standard reported yesterday on the ills of the automated system. the misuse of the same. riba capital also commented on it extensively. today Jaindi Kisero has also talked about it. funny thing is that kenyans are only raising eye brows when things are getting thick. in my very fast blog i suggested that the rise and rise of EAC was not 'normal' but i guess at that time the grass was too green and too grown for anyone to notice
the second news is the report by UNDP about the poverty index in the country. standard said Kenyans dying young and poor, UN report while nation talked about the big divide. why do i find these statistics disturbing, because 1. they showed that like the NSE every region has become poorer apart from nyanza which has become richer. Nyanza is still the second poorest but that was the only region that showed growth. nyanza ,western and NEP lead in poverty. the greater nyanza has always voted with the oposition and have always been 'punished' for it. Western and NEP have always been in govt and western have had 3 vice presidents in 6 years. the thinking in kenya is that its ok if the leaders 'eat' for you. but what i find more depressing is the fact that the overall poverty is higher than 50% where did the 5.8 economic growth go to? i suppose it doesnt add the number of plates of ugali as moi adviced.
3rd bad news is starehe toping the KCSE once again. it just points us to the above. i find it unacceptable that one school continues to dominate proceedings year in year out. its also embarassing that 40+ years on, very few new centers of execellence have been set up in the country. for us to have equitable distribution. one of the funtions of CDF should be to set up one centre of academic excellence per constituency or better per district and at least 2 national schools per province.
other news indicate that Forest Whitaker won the oscar for his potrayal of Amin in the last king of scotland. ok give it to him, he did it extremely well. looks like for you to win if you are black , you have to perform beyond any reasonable and unreasonable doubt. i found the movie hard to watch. the african was potrayed as brutal,stupid, and beastly. (maybe am even being unfair to beasts) last bad news, i met a director from holywood, in nairobi. incidentaly after watching the last king. he is in town to work with a local NGO on something they are calling development through media. and to develop the local movie industry. i asked him if he knew about nollywood, he didnt, what of riverwood; never heard about it and his local experts didnt know either. so how will they develop the industry they know nothing about?
Odegle, As for the NSE it's time for us investors who bought some stocks at high prices to even them out by adding on them, buying low.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talked about the hollywood director, I remembered a documentary I just watched on Investing in Africa on telly in the Virgin Islands.
It was the first time in three years that I've seen a positive documentary on Africa ever since I came to these islands. The documentary was titled Africa Open for Business.
It was really inspiring, from a guy who operates an Airline in Somali, where there is no government to Mobile phone market in DRC. For Kenya, Homegrown was the company on focus.
Here's their website if you need to read some more on the documentary. http://www.africaopenforbusiness.com/
Just one question though, and I hope you excuse my ignorance, I know of nollywood and we get lots of nollywood movies in VI, but what is riverwood?
About idi amin: The only time we get space in the Western media is when something bad happens here.
ReplyDeleteThe nollywood/riverwood story shows why most western policies/programmes dont work here.They r implemented by foreigners and local elitists with no knowledge of what goes on an the ground.
heh! that idea of cdf creating centres of excellence in all provinces...i like it!it could open doors and hopefully set of other chains of events, seeing as those graduates will have to find somewhere to go.
ReplyDeletei watched last king of scotland...i dont know why, but it still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.as for the number of expats who know almost nothing about their working environments...wah, much can be said.i hope you educated that guy a little bit
swaka...thank you for the site. am browsing it for more information. by the way i heard that its imposible for an african to live in VI unless he is a relative of a former african dictator (coz its damn expensive). is that true? (no pun intended)
ReplyDeleteriverwood is the kenyan version of nollywood. it features a booming movie industry where producers and directors operate mostly from the river road area. what elite kenyans call the third world of nairobi. their story lines are pretty simple and the productions are done using simple hand held video cameras but their productions are finding their way into the living rooms of first world nairobi.
pesa tu ... you said it!
ReplyDeletemama shady... long time no see, nice to see you again!
you can trust me with this, i gave that hopeless american and his hosts a piece of my mind even though it was our first meeting. and i even made him 'pay' for the negative script of the king of scotland. i honestly cant understand how you can develop something you know nothing about. and i feel ashamed that a kenyan living in kenya can be ignorant of what goes on just 500 metres away from her office!
i then apologised to them for telling them about the story line of the movie since both confessed they hadnt watched it. in fact they were waiting to see it.
youve made em laugh!i can picture you setting them straight!woi, i actually havent been away, just dont know much about stuff like ponzis so dont comment, but i do read on the regular.
ReplyDeletehmm, youve made me think about the fact many kenayns, more nowadays, really dont know about stuff going on in their back yards...me included, it aint good, maybe i'll start a movement....eh, hopefully
Odegle, you must have been mis-informed. VI is expensive but anyone can live here(no pun felt). I work in the same place with a guy from Sierra Leone and another one from Morocco, I had a Kenyan colleague working in the same place but he already moved to mainland US.
ReplyDeleteBut if you think of it as a tourist destination, it is expensive.
Well nyar shady, am happy tha you have decided to do somthing!
ReplyDeleteThank you Swaka, i know guys can exaggerate things. that clears it nicely. but is it true that cars allowed there are only 1.3 litres and no more? whats your blog, probably you have nice stories from that land
Odegle, It seems like the trend has been south for stock arrround the world this week thanks to the Chiniese and their long New Year celebbrations. I do not think pigs like stocks since it is the year of the Pig.
ReplyDeleteI thought Africa did well in the Oscars this time. We had two top British movies about Africa, The Last King of Scotland and Blood Diamonds and Catch a Fire was also hanging in there. But as usual the story is always about us Butchering ourselves and Miro's getting butchered at the Oscar's. No African was close to getting awarded. I thinks we will do the same to them when we deveope our "Onyango Awards" in Riverwood. The question is as we get more and more civilized are we becoming more and more blood thirsty. All those movies from Africa are so bloody and so are the 8 out of 10 features on CNN news. On can easily catch RVF.
Swawe .. thats a good challenge, onyango awards!' they say in the media houses that good news is no news. but i have heard some other argument that CNN shows such horror stories about other parts of the world to help divert the american citizens attention from their own internal problems.
ReplyDeleteOdegle, Only 1.3 litre cars allowed, wacha kunichekesha! I live on St John island, an island that you will not even see on the world map due to its small size, but it happens to have the highest concentration of SUVs I've ever seen. It also has a large number of jeeps as well due to the hilly terrain.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a blog yet but I am strongly considering starting one.