[kictanet] Kenyanization and its affect on startups

Tue Jan 14 20:27:18 EAT 2014

Incidentally, Kenya is Africa's largest non-oil, non-mineral economy...

On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 6:41 PM, Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com> wrote:

> 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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> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
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-- 
Warm Regards,

Phares Kariuki

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