Category Archives: Kenya motoring

Motoring Moment

– KQ Plane overshoots runway at Entebbe. No reported injuries

– The Nairobi Star has a story about the Kenya Government not wanting to buy new limousines for ministers and the Prime Minister. Meanwhile the Uganda Government is selling 20 post CHOGM BMW jeeps – why not swop?

Speaking of which, what happened to the stretch limos that former presidents Moi and Kenyatta used to use. They disappeared totally during the first term of President Kibaki – but like with the re-discovery of Harambee House office shouldn’t they make a comeback in 2008?

– Is it a rule that lady drivers in expensive cars must wear monster sunglasses?

– The seat of power in Kenya is no longer back left; but front left next to the driver, then you can have bodyguards or aides in the back

– The latest power accessory is a chase car. Made popular by ministers, but now judiciary, military and even MP’s & civic leaders use them when visiting trouble spots. Saw a military general last month, who has gone the Uganda route – his chase car was a pick-up full of soldiers with rifles

– It is scary to be a Nissan B16 owner – a car can have latest license plates (few weeks old) like KBA111E and already be missing indicator lights.

– Nice to see cars back in the DT Dobie showroom – which had empty windows in January and February. Damage to an $80,000 car is not worth the drive-past display. Besides if you want a Mercedes, you know how to get one, you don’t have to see it.

Motoring moment: asset finance personified


nice poster here from Lunch over IP on urban transport solutions

The traffic crunch in Nairobi has gotten worse in the last week since 1/3 of the city’s commuters had restrictions placed on their access to downtown Nairobi.

It’s fait to say that over ¾ of cars from KAP___ onwards (cars registered in the last five years) are financed with asset or bank loans – so they are a reflection of the amount of credit in the economy.

But the traffic crunch will continue unless some serious measures are taken as there are few new roads or new parking spaces coming up in the city

What are some solutions?
– Better public transport as the image above shows.
– Restriction on vehicle imports/registrations; But bad for the economy, encourage corruption
– Restrictions on asset finance lending; but bad for banks
– Restrictions on vehicle use e.g. only use vehicles ending with odd number on one day, even the next: but favors the rich (with more than one car) and will encourage fraudulent license switching
– The India way (as adopted by Uganda) and small town in Kenya which is to have motorbikes as taxis. This would be great for those who work in the upper hill area
– Car pooling, temporary parking meters, new capital city? The list is endless

Motoring moment: Schools, traffic jams & motor shows

Motor show

The 2007 Total motor show was held at the Ngong racecourse over the weekend. Of late only the Concours (classic car show) seems to run regularly, but it was great to have the motor show back after two years where we can always see the latest new vehicles and dream of buying them with Safaricom millions. Nairobians can also look forward to the Nairobi air show to be held on October 7.

Who’s here? Heavy presence by American brands (hummer, Chevy, Cadillac, Chrysler, jeep), while also upcoming is India (Tata, Mahindra), and China (FAW and great wall).

Also present were several banks (NIC, CFC, Barclays, bank o Africa, and Consolidated) all offering vehicle purchase finance plans.

Who’s missing?: Some prominent British (Land Rover), and German (BMW, Volkswagen / Audi) brands, and the Kenya Revenue Authority. It’s interesting (and sad) to realise how much tax is paid on new cars – as some car companies chose to display both the regular price and duty-free price (which the government, embassies, or national of other countries – Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda etc. pay for the same car).

Some prices

Cars
Chevy Optra 1.9m
Chrysler 300C 7 million (only 4.1 million duty-free)
Mercedes E class 6.4 million [EUR 70k] (only 3.7 million duty free) [EUR 41k]

SUV
New Pajero 6.1m , older model Pajero 3.3 million,
Toyota Land Cruiser VX 9.7m (5.8m duty-free), Land Cruiser Prado 5.2m (3.2 DF)
Jeep grand Cherokee 5.7m [$85k] (3.2m DF) [$49k]
Mercedes ML 8.5m (4.9m DF), GL class 11.8m (6.7m DF)
GH Humvee
Cadillac SPX

Lorries
Mercedes Actros 3340 prime mover8.3 million (only 7.1 million duty-free)
Mitsubishi Fuso prime mover 8.2m
Trailer by Randon 2.5m

Buses
actually have the same chassis as lorries, just the upper body is different
Tata school bus (62 seats) 4.9m
Nissan 51 seat (i.e. Citi Hoppa) 4.3m
Mitsubishi Fuso (51 seat) 2.8m
Nissan 67 seat 8m

Pickup
Toyota Land Crusier4.8m (2.8m DF)

Schools & Traffic

Last week has marked the beginning of the third term for most schools kids – and the impact on rush hour traffic has made a bad traffic situation even worse – commutes have gone up by 30 min at least each way, and it is often faster to get off the matatu and walk passed a major intersection. The increase is from more passengers (school kids) on matatu’s, more school buses on the road, but mostly from parents’ droppings kids off at far away schools across town before cutting back to the office

What would happen if parents were required to school their kids within a certain radius of their homes or offices? And the rule was given a 5-year grace period for investors (or teachers) to get funding (government loans) and other incentives like land to create quality schools within neighbourhoods? What kind of impact would it have on traffic? There are negatives, but kids would be able to get to school/back home at a decent time (in daylight) or even walk. Parents would not have to make long commutes to quality schools for their kids, and the road would be much clearer even when schools are open. A wishful idea, but totally unenforceable.

Gotcha

They finally got to me – halfway at least, almost a year and a half since the last known attempt. There may have been more attempt, but they were probably thwarted by round the clock security and other precautionary measures employed such as tipping night sentries and never straying from safe houses.

The perpetrators took advantage of a rare lapse in judgment and were swift, silent, and deadly in their attack.

The fateful moment came when I went to the bus station to pick up someone visiting the city. As is the case with many such visitors, they believe there is no food in Nairobi so they come armed with several sacks of fresh fruits and vegetables. So for a few seconds I stepped out of the car (leaving it unarmed and exposed) to help force the sacks into the boot – and for those few seconds, the car doors were open and the alarm was off.

As soon as I drove off I knew something was wrong – and sure enough when I stopped to check there was a huge hole where my indicator light used to be!

That’s one plague of driving very popular and very common Toyota is their parts are in great demand – much so that thieves are always ready to snatch your mirrors and lights to sell the last motorist who has lost his – and front indicator lights are a prized item that is likely to be stolen anytime.

Motoring moment: low tech cars

It took three stories to make up this post.

First was this story that appeared in the Standard last week about a range rover limousine that got messed up by a pothole. Then there was one where TV talk show host and car aficionado Jay Leno bragged about being the only celebrity who can drive a manual transmission SLR Mercedes. And finally this piece from the wall street journal which chronicles how frustrated new car owners are with their high-tech machines

Which brings up the question, how much it too much technology for cars? With my budget, I can only to drive a car that Wanjala, my mechanic, can fix at his garage and one whose parts are relatively available and affordable.

Yet Kenyans have been buying top of the range cars at an astonishing rate, some without local parts or technical support. And some of the cars are loaded with such gizmos and that make even their owners confused. How many times have you ridden in a car where the owner does not know what half the dashboard gizmos do? There are all wheel drive cars that never leave the city, tiptronic gears that are never used, cars that lock their owner out or in depending on their perception of insecurity, cars that are supposed to avoid collision and others that are supposed to park themselves.

Sometimes they break down in strange and sad ways – from cars with blown turbochargers that cause them to crawl or new cars that you see parked at the back of a garage as they await arrival of some obscure engine part or maybe it’s because the dealer’s electronic diagnostic kit has not discovered what bug is ailing the engine.

Other motoring moments:
– a VIP accident
– arrival of the Chrysler 300

Enough about cars

April 13 Jobs

most from the daily papers this week

Academy for educational development: finance manager, finance assistant, administration manager. Apply to regionaloffice@aed.org by 27/4

Investment analyst at British American asset managers. Apply to BAAMHR@baam.co.ke by 27/4

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Project manager and a regional director,both in Nairobi. D/L is 30/4

Financial information systems manager at Equity bank. Apply to jobs@equitybank.co.ke by 27/4

Operations officer (Nairobi) at the IFC growth oriented women entrepreneurs (GOWE Kenya) program. D/L is 27/4

Human resource manager at Innscor Kenya apply to recruit@innscorkenya.co.ke by 27/4

Management trainees at KCB. Apply online by 27/4

Kenya national commission on human rights: principal human rights officer – research policy & legislation program, principal human rights officer – campaign & advocacy program, principal human rights officer – complaints & investigation program. Apply to the commission secretary 74359-00200 by 30/7

Magadi soda: senior buyer, product development manager. Apply to recruit@magadisoda.co.ke by 27/4

Microsoft: infrastructure consultant, corporate account manager, partner account manager. Apply to wecajobs@microsoft.com

Safaricom: Senior internal auditor, senior information systems auditor, and senior information security officer. Deadline is 18/4

Executive director at Transparency international. Apply to recruit@sadeptsystems.co.ke by 27/4

Regional Program Leader at the World Bank PPIAF Nairobi. D/L is 30/4

Bad driving Roundup

bad driver Index
The other day I was stuck in a meeting and had a chance to observe traffic at the Kenyatta Avenue /I&M Towers intersection – and realized how bad we are at driving. A few minutes later I was down there myself adding to the chaos nosing a car foot-by-foot through until other driver had to yield.

While the most aggressive drivers appear to be matatus, taxis, citi hoppas, we are all to blame as regular motorists because we are equally bad drivers. Driving along the roadside, changing or creating extra lanes, doing u-turns etc.

Matatu and other bus drivers can get reported by sending an SMS to 2333 and once a month the Ministry of Transport will publish all these offences in a full page spread in the newspaper.

But there’s no mechanism for reporting private motorists or consequence for private bad drivers.
I wish the Ministry would extend the program to private motorists – in conjunction with Safaricom or Celtel – and enable motorists, or pedestrians to report bad driving by any driver. The difference is that only motorists who pile up more than 5 or 10 offences a month (reported by different people) get printed in the paper and asked to appear before the traffic court to answer for driving offences. I wonder how many times I’d appear on that list!

But motoring is only an extension of our aggressive/ rude inconsiderate selves that can be manifested anywhere, not just when driving.

Consider these other examples from a supermarket last weekend;
– Our inability to form a queue. Uchumi has a sign clearly indicating where to line up for bread – but which most customers ignore as they crowd the counter and yell out their orders for hot loaves or croissant
– A man with his kids on his way to a birthday party who pushed a full trolley through the 3 items only aisle. When I asked him if he understood the policy of the aisle, he said he was buying only 3 items – chocolate bar, bag of sweets, and balloons – but 10 of each item which unfortunately also had to be rung up separately by the cashier!
– Another day, a lady with her young daughter who paid for her items only to realise that her young daughter had picked out the wrong type of lotion. But instead of dealing with it later, she shoved a 1,000 shilling note at the cashier and dashed back into the supermarket to pick up the correct bottle – leaving five of us in the 3 items express queue also waiting to be served. To add insult to the matter she bumped into an old friend and had a chat for a minute while the rest of us stood and muttered insults under our breath.

Enough about that.

Airlines
Just about 20 months ago we marvelled at Kenya Airways whose share price had just shot up into the 60’s – before it went on to hit 140 and settle around 120 shillings a share. At the same time Richard Branson was setting up a Virgin partnership in Nigeria and the first scheduled airline services were resuming to the Sudan

Today, Kenya Airways share price is back in the 60’s, Virgin Atlantic’s boss is here to firm up his launch plans for the Virgin Airline and there seems to be a new airline to the Sudan every month.

Francis Thuo
Today, March 21, marks the deadline for investors and creditors of Francis Thuo Stockbrokers to have filed their claims with the statutory manager.

Busy paper pushers
There are people employed at organizations whose job is to align their organizations to the national goals of the day. Like chameleons, they alter their corporate objectives, mission, and policies to ensure they are aligned to ensure 10% economic growth, millennium development goals(MDGs), zero based budgeting, and now Visions 2030 etc. Also in a touch of electioneering they have been asked to mention what constituency any/all their operations are – which will no doubt end up in a little booklet that will be dished out by November.

More media
Amid the changes at KTN comes a new television station to Kenya with a twist: first to broadcast vernecular language

Finally
driving horror tale A bank manager parked his luxury car on the street during the daytime and came back to collect it at about 8 p.m. He entered and drove towards home along well-lit streets till near Westland’s when he noticed that he couldn’t see the road very well. He parked at a petrol station and got out – only to find that his car had no headlights. They had all been removed by street boys back in town, and he had blissfully driven this far courtesy of Adopt-a-light streetlights.