Category Archives: corruption

Motoring Moment: Ugly Cars, Overlappers, Thika Road

Overlappers are one of the most irritating nuisances of driving on Nairobi. Over-lappers are drivers who are too impatient to wait their turn in traffic, so they swerve into the lane for oncoming traffic or onto pavements & footpaths, and speed away, only to nudge/cut-in/force/beg for their way back into their assigned lane when they run out of road or meet another car. The habit is believed to have started with Matatu (minibus) drivers who used to be acknowledged as the worst drivers in Nairobi, but has spread to other including ordinary drivers, taxis, buses, governments & diplomatic vehicles.

So we’ve started a new site – Overlap.co.ke ( #overlapKE ) – to rank serial over-lappers and point out over-lapping hot-spots for over-lapping . The police may not be anywhere or have an interest in the reckless road behaviour of some motorists, but there are ordinary motorist who are fed up with the impunity that is symbolized by over-lapping and can send in reports to identity the worst offenders.

Car Use Verification: Odometer tampering is suspected to be a not rare occurrence employed to increase the value or enable the importation of the 5 to 8 cars brought in to Kenya from Japan, Singapore, and Dubai.

However for vehicles shipped from Japan, @Karuoro of Huduma Bora points to the JEVIC(Japanese Vehicle Inspection) site which wary drivers can use to confirm the details of the vehicle they are about to buy, including identification/serial numbers and odometer readings at the time they left Japan.

Road Rage incidents are thankfully still only isolated incidents despite, the build up of traffic gridlock. The use of Police Officers to control traffic is both praised and loathed in different measure. – and a few weeks ago, a truck driver got involved in a major fist fight (longer than several boxing matches) with a traffic policemen.

It was captured on camera (above), and when played on TV caused some debate with different viewers siding with the policeman and others with the driver who was later charged in court.

Thika Road: It’s transformation to a super-highway courtesy of engineers from China continues, and they are changing the landscape from Nairobi to Thika – going by the changes at Museum Hill, University of Nairobi, and Globe roundabout. You can follow the changes with this useful Thika Road Blog.

Ugly Cars: via @diasporadical comes two lists of ugly cars that may be less desirable than the controversial Toyota Vitz which is equally loved and loathed around Nairobi. My (least) favorite, it’s the Toyota Will V1, of which there a few around Nairobi, but this odd shaped car does not appear to have an (too embarassed?) manufacturer’s badge.

Bank Enforcement CYA

The Finance Act 2010 is now available at kenyalaw.org.

It covers a lot of grey areas generated by the Central Banks of Kenya’s (CBK) handling of the Grand Regency sale and the Charterhouse Bank closure and gives powers and direction that provide some legal safe cover (but not retroactively).

It requires funds recovered by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to go to the Government’s Consolidated Fund (78) and gives CBK powers to (peek and) take action at a bank based on (a bank’s own) auditor report (66) and specifies harsher actions that may be taken against banks who violate share capital limits (67).

Other provisions:

  • Banks can lend up to 40% of their balance sheets to real estate (up from 25%).
  • Beer prices up 20%.
  • Copyright inspectors can summon police officers to arrest piracy offenders (77).
  • Abandoned vehicle number plates should be submitted to Government for cancelation (40).

Internet Security in Kenya – Part II

This week, the Kenya Police website was hacked and it sparked some debate on security investments and their effectiveness.

Mid last year, a forum was held in Nairobi to review the state of internet security and some of the findings were that hacking and computer fraud were relatively easy to perpetrate so in some organizations and the problem is only going to get worse owing faster internet speeds and failure to address risks around people, processes, and technology in regional organizations and financial institutions.

Farewell Mars Group Kenya

While the world awaits the release of more cable from Wikileaks, some unfortunate news comes from Kenya where the equivalent of Wikileaks – the anti-corruption watchdog Mars Group Kenya – inexplicably took down their website in mid December.

The reasons for this are unclear, but (via @twitter) it appears it came about when someone tried to create an application to access their vast database – and this provoked the founders to take down the site and post a message that their database and contents therein are copywrited and invited anyone who wanted to use it to e-mail them for permission.

Mars Group Kenya (created by Mwalimu Mati, former Director of Transparency International Kenya) has been a great resource of information for taxpayers, students and analysts looking at corruption. Their site had official and unofficial, unreleased and secret reports of the Kenya government, Kenya parliament and auditors) mainly on corruption in Kenya. Also their budget reports on government spending have come to be appreciated and even caused the Kenya Finance Minister to re-check his numbers going into the 2009 budget.

Government Contracting to SME’s

The Government of Kenya is collectively the biggest spending entity in the whole country. Yet provision of goods and services to the government is often over-looked by small and medium enterprises (SME). Many do so for a variety of reasons, some of which are late payments for good/services delivered, demands for bribes from government procuring officers, costly and time-consuming red tape procedures.

However the opportunities are there for small companies to take. It is wrong to look at this collectively because different ministries, parastatals, agencies are governed under different rules of administration and purchasing. Over the last few years the procurement process has been streamlined at many government bodies. More tenders are advertised to the public giving more opportunity for new bidders, Corruption is not as blatant and the avenues for redress in this regard have opened up. Also there are opportunities in technology that new upstart companies can grab if they are prepared for the process.

A glance at some recent GoK procurement awards at the website of the public procurement oversight authority (PPOA) shows some technology related awards including:
– Direct loading of Safaricom airtime for senior staff at the Kenya Revenue Authority – won by Safaricom (Kshs 7.8 million)
– Provision of documentation software at the Kenya Ports Authority – won by Sap Africa (~Kshs 5.7 million)
– Installation and commission of security software at Kenya Forest Services (Kshs 14.9 million)
– Supply of a network operations for Kenya Education Network- won by Lantech Africa (~Kshs 176 million)
– Provision of data capture at the High Court registry – won by DPH Software Services (Kshs 69.9 million)
– Support of the digital village sat the Kenya ICT board – won by Intelecon Research & Consultancy (~Kshs 25.9 million)

The steps to winning & executing a tender are:

– See advert in the papers
– Pay a stipulated fee to obtain bid documents Kshs 2,000 to 10,000 ($125)
– Return bid documents by a specific date and witness the opening of tenders. Bidders are often asked to provide copies of company profile, financial accounts, list of other similar contracts executed (referees/proof of performance)
– Winner gets limited purchase order (LPO)
– Winner delivers goods
– Winner receives payment

There are variations to this process; sometimes bidders are asked to return only a technical proposal (to demonstrate their understanding and expertise) subject to which those short listed are now asked to provide financial proposals. The lowest bidder at this stage should win though sometimes weighting the technical and financial scores arrives at the winner.

Sometimes a winning bidder may experience delays in procuring goods, or as a result of other factors beyond their control. The end result is that their payment may be delayed. This cash flow cycles often cripples many small business hindering their opportunity to take up new orders while waiting for old payments to be received.

This is where banks products such as solid loop, a contract finance loan, from consolidated bank can assist an SME. However, one major improvement in the PPOA rules is that a government entity cannot put out a tender for a good or service that is not budgeted for and which it has no funds for – and this cuts down on a situation where a company may provide a service that will not be paid for several years.

GoK gives you wings

So government procurement should be looked at in a new light, and many more vibrant emerging companies should seek out as aggressively as they seek out private sector or multinational procurement orders. These can be areas such as payment processes, digitization /archiving of records and web & mobile developments