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• Lean Cabinet, Dream Team PS Naikuni Back

  Posted: March 31, 2008, 10:48 pm by Taabu

  
  Poor Muthaura! The old man must be nursing the kicks of a thankless donkey after soiling his hands doing all the dirty sectarian work of hardliners only to be booted out so unceremoniously. While his unsolicited clarifications on hierarchy must have sounded sonorous to his ears, he never lived long enough to thumb his ‘I said so’ chest. Well, Naikuni deserves all the appointment as the new secretary to the cabinet. He has a record that speaks for itself and is no stranger to the government having served as part of Leakey’s dream team that never slept to have any trace of dreaming.
  
  The lean cabinet of 25 must be what the political doctor ordered for ailing Kenya. PM Raila must now move with speed to earn the trust and confidence of his two deputies, Martha Karua and Musalia Mudavadi.With the cabinet formed, the power-sharing must begin in earnest to bear fruits in delivering services to Kenya and her people. The final meeting to mint this compromise cabinet between Kibaki and Raila must have been hot. But thank goodness they both saw the big picture and shoved aside the political baggage that is cronies. But above all else Kalonzo must be the BIGGEST winner in the resulting political pecking order.
  
  Butchered political ego
  Martha Karua’s elevation to DPM position open the floodgates and jostling for Kibaki succession. Kalonzo may sit pretty in the knowledge that he will have Iron Lady’s backing together with the GEMA block votes. But politics being no game where only interests remain permanent, the dynamics may prove that theory dead wrong. Karua may spring a surprise by raising the stakes when she goes for the presidency come 2012.
  
  While the give and take must have definitely butchered Uhuru Kenyatta’s political ego, it may have just opened another round of political realignment with potentially new dynamics. Kanu must retrace her steps and will of necessity re-evaluate her stay within PNU. Whether Uhuru and Kanu fast-tracked their political sell-by dates only time will tell.
  
  Meanwhile Raila has his job cut well out for him. Depending on his actions and intention, he will go down in Kenya’s history either as the messiah his supporters paraded him to be or the wreck his detractors wanted to paint him as. He has less than 1000 days to make of write his political appendix. Will he measure or bungle the opportunity up? Kazi ianze sasa na iendelee, take your pick. One love one country.

• Lean Cabinet, Dream Team PS Naikuni is Back

  Posted: March 31, 2008, 9:05 pm by Taabu

  
  Poor Muthaura! The old man must be nursing the kicks of a thankless donkey after soiling his hands doing all the dirty sectarian work of hardliners only to be booted out so unceremoniously. While his unsolicited clarifications on hierarchy must have sounded sonorous to his ears, he never lived long enough to thumb his ‘I said so’ chest. Well, Naikuni deserves all the appointment as the new secretary to the cabinet. He has a record that speaks for itself and is no stranger to the government having served as part of Leakey’s dream team that never slept to have any trace of dreaming.
  
  The lean cabinet of 25 must be what the political doctor ordered for ailing Kenya. PM Raila must now move with speed to earn the trust and confidence of his two deputies, Martha Karua and Musalia Mudavadi.With the cabinet formed, the power-sharing must begin in earnest to bear fruits in delivering services to Kenya and her people. The final meeting to mint this compromise cabinet between Kibaki and Raila must have been hot. But thank goodness their saw the big picture and shoved aside the political baggage that is cronies. But above all else Kalonzo must be the big winner in the political pecking order.
  
  Butchered political ego
  Martha Karua’s elevation to DPM position open the floodgates and jostling for Kibaki succession. Kalonzo may sit pretty in the knowledge that he will have Iron Lady’s backing together with the GEMA block votes. But politics being no game where only interests remain permanent, the dynamics may prove that theory dead wrong. Karua may spring a surprise by raising the stakes when she goes for the presidency come 2012.
  
  While the give and take must have definitely butchered Uhuru Kenyatta’s political ego, it may have just opened another round of political realignment with potentially new dynamics. Kanu must retrace her steps and will of necessity re-evaluate her stay within PNU. Whether Uhuru and Kanu fast-tracked their political sell-by dates only time will tell.
  
  Meanwhile Raila has his job cut well out for him. Depending on his actions and intention, he will go down in Kenya’s history either as the messiah his supporters paraded him to be or the wreck his detractors wanted to paint him as. He has less than 1000 days to make of write his political appendix. Will he measure or bungle the opportunity up? Kazi ianze sasa na iendelee, take your pick. One love one country.

• Is Peace Guaranteed The Way Our Leaders Are Behaving?

  Posted: March 31, 2008, 7:41 pm by chris

  Kenyan politics (if you call it that) is crazy these days.

  A few days ago I heard somebody saying that President Kibaki signed the peace accord ONLY to cool off things enough for the Safaricom IPO to happen. I never believed that porojo for a minute then. But now my position has changed and I am no longer too sure. One just needs to analyze carefully what is going on in the country.

  But this issue of the IPO in relation to the still-to-be-named coalition government raises a very fundamental question which every Kenyan needs to ask themselves;

  Is it safe to buy shares when Kenya’s future peace and stability is not guaranteed?

  Surely the current behaviour of PNU and president Kibaki leaves a lot to be desired. It is becoming increasingly clear that they are bent on frustrating the law that they are so fond of talking about and insisting that it must be followed to the letter.

  Today the media announced that the President had a cabinet meeting. Now how is that possible under the current law of the land? The Prime Minister was not there and neither was any ODMer. This is the clearest sign yet that as we enter this April fool’s day, the “prank” is on Kenyan people.

  It is also probably instructive that the Safaricom IPO was launched a few days to April Fool’s day. And it is even more hilarious that as tensions build in the country over the fact that a full cabinet is yet to be named, going on to the fourth months after the polls, some Kenyans are lining up to purchase Safaricom shares. But alas it is their money.

  Not that Raila Odinga is much better off. The kind of acrobatics he has done over the Safaricom IPO is crazy and leaves many questions hanging in the air. But even more worrying is the company that the prime minister designate keeps these days. I shall say more about this in my next post, later today when I have gathered all the information and evidence I need.

  Then there is the fact that ODM want a cabinet of 34 and in the view of the party, this is a cabinet that is lean enough. The truth is that in comparison to PNU’s 44 it is smaller but only slightly so.

  If this coalition government is going to be named at all then not more than 20 ministers should be in it. In fact we do not even need assistant ministers. To do what?

  But much more worrying to me today as I write this post, is the ticking time bomb that everybody is ignoring. I am of course talking about the IDP’s. Those poor Kenyans who through no fault of their own are now sleeping in the rain with their children. Already some kids have died from the cold of ailments like pneumonia.

  Eldoret Stadium is the largest camp and a young boy who sneaked out of the camp yesterday and went to what he used to call home to fetch his bicycle, came back with a scary tale. He said that their farm had been occupied and that people were cultivating and planting crops. Do you have any idea what this means? They of course warned him never to return.

  That’s Kenya for you. When tensions over land are being heightened, President Kibaki is still playing political chess while Raila Odinga prefers musical chairs where his position over an important national matter keeps changing every day.

  And amid all that people are lining up for Safaricom shares as others get emotional arguing whether it is a wise thing or not to buy the shares, and their fight is taking place right here on Kumekucha.

  As my former boss used to say in sarcastic wonder and amazement when people don’t seem to know what they are doing; WOW….

  
  

  How a mere Mini Skirt can get you a high profile job

• April First’s Here

  Posted: March 31, 2008, 12:32 pm by ritch

  Tomorrow is April fools day. Many people are going to be lied to, cheated and duped without having an inkling of what’s going on.
  Some newspapers and other media outlets will go an extra mile to come up with ‘shocker’ stories, scintillating headlines and lead stories (that they will call April fools stories on 2nd of April!).
  
  I remember, when I was in high school, some fourth form students played an Aprils fools trick on first formers that literally (nay!) broke my ribs. I laughed myself hoarse. (Form one students used to be called MONOS in some other schools but we used to call them RABBLES at Starehe).
  
  The rabbles were woken up very early that Saturday April First by the form fours. They were told, categorically, that they were to take their mattresses to the school laundry for washing (oh, save me the…!).
  
  In their naivety, they took up their mattresses and bounded towards the school laundry. It was a sight to behold! Mattresses of all colours and sizes could be seen gracing the ‘air’ of the school. Poor boys! They didn’t even realise that they were playing the ‘lead roles’ in the comedy that was being produced by the form four students!!
  
  The laundry man (a Mr. Mugendi), on seeing the sea of humanity bounding towards the laundry building (with mattresses in the air), just shook his head not knowing what to think. He stood at the door and waited for the ‘gullible guys’. When they got to where he was, they set their mattresses down and waited to be told what to do ‘next’.
  
  “We have brought the mattresses,” they said. Mr. Mugendi just looked at them and asked to know the whys and wherefores. On hearing the reason why they had brought their mattresses, he burst into a long, raucous and guttural laughter.
  
  “My boys, it is April fools day. They have made fools of you. We don’t launder mattresses here. I don’t think you do that at your homes, either. Or do you?”
  
  With egg on their faces, the rabbles took up their ‘belongings’ and trudged back to their dorms vowing in their hearts that they would pull someone’s leg come next April fools.
  
  Be careful that no one pulls your leg tomorrow, won’t you?
  
  Can You Work Out These Puzzles?

• SafariCON IPO - Very Interesting

  Posted: March 31, 2008, 6:29 am by Phil

  
  GUEST POST by Anonymous
  
  Just got a call from my friends telling me about the on-going great Safaricom IPO. The Safaricom IPO is running from March 28th to April 26th with 10 billion shares for sale.
  
  Wow. Did someone say 10 billion shares? So if it is true that Safaricom will be selling 25% of it's shares then Safaricom has in total of about 40 billion shares. I know that those figures are wrong. GM the biggest company in the USA has a market cap of 11.5 billion. Safaricom has a market cap of 40 billion. I might be seeing double. If I am wrong please correct me. That was enough to make me interested in this IPO.
  
  1. Buy Safaricom on Monday sell it on Monday
  
  That is the story I have been told that most Kenyans are telling me that they will do. That is not investing. That is what we call gambling. As we all know the house always wins with gamblers.
  
  The first rule in investing in anything is. If you won't own a business for 10 years, don't even think about owning it for 10 minutes. So my friends and family are already disqualified from buying this stocks.They have no intention of even looking at the books of this company.More than a third of the people buying this shares have no intention of keeping it past Tuesday.So why not wait until the real investors are in the company instead of a bunch of gamblers?
  
  2. Why is Safaricom selling?
  
  If the company is so profitable, why have they been trying to get rid of it for so long? They say the Kenyan government is trying to offload Safaricom shares. If you believe the Kenyan government is an angel that really cares about Kenyans, then think again. These are the questions I asked myself:
  

  1. Who exactly is the government. Is it ODM or PNU or both?
  2. Is there another party in this so called government we do not know about? We all know some people will have kickbacks etc in the so called government.
  3. The first time I heard about this issue, it was vodafone that was selling 6% of it's holding, what changed?
     

  
  4. Why was ODM against it, before he became for it? Did they just find Jesus when Raila was made PM?
  The first rule of in making money in an IPO is that if the main reason to sell is to give venture capitalists their money back, you have a 70% chance of losing. Safaricom does not want to sell shares to buy the latest technology etc, they want us to pay some other entity money. That is not very smart investing.
  
  3. Safaricom numbers don't add up
  
  If it don't fit ,you must acquit. So said Johnny Cochran. In my case the numbers are just mind boggling for this IPO. There are going to be 10 billion shares at ksh 5. So for a one month period, the Kenyan stockbrokers will have 50 billion in their coffers. At say 2% broker commission, the kenyan stockbrokers will have over 1 billion in their accounts. If there any stock brokers in the Kenyan stock exchange, buy them instead. Here is where it becomes interesting. Some people are expecting those shares to do to 10ksh on day 2. So technically ,the Kenyan market will have 100 billion ksh in a period of 2 days to invest in Safaricom. Do you really believe that? The Kenyan GDP in 2007 was 58 billion. Did someone say over subscription, I will say bubble.
  
  4. Safaricom Growth
  
  I have been told that Safaricom revenues will continue to grow. Maybe, but that is the real reason that someone somewhere is selling. Growth of over 50% in any company in consecutive years just spells bubble.
  
  No company on this earth leave alone an economy can grow at those levels unless someone is cooking the books or it's a totally different product that no one has ever seen. It could also be a monopoly, but I heard that more cell phone providers are about to be licensed and the Internet cable is coming soon. Safaricom can not and will not be able to sustain such growth. So the next time you see their balance sheet, you will note that their level of growth has started to drop.
  
  5. Company Management
  
  If you want to make money in any IPO, the management team is very important. I hear that the current GM is leaving soon. Why? Who is taking his place? And who are these Safaricom management team?
  
  I called my so called Kenyan Broker and he could not even tell me who the directors of this company are and the top management team including their company secretary. If my own broker does not know who runs this company and how long the team will be there, why should I put my money in such.
  
  Maybe I got the wrong broker. I might just be negative about Kenyan business in general but the numbers for this IPO, are just too hard for me to swallow that they are kosher.
  
  I will try and get the Safaricom books and comb their accounts. I haven't done P/E's, EPS, and their debt ratios. However, I am not buying it, you should do that on your own.
  
  Crazy confessions of what a campus lady student did under the seats at Kenya Cinema

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes