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Seasons and Reasons

Economic boycott: Cross purposes

Posted: January 21, 2008, 8:56 am by Seasons

One thing that has been strong in the ODM ranks was their communication structure. Their messages to their supporters have been clear and coordinated, well until this last weekend.
I saw a crack in this structure this weekend. First they said that they are reviewing their strategy and so the mass protests are over whilst they work on mediation. A few hours later, they declared mass protests are back on. I guess it was a quick review of strategy.

Secondly, Mr.Salim Lone( I think he is ODM’s Media director) says that they have now decided that on Economic boycott where they will ask their supporters to boycott goods and services from companies owned by Kibaki supporters. Amongst the companies to be boycotted are Equity bank, Safaricom, Citi Hoppa and Brookside. Barely an hour later, they retracted this statement and it is not clear whether this Economic boycott is on or not.

I don’t know how their supporters will decipher these messages if I cannot and I consider myself more literate than most of them. I have never seen a lot speak at cross purposes as this one.

On the Economic boycott, it is short sighted to assume that people who live on less than a dollar a day and most of them have little choices on where to shop will understand this message.

On a different note, the EU has now withheld grants to Kenya. However, I am perturbed by this action. We all know that Kenyan gets very little budgetary support from donors and even then very little from the EU. In this respect therefore the grants withheld will be project- based which are channeled through NGO’s to support community projects. This will actually affect the man on the ground and not the governments. The EU also forgets that China is waiting in the wings to work with African governments.

I manage funds for some of these organizations who run community based programmes. My clients had already indicated that they may not renew some of the contracts we signed last year. These actions will definitely reduce my revenues and affect my results as I cannot see an alternative source of business. This sector provides me with about 30% of my revenue and if things continue this way, I may lay off a large number of my staff. Am sure am not the only one in this situation.