CAPTION: Design-genius Wambui Mukenyi.
Today we use two examples of business persons, to profile what the Kenyan economy has become. A combination of factors has led to the current state we find ourselves in, but mostly it’s the redundant 8-4-4 Education System which has produced stale graduates who cannot reason out issues, and a retarded mainstream media set-up, which has glorified and set the wrong examples to judge our failed economy.
Wambui Mukenyi is a modest designer, who thinks up her own unique creations which she sells to her mostly female clientele. She maximises on the use of Instagram to display her designs, which caught the eye of our analysts.
Chris Kirubi is the flamboyant, arrogant so-called “industrialist” whose first public assignment was heading the Kenya National Taxi Corporation (KENATCO), which he ran to the ground, and used the proceeds of crime to open up a few franchises dealing with cosmetics, and mathematical-instruments. He’s also an economics advisor to the Uthamaki establishment.
But if you looked at our mainstream media, Kirubi is more glorified than Wambui Mukenyi, obviously because he’s in a better position to bribe journalists from the Daystar School of Mediocrity. He also owns a media house and uses it to push his brands to a borderline dumbed-down and conditioned public, who continue offering their ears to third-rate content.
But is Kirubi really an industrialist?
Well unfortunately if you ask these Daystar journalists, an industrialist is someone who buys a franchise from the rights holder, begins by distributing the foreign brand, and becomes an overnight sensation who has the ear of policy-makers.
Indeed, Kirubi has never created a brand and has either acquired a Franchise, stolen an idea or bought out an on-going concern.
For instance, Kirubi is not the person who created the Bic brand or the Motions cosmetics he distributes under license. He simply acquired a franchise to distribute locally. Koroga Festival is an ideal he stole after years of partnering with Muthoni Ndonga’s Blankets and Wine Festival. The coffee Franchise he’s currently pushing called Rockbern is an American brand. Despite him owning a coffee farm in Muranga County, which he purchased from the late politician George Mwicigi using proceeds from crime after the Uchumi heist, he doesn’t pack his own coffee and instead imports Brazilian Coffee under the “Rockbern” Franchise. Finally, Capital FM was not his start-up, but formerly owned by Linda Holt who unfortunately acquired a drug habit and had to sell it off.
CAPTION: Rockbern Coffee is actually imported Brazilian coffee from an American brand. Kirubi is lazy and doesn’t create things from scratch. His only skill is looting, or acquiring franchises.
On the flipside, Wambui Mukenyi is a meticulous designer who custom makes her creations after thorough brain-work and an active thought-process. She has cleverly studied her niche market, seen the gaps, and delivered a product which can readily compete at any world stage.
It’s the story of Kenya today; banks and media have shunned the thinkers, creators, authors, bloggers, techies, and have focused on merchants, transporters, bar-owners, Deejays, event-organisers, distributors, and the likes.
It’s the reason why our shilling continues to weaken against major currencies, because we import more than we export. Our shilling is always buying the dollar to enable our exhibitions buy more phones from China, clothes from Turkey and cars from Japan. We have nothing to sell apart from our agricultural products, which are also under threat because the Jubilee Government lied about giving farmers subsidies.
Local manufacturers who attempt to set-up shop locally are frustrated by the Government in the form of punitive taxes, harassment from the taxman, insecurity, and low buying power due to corruption. For instance, President Uhuru Kenyatta at the instigation of the East African Brewing Company, used MPigs in Central Kenya, to raid manufacturers of what was referred to as “second-generation” alcohol manufacturers. These were businessmen who had borrowed loans and created employment to open those factories.
But lo and behold, the collective stupidity of Jubilee Government’s Uthamaki Economics was visible after they were bribed by a foreign company to undermine local manufacturers, and being the dumb person that he is, Uhuru mobilised MPigs, who then vandalised those industries using hired street-urchins.
But shouldn’t the Government have invited all the manufacturers for a seminar on how to manufacture hygienic drinks, of export quality? Didn’t brands like Jameson, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, and the likes, start small and expanded to be global brands? If Kenyans can own banks like Equity or KCB which have gone regional, are we saying that our alcohol brands which were demonised by media bribed by EABL, cannot be international brands?
In the same light, shall we continue glorifying Chris Kirubi’s of this world, whose only claim to fame is buying franchises and repackaging products for sale? How long shall the course and destiny be charted by nincompoops masquerading as journalists, who have sacrificed their ethics and principles in the interest of advertising revenue?
Look at our talk-shows and newspaper column. They are managed by egotistical maniacs, who consciously block interviews with specific people, for fear that they will be more successful than themselves. That’s why Larry Madowo hosts Deejay’s, Socialites and Hoe’s, Jeff Koinange was obsessed with Moses Kuria, Miguna Miguna, and Presspass has become Dennis Itumbi’s home. These are television shows that should be shunned as we Kenyans seek a reset from the Moi era of mediocrity.
It’s time we elevate our creators, inventors, innovators, thinkers, to the next level. Since the old thieves in Kenya only know how to invest in flats, us young people have to create avenues to support ventures, whose return on investment is quicker than land or real-estate. Those chama’s that you’re all part of, can raise funds to buy stakes in operations like Wambui Mukenyi’s fashion company, or this blog.
For long, we have been duped by the old generation of retarded wankers to disregard the thinkers and creators in our country. 8-4-4 conditioned the construct that schools were a conveyor belt to produce workers, and creators have been shunned by society. People who work in the house are not considered as being part of the nation-building process, and those who work 9 to 5, then spend another 4 hours in traffic are the country’s heroes.
Despite being awash with cash from donors, venture-capitalists and shareholders, banks like Equity Bank of thieves and Kenya Commercial Bank have no products tapping the creative industries. They simply want more merchants buying crap from China, or Landlords to build flats. Infact, Barclays Bank has a business-club which arranges trips for its members to travel to China and become merchants. Barclays then facilitates credit-lines to people who want to import Chinese shit to Kenya. These are the banks that we should be campaigning to shut-down for creating and supporting merchants and shunning the creatives. Barclays Business Club is basically an extension of Uthamaki Economics, which wants everyone to be a merchant or trader.
It’s time our generation flips the script. These creators, innovators, inventors, artists, manufacturers are the key to unlocking the potential of the economy. They need tax incentives, they need capital and more jobs will be created.
