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to our country, Kenya. Only God knows. At least I am in London!” he said, packing up to leave.
In this blog, we promote investing and living in Kenya. We believe Kenya is good, an exciting place to be in. But we cannot close our eyes and ears to the truth. Kenyans need moral reawakening. We urgently need social engineering so that the right values are placed back where they ought to be.
If you feel the same, state your support by writing to us.
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