Dr. Martin L. King quote I found on ESPN: “A man that doesn’t stand for something will fall for anything.”
How to say “no comment” in Kenya: “The matter is in court and therefore sub judice” – Latest to use the phrase is Dr Alfred Mutua when asked to comment on the legality of the opposition members being brought into the government.
KTN (Kenya Television Network), Kenya’s leading news station, has made two programming errors in the last two days that have greatly disappointed me:
(1) They ran some new show in place of the Sopranos on Monday night. They are right in the middle of showing Season 3 of the Soprano’s – and with no notice, they ran some drama program (i think it was about a deaf FBI agent – I was too traumatized to remember the name, or even watch) Shame!
(2) This morning, they were showing CNN as usual, and the New Airbus 380 was lined up on the runway, about to take off on its maiden flight. 5 minutes before this historic flight, someone at KTN flipped the channel away from CNN and they showed a comedy (again I am too shocked to remember the name – it has some smart kid who drives his parents mad). I changed to Sky News who showed the plane taking off until it flew into the horizon before they resumed their normal news – and BBC did the same things also (shown on KBC). Nation TV and Citizen get a pass because they were already showing something else, but some producer at KTN consciously cut out this once in a lifetime viewing experience. Damn, Shame!
Two corporations going in different directions:
Kenya Airways
Going up is Kenya Airways, which has too much business and is at maximum capacity on some routes. Even before Regional Air stopped flights, KQ to Mombasa was always difficult to find seats. Now it is virtually impossible, and travel agents are calling people with Mombasa tickets to see if they will surrender them to others with more urgent travel plans. The airline, which routinely bumps passengers off flights, has just received its new 322-seat Boeing 777. Their stock price has tripled in the last year from 8 shillings to 25 shillings and – only the blip is its poor human resource management: while low morale was signified by numerous drug trafficking cases involving airline staff, the notoriously unprofessional hiring and placement of staff have not been addressed.
Also, success is not without difficulty. At the 777 launch on Monday, KQ management appealed to the Government to provide visas for West African (Nigerian) travellers who connect at Jomo Kenyatta Airport (Nairobi) for flights to Dubai and Asia. Last year, it was the Nigerian High Commissioner to Kenya who lamented the poor treatment of his citizens and requested KQ and the Kenya government to treat them better. The Government has however not been very helpful in this regard, and is still reluctant to issue even emergency visas – and most of these transit passengers have to sleep in the airport on uncomfortable plastic chairs. A new hotel is being built at the airport, hopefully, that will settle the matter and prevent this from becoming a full-blown diplomatic incident.
Uchumi Supermarkets
Going down is Uchumi, who yesterday Uchumi announced that they had hired a new Finance and Strategy Director, Richard Henry. Uchumi shares have lost half their value (now 14 down from 30) and they have closed almost half their stores. Staff at most of the remaining open stores are an unhelpful, de-moralized lot, and their shelves are bare – while rival Nakumatt has opened new lines of home products, restaurants, book shops, which Uchumi doesn’t have – they probably can’t entice new suppliers with their poor payment record. And except for the Ngong Road Hyper store, most of the others are just lifeless, with staff seeming unsure about their jobs (some don’t even wear uniforms). Uchumi needs a whole new re-birth, and to update their blood red colours which don’t scream “cool supermarket with great products.” They didn’t have sugar yesterday, so I bought a kilo at the neighbourhood police canteen.
Meanwhile, the new Nakumatt Lifestyle (in downtown Nairobi) doesn’t appear to have caught the public’s attention yet. Nakumatt has now launched a blitz of television advertisements, something I can’t recall them doing for any of their other stores, that have found success by wowing Nairobians with their product and service range. I suspect the problem is the location of the store, which is near one corner of the city in the University Area. Because of the proximity of the very busy (in a good way) Koinange Street, driving to the new store through the endless traffic jams in the area is a hassle that many motorists are not ready to go through. Even though they have basement parking, shoppers have shown a preference for avoiding shopping within the city especially, on weekends – also the store doesn’t have the eateries, amusement and entertainment shops that have made other Nakumatt’s very popular.
Many insurance companies are refusing the opportunity to provide medical insurance for some huge state corporations: Why? Because of fraud and abuse of the system. Other providers such as Madison and UAP are not taking new clients, but will continue to service their previous customers. In past years, some insurance companies received premiums of over 100 million shillings for the year, only to realise that this amount has been exhausted within six months. They have now become vigilant and examine each cost item and refuse to pay for frivolous or fraudulent cases.
This is because the doctors and lawyers have colluded with staff of these corporations and come up with fraudulent costs that have been submitted for payment. Members of staff have given membership cards to relatives/friends to use. Once a hospital knows you’re a senior official covered by the government, they will often recommend their own doctors who will ask for a whole battery of unnecessary tests and operations and observation by other “specialist doctors ” who are hurriedly summoned by the hospital to attend to a very important patient. These doctors then all invoice the medical service provider at their own rates.
Parliament’s next multi-million scam
According to the East African, members of parliament will now have expanded medical coverage for two wives/spouses and eight children (up from 4) from a joint package by insurer’s AON Minet & ICEA who will receive Kshs. 32 million a year in premiums from the National Assembly. Other bidders were Madison (33m) Great Five (66m) and Jubilee (75). The previous provided AAR, which covered all 222 MP’s for 32 million last year (and says it lost 8 m) now wanted 92 million shillings. Don’t be surprised if AON/ICEA come crying after 3 months saying MP’s have exhausted their premiums because the package provides that an MP can be admitted to any hospital in the world as long as it is recommended by their doctor for specilaised treatment. Since the scheme is not contributory, you can expect the insurers to come and ask Kenyan taxpayers to top up the MP’s medical pool.
New thought on NSHIS
I have been opposed to the new medical scheme (Ngilu’s NSHIS) because it’s an extra huge tax out or my pocket and it gives me less coverage than I already have. However doctors are vehemently opposed to the new scheme because their costs will be controlled. Right now they can invoice whatever they want to the National Hospital Insurance Fund.
A medical insider told me that in the long run, the only two insurer’s will survive, AAR and Resolution. AAR – because they control a great percentage of costs by having their own clinics, generic drugs and also have their own doctors who are the only ones authorized to allow patients to be operated on.