[kictanet] Interesting Piece ...

Wed Jan 25 14:21:50 EAT 2012

Hi Simiyu...if I may quickly try and address some issues you have
raised...or simply comment - pls see below, preceded by +++

On 25 January 2012 13:40, simiyu mse <kensimiyu at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's all well and good, aiming for the Kenyan car, Kenyan plane and all.
>
> However, being the third world country we are, we need to face the facts. As
> a country, we need to be sober and face the facts. We need to use what we
> have to make gains.
>
> What will putting billions of shillings into making a Kenyan plane aid us if
> we still have hungry people in our midst?
+++Like Boeing/Airbus/Lockheed- we can make and sell planes.  A GREAT
success story about making plance actually comes from a BRIC state,
which not so long ago was a developing country - Brazil.
http://www.businessweek.com/2001/01_03/b3715141.htm - that link is
from a story more than 10 years ago. Today Embraer has abt 14% mkt
share in the mid size category of aeroplanes...not bad, huh.
Employment, innovation, supporting raw materials industry, skills,
etc.    For a long time they have been manufacturing VWs (not
assembling like we used to do with Peugeots -  but manufacturing from
scratch)

 Wouldn't a fraction of that being
> channeled into making boreholes and expanding the footprint of arable land
> be a better bet.

+++ I'd sooner we start by reducing the ministries from 40 to 20.  Cut
back on the number of vehicles a minister has, asst minister etc -
have a govt car pool (are the cars not parked most of the day?).   Not
meaning to underestimate the amounts needed to drill boreholes and and
invest in agriculture - but thats a good start - we don't need all
those cars (and their maintenance costs).  Mostly we don't need them
bull dozing us (the tax payer) off the road because mheshimiwa is
passing.

>
> Granted, We are at the consumption end of the line. We will not make
> an iPhone contender that will lift us out of poverty or what not.

+++Why not?   If a Form Three Tanzanian student could actually
contribute in a big way to physics by a simple observation
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect) - what is stopping us
from thinking big?   Mpesa grew here did it not?   RSA manufacturers
computers and servers (Mecer), Nigeria has Zinox (and there were plans
at some point to open mobile handset assembly plants but I suppose the
drop in handset costs as well as operator subsidies put paid to such
plans to assemble phones in Africa to make them cheaper than
hungary/poland/china/etc).

We need to
> know what we can do within our means that will solve our perennial problems
> affecting our basic needs. Address our reliance on good weather to have food
> security.
+++What does Israel do for good weather?    I heard once, a while
back, that when one of their road contractors was building  Thika Road
(Solel Boneh?) in the late eighties, all the red soil they dredged up
to build the road was shipped back to Israel to be used in irrigated
farms.  Lets come back to Kenya - in December we had very heavy rain
in Nairobi.   I recall at one point driving through floods with
headlights submerged.   OK, flooding happens everywhere but if our
urban infrastructure was better planned (storm drains, etc) all this
water could have gone into a reservoir - even if its 100 km away
(Ukambani) ...and used for irrigation.    Thankfully we are way out of
any hurrican/cyclone paths but I shudder to think how we'd handle such
flooding like we saw in Asia recently.   The annual flooding in Nyanza
pales in comparison.  When you think about it, the effort needed to
build an aqueduct, would be no more different than building a new road
and perhaps take just as long. Such an aqueduct could help along the
way if it can be purified for low income areas that have no piped
water, etc...

We cannot always have good weather - but we can plan ahead.   Our
floods are the seven fat cows Joseph saw in his dreams.

Come up with cheap housing. Address our inefficient transport
> channels that add an unnecessary cost on goods.
>
Sorry if this is out of place but looking at our traffic and
congestion, I cannot help thinking of "the tragedy of the commons" -
everyone want a car and therefore everybody will add a car to the
limited road infrastructure we have.  (Just as the farmers would each
add a cow to the pasture and therefore the cows collectively would not
eat enough). People shun public transport and associate it with being
lower class - and if at this point I may allude to the IMF/whatever
person critical of African intellectuals  - that is a problem in
Africa.  We associate cars with status.  I think half the pple who
work on Wall Street take the train, ride the bus or cycle to work.
But uh uh, not here.  Show up to work even with a decent MTB and well,
you have excused yourself from a certain class.  But I digress.  I'd
do two things - increase import duty on second hand cars and also have
a montly quota - esp for personal cars.   Right now the only people
benefitting from ex-Dubai vehicles are 1)Individuals who import the
cars 2)KRA (from the import duty and VAT, from increased petroleum
use, etc) 3)individuals who want cars 4)the matatu sector (which
contributes very little to govt coffers, and if anything, is a blight
to the country - insurance claims, lawlessness, cartels, etc).   I am
not sure why the govt should back down from phasing out the 14 seaters
- as much as the cartels may try and muscle the govt, the govt should
know that citizens will throw their weight behind any effort to bring
sanity not this sector - just like they lauded Hon Michuki back in the
day.

If we can put pressure on used car imports, it can also help prop up
local assembly and creating thousands of jobs (vis a vis the import of
used cars that probably directly employs less than 1000 people in
Kenya and indirectly.  Local assembly would employ perhaps tenfold
IMHO. (assembly of CKDs, local manufacture and fabrication of other
parts - upholstery, bodies, tyres, etc).

> Use our ideas to inject simple technology into mundane activities.
> Kenyan peculiar nature to squeeze some commerce out of it.
+++Done - Mpesa. Pls tick this off your things to do list.

The idea in the
> article of the stone crusher is an excellent example.
>
> What we need to do, is take stock of our assets, have a plan to each year be
> at a better place than the last. Have policies that would entrench the
> build Kenya buy Kenyan idea.
>
> Africa as a market is fueling western economies. And there will definitely
> be resistance to its attempts at economic independence.
+++True - and following that resistance will be efforts at "regime change"...

>
> The day we will have genuine pride in owning something Kenyan, is the first
> day of the best of our lives.
>
> Over to you Mr Kibati.
>
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