[kictanet] Kenyanization and its affect on startups

[Kivuva]

Adam, you make a very compelling argument. But the analogy about banks may
not cut it. First National Bank of South Africa was founded in 1838 and
pumped up with golf and diamonds collected from the ground (direct
translation from Swahili), while the colonial history of Kenya dates from
the establishment of a German protectorate over the Sultan of Zanzibar's
coastal possessions in 1885, followed by the arrival of the Imperial
British East Africa Company in 1888. That is already 50 years head-start!

If these expatriates are sitting around as vultures to cannibalise Kenya
innovations as they did to the UK based Vodafone's
MPESA<http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Vodafone-takes-home-Sh2-3bn-of-M-Pesa-revenue/-/539550/1852810/-/m9igv0/-/index.html>
Where
Vodafone collects billions in license fees, then there is logic in the
Kenyan policies. How much does Royal Dutch Shell benefit Nigerians?

That is not to say we should not pull up our socks.

______________________
Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya.
twitter.com/lordmwesh
google ID | Skype ID: lordmwesh


On 14 January 2014 01:13, Adam Nelson <adam at varud.com> wrote:

> 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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