Business of Death

For my MBA i wanted to do a paper on the Business of War. this was inspired by a report on the activities of CARE in North Eastern. the report was given very candidly by a field officer working there and who had also been to somalia and experieced first hand the attrocities visited on those people. but my paper was to dwell more on the business of CARE and others in their league as opposed to the war itself. however my paper could not be done since i didnt have the money to do it. the logisitcs were a nightmare. i had wanted to use southern sudan as my population but i did not want to use secondary data. Indeed war is big business and one time i will still want to do a paper on it.

however the other day i was brought home by my friend who is senior officer at AMREF about the business of Death. what goes on and why it cant stop. He started by saying that DDT will probably not see the light of day or it will be hugely opposed. reason? Malaria is big business! indeed he made me see the light. picture this; those nets that are normally distributed for free or at a subsidized rate are bought even before manufacture. every thing is paid for by 'donnors'. where will they take their businesses. think of the shareholders, the supply chain, the banks who lend the money etc. who will allow malaria to be eradicated? my friend even told me that most doctors and small clinics in nyanza and western and other malaria prone areas survive solely on malaria treatment. remove that disease and their business would go down by a massive 80%!

further he directed my attention to ARVs, manufacture, research, logistics, shipments etc. thats a whole industry that would collapse in fact the world economy would be greatly affected. so according to him HIV probably has a cure already but no one will accept it. since decision makers are making huge sums of money from it. i was made to remember margret as well. she who earned a fortune for chairing a task force on HIV. would she want the disease eradicated? how many are there out there like her? how about those millions of HIV/AIDS NGOs?

in fact those so called donnors are actualy clearing houses. they are not themselves owners of the money. so once such diseases are eradicated they too lose their raison d'etre.


i am reliably told that US used DDT to eradicate malaria (not very sure though) but they quickly realised that for their drug industries to survive, they needed the killer disease in africa and other developing nations. thank God they always had rulers in africa who did not think much of their people or who were not sharp enough to see beyond their noses. leaders who thought they would not only rule forever but also live forever!

indeed i was made to understand that in amref, all suppliers must be american or you lose your job. another shocking thing was that some american NGO give AID in form of corn which the beneficiaries have to sell themselves and turn into money to be used for their activities. wow!

what is most disheartening is that africa responds by sending some of their most brilliant sons to america to wash their behinds and do their dishes. infact they willingly invest millions of dollars in this excercise of self enslavement.
enough

apperently there is a lull of intitutional investor activity at the bourse and that is the reason for the share prices and volumes going down heavily in the near past. i would think that most people are preparing for the IPOs and the Mumias sale. another strong rumour is going on that express has won a tender to do all the logistics for EABL. this rumour has been there since last year. in fact another suggests that EABL removed 40% of their business from express. but express has refused to give people their bonuses almost 4 months down the line. is CMA alive or dead? I have read somewhere that midlands plans to sell their shares through private placement at 10/= . did i see that right? the par value is 5 and according to suntra the true value is 28 bob. would be a good deal in that case.

and when thats happening , mumias has won the tender to be the strategic partner in the TARDA sugar project. quite refreshing that a kenya company has shown both the teeth and muscle to do this instead of some western or eastern country. how many times will this happen before the govt decides that safaricom can be bought and run successfully by kenyans through the NSE?

small investors were serious about the Nisa i talked about some time back. in fact they held the first meeting last week. stock brokers be very afraid!

odegle tip of 3 days Private placement means that a firm does not offer the its shares to the general public (read retail investors) but rather to a few institutions and fund managers