[kictanet] Kenyanization and its affect on startups

[Adam Nelson]

All,

I was recently reading this form for a work permit for non-Kenyans:

http://www.immigration.go.ke/images/downloads/form22.pdf

I think this single form sums up why Kenyan companies thus far haven't been
able to be pan-African, let alone global powerhouses.

Aside from the glaring omission of anybody being non-European, non-African
and non-Asian (i.e. everybody from North and South America), I noticed that
the underlying thrust of the document is to make sure all companies located
in Kenya are geared towards becoming more Kenyan (except of course, all the
international non-governmental and diplomatic organizations which bypass
this whole process).

It seems like GoK (or most of it anyway) doesn't understand that every
country has to choose indiginezation of its domestic industrial sector OR
allowing its industrial base to compete at a global level.  Indiginization
can work in countries like Saudi Arabia where the focus is purely on
resource extraction and not on building global companies - but it doesn't
seem like Kenya is on that path.  Kenya seems to me to be a place of
commerce where it can really take advantage of trade with other countries
much like Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, etc... have done in South East
Asia.

You'll notice that the largest Kenyan bank is KCB as the 59th largest bank
in Africa.  Who knows how small KCB is when compared to the global field.

http://www.theafricareport.com/Top-200-Banks/top-200-banks-2013.html

There is no natural reason for Kenyan banks to be so low on the list.
 Kenya is one of the major economies on the continent, it has an educated
work force, it has a large domestic market with which to nurture companies
- yet there is no way for a Kenyan company to scale because of the
insularity of the immigration regime.

Is there any impetus within the government to address this problem?  I'm
concerned about what my plan B is as a startup trying to be pan-African
with a headquarters in Nairobi.  When I first moved to Nairobi, I thought
this was a global city like New York where I had worked with Indians,
Swedes, Burmese, Brazilians, Americans.

Here I'm friends with people from all over the world but they all work for
the UN and their employers bypass the GoK which otherwise fights so hard to
keep foreigners from working and building businesses here.

Is there a solution or is it just going to get worse?  People I've spoken
to say 'come to Rwanda' or 'come to Mauritius' or even 'come to Ghana' ....
can a company have a headquarters in Kenya and run a tech company with
pan-African and global ambitions?

I've posted this on my blog (
http://varud.com/kenyanization-and-its-affect-on-startups) but I thought I
would solicit opinions here.

-Adam

--
Kili - Cloud for Africa: kili.io
Musings: twitter.com/varud <https://twitter.com/varud>
More Musings: varud.com
About Adam: www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson
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