Jobs September 22

Extracted from the daily papers this week

Anon bank 1
Relationship manager and relationship officer(s). Apply by September 29 to Voucher TS/1870 P O Box 49990-00100 Nairobi

Anon bank 2
A general manager of operations, head of finance, and branch/divisional manager(s). Apply by 30 September to TS/1871 P O Box 49990-00100 Nairobi

A sales & marketing manager and sales executives (2) at Computer Pride. Apply to info@computer-pride.com 6 October.

Audit senior(s) and a Company Secretary (head of legal) at HLB Zainash Consulting/HLB Ashvir. Apply to consult@ashvir.com by 29 September

Kenya Human Rights Commission
A senior program officer (outreach) and a program officer (advocacy). Apply to admin@khrc.or.ke

Centre director of Mpala Wildlife Foundation Apply through http://jobs.princeton.edu by 15 October

Training manager at Pan Africa Life Insurance. Apply to hr@pan-africa.com by October 6

Finance manager at Pricewaterhousecoopers. Apply to recruitment.ke@ke.pwc.com by 6 October.

Fundraising manager (FM/01/09) at SOS Children’s Village – Kenya. Apply through Deloitte at esd@deloitte.co.ke by October 6

Let UAP take you to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa

As the logistics and numbers of the 2010 World Cup become clearer, and after my brief trip to South Africa, it’s time to re-evaluate financial plans for the Cup and specifically take a fresh look at UAP who are the only company to so far come up with a targeted finance product.

I had looked at the UAP Insurance plan earlier and dismissed/rejected it on the basis of its marginal return. E.g. investing 5,000 shillings per month over next 42 months would give about 233,000 shillings at an assured internal rate of return of about 6%. However, of that, my own savings would be about 210,000 shillings (90%) while UAP would have chipped in only about 10%.

However it is important to note, and they state this in the 2010 product, that the package is a savings plan toward the World Cup, and not an investment plan and it is therefore wrong to compare the plan to an investment fund or unit trust.

The main benefits of saving with UAP come not from the investment return, but from their in-built package which includes discounted air tickets, discounted accommodation and a chance to (save &) travel with other Kenyans fans who could also be your friends. UAP will also bid for some of the limited numbers of tickets that will be made available here (from the quota allocated to Kenya) thus providing some assurance that the match tickets can be obtained beforehand at FIFA-recommended prices and not from scalpers at the last minute.

During my week in South Africa, in which the conference paid for hotel, air travel and some meals I still used about shillings 6,000 on upkeep, some meals, gifts, beers, newspapers etc. Accommodation at the hotel (bed and breakfast) – next to Johannesburg Airport was about 6,000 shillings and a roundtrip air ticket would probably have cost about 40,000 shillings. Food in SA was reasonable at about 300 per meal, but there were some unexpected bills like currency exchange which sometimes cost 300 or 600 shillings each.

All this makes UAP package 2010 World Cup South Africa plan look pretty attractive for a similar trip to SA four years from now. Or I could stay home and watch the games on DSTV or some local TV channel, but I’d rather be there in person.

September 17 Jobs

Communications manager at ActionAid International Kenya. Apply to hr.kenya@actionaid.org by September 22.

Country sales manager (Ref CSM/06) at Cadbury (East & Central Africa). Apply through KPMG at esd@kpmg.co.ke by 29 September.

Catholic Relief Services: Technical advisor and a Regional information officer – both in Nairobi. Details at www.crs.org.

Business development executives (2) at Dot Savvy. Apply to jobs@dotsavvyafrica.com by September 20.

East African Breweries (EABL) is seeking sales strategy & operations manager, customer relations representative and a brand manager. Apply to hr.recruitement@eabl.com by 22 September.

Chief executive at the East African Tea Trade Association. Apply to recruit@tackafrica.com.

General Manager at Easy Mobile. Apply to emcommunications@gmail.com by October 6.

Regional Technical Assistance Coordinator East Africa at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Details at www.ifc.org/careers and D/L is 25 September.

Regional managers (3) and loan officers (10) at Kadet Ltd (a microfinance organization). Apply to hr@kadet.co.ke by September 25.

Communications Manager at a not-for-profit organization in Sub Saharan Africa. Apply though Maer associates at ccm@maer.co.ke by 26 September.

Marketing & operations manager at National Oil Corporation of Kenya. Details at www.nockenya.co.ke and D/L is 27 September

General Manager (Individual Life) at Pan Africa Life. Apply to hr@pan-africa.com by 29 September.

Symphony IT company is seeking systems administrator, logistics coordinator and accounts assistants. Apply to HRD@sdymphony.co.ke by 22 September.

Chief operations officers at the Trust for African Rock Art. Apply to tara@africanrockart.org by 29 September.

UNIFEM (UN development fund for women) is seeking budget officer, monitoring & evaluation specialists (2), and program manager. Apply though UNDP at jobs.ke@undp.org by October 2.

Media liaison officer at the Uraia (i.e. the Kenya National Civic Education Program). Apply through intermedia@intermediancg.com and details at www.uraia.co.ke by 29 September.

Procurement specialist at the World Bank Kenya. Apply to the country director Kenya P O Box 30577-00100 by 29 September

World Vision Kenya is seeking corporate communications manager, communications officer, PR & marketing officer, IT specialist, and child protection officers (2). Apply to recruit_kenya@wvi.org by 29 September.

No potholes for World Cup

South Africa has really incredible infrastructure.

Visiting from the airport to the highways to a dorm room in rural Rhodes University, you can almost feel that you’re in Zurich or Illinois i.e. in Europe or America, but not in Africa. Especially when your seat-mates on the plane are school kids flying in uniform back to their boarding schools, fresh from holidays in Spain and playing video games on new Sony vaio laptops.

Toyota corolla’s that are ex-Japan or via UAE (known at Dubai cars) are the most common cars in Kenya. Here in SA, its’ small Mercedes, BMW’s, Citroen, Opel, Peugeot’s and Toyota cars – many coupes and hatchbacks, with very few SUV’s on the road which indicates small families and good roads.

Roads range from 3 lane highways in the city to good equally good roads between towns that enable one to cruise in a matatu at about 100 km/h between towns.

 

One Kenyan commented on the (similarly good) infrastructure of Harare (Zimbabwe) with a joke that maybe Kenyans should not have been in a rush to independence and perhaps given the British more years to build up the infrastructure of Kenya.

So plan to be back in 2010 for the World Cup, Insha’Allah.

Banking in SA

SA banking
What’s different about banking in South Africa? Absa is now apart of Barclays and I visited a branch to compare some major differences.

One significant difference between Kenya and South Africa banking is their (SA)recognition that banking is a necessary service which should be affordable. While Barclays is considered to be one of the more expensive banks to use in Kenya, Absa along with the other major SA banks have embraced mzansi which is a voluntary industry effort (financial services transfer charter) to offer accounts for the unbanked, poor, or low-income citizens. Kenya has an unregulated banking sector in which the only option for many such citizens is to seek a cheaper bank such as Co-operative or Equity banks.

Some uniquely Absa services unseen in Barclays Kenya include;
– Izokuphilisa or Absa micro-loans of up to 8500 rand (about 85,000 shillings).
– Mzansi money transfers though which anyone (even non-Absa customers) can use Absa to transfer up to 25,000 rand (250,000) shillings per month to anyone else
– Funeral savings plans
– Full Shari’ah banking including vehicle & asset financing as well as Absa Islamic will writing. (Barclays and KCB have both introduced Islamic banking in Kenya in the last year)
– SA banks sell insurance, something CFC and CBA would love to be able to do at their branches in order to maximise returns on their investments in the insurance industry. A sample Absa insurance plan guarantees additional payment of 50% if death occurs while one is a fare paying passenger on licensed public transport (i.e. matatu) . AIDS is also not a hindrance to obtaining an insurance policy.
– Absa internet access (AIA) for online account users and provides unlimited internet use at a monthly fee
– They have multilingual brochures – typical ½ brochure in English and the back half in Zulu, Afrikaans, or any of the other 11 official languages depending on the region of the country where the branch is located. In Kenya, it’s rare to find brochures in any language other than English.
– On the other hand, it is difficult to exchange foreign currency. Kenya has freed up exchange regulations allowing seamless transfers at forex bureaus and banks while in SA it requires one to show an ID (or passport) and answer a few questions.
– Security is less visible since there are no guards in the bank branches.