We Must Uphold The Law & Crush MCAs' Impunity

Last week we 'celebrated' the fourth anniversary since the promulgation of the constitution. Thousands of Kenyans thronged Nairobi’s Uhuru Park on August 27, 2010 to witness President Mwai Kibaki sign the document into law, which he had promised to deliver within 100 days in office after his presidential election in 2002.

This constitution promised lots of positive change to the people of Kenya mainly through devolution, a decentralised political system. This system limited the powers of the president and gave more to the people of Kenya, as they would have representatives who would relate to their needs more than the centralised leaders. Previously, as a result of a central political system, there was an almost complete disconnect between the people and their leaders. The new constitution aimed to redistribute resources to previously undeveloped regions for the benefit of all Kenyans. Counties were expected to compete against each other on innovative development ideas, with county economies specialising in producing specific goods or services that others would not, and all this would in turn better the larger economy of our country.

This scenario explains why 67 per cent of Kenyans voted for the implementation of the constitution. Four years later, the only beneficiaries of the constitution seem to be the few Kenyans in elected office, namely the MCAs, MPs, governors and the executive. With many development projects lagging behind or maybe not yet started, there is massive waste of resources with the current levels of politicians.

The MCAs, being the biggest beneficiaries, have not only crippled development through their excessive travel allowances, but now they are looking for a Sh12 billion deal for car grants, 2,100 government-constructed offices in their wards, and salaries for their staff. This will see the taxpayer part with more money that will also maintain and fuel the MCAs' vehicles.

This constitution was supposed to be about all of us; about equity, not about elected leaders enriching and entrenching themselves with impunity. However, they are flouting the rules and seeking to amend the law to suit their selfish needs.

For example, Article 34 of the constitution guarantees freedom and independence of electronic, print and all other types of media. But Eldas MP Adan Keynan has introduced a bill in Parliament that seeks to gag the media and silence public scrutiny and expression in regards to the performance and conduct of the members of Parliament.

Article 204 provides for an Equalisation Fund to improve basic access to basic needs of the marginalised communities. But regions like Mandera and Turkana have not benefited from special funds to raise their poor standards of living. Instead, members of the National Assembly now want to control the Equalisation Fund.  The national government is still disbursing funds based on 2009 approved audited reports by parliament!

Article 230 (5) says the Salaries and Remuneration Commission is an independent entity and has the power of regularly reviewing salaries of all state officers to ensure the Compensation Bill is fiscally sustainable. But the SRC seems not to feel the pinch of high taxation when setting the pay and allowances for the members of the bloated National Assembly and those of the Senate. It will be even worse with the MCAs and their expected car grants and office grants promised to them by the President, which in itself is unconstitutional as only SRC is mandated by the constitution to discuss and harmonise all public remuneration.

Article 104 on the right to recall says the electorate can fire its MP and senator before the end of the term of the relevant House of Parliament. But all we have seen is the targeting of governors and deputy governors through attempted impeachment by MCAs and senators, who act no better than hired goons in a show of might. More importantly, we as Kenyans can do much more to hold our leaders accountable. It is our right to fire non-performing MPs and senators.

We must uphold the Bill of Rights as stipulated in chapter four of the constitution.

Do these politicians even think about us once elected in the same the same way we unconditionally hate each other on their behalf? Personally, I can never lose sleep over them nor will I ever vote for the popular tribal candidate, unless they totally represent my interests and I know they would deliver. This is a resolution I hope all Kenyans can embrace and act upon during elections; it is the only way out of this draconian rule by these politicians that will keep us in a dark forest unless we are prepared to change our thinking and approach to voting. Let’s vote with the mind rather than the heart.

Extract from my article at the Star: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-188784/we-must-uphold-law-and-crush-mcas-impunity#sthash.39F8hmyb.dpuf         

Continue reading →

The Future is Pan African

Why do you think the future is pan African?

Africa may be the continent that lags behind in terms of development. However, it is the fastest growing continent.  Pan-Africanism stresses the need for collective self reliance.  That is the main reason African countries are forming unions. The largest union being the African Union.

Africa boasts of a huge variety of resources. From minerals to agriculture. These minerals fetch huge income to these African countries. With so much to export, the black continent has enough income to sustain its growth and development. African countries have varying climates that favour different crops. This means African countries have the ability of supporting each other in food supply.

Africa has a high birth rate, with a huge section of the population being comprised of the youth. This means African countries have a readily available labour. This has attracted foreign countries to set up firms in Africa to utilize the available labour. This has translated in improvement of infrastructure in African countries. This will translate to economic growth. Pan-Africanism is evident in the different unions that different countries have formed. The largest union is the African Union. Together, Africa has the ability to take over the world economy.

Africa has talent. There are thousands of businesses that are a result of innovations. These great brains of Africa are striving to take the continent to the next level. So far, we are far ahead in terms of mobile phone technology. There is efficient mobile banking across African countries. This has led to fast and efficient transactions, improving businesses across African countries.

Western nations and the Far East super powers are exporting their skills to Africa. In turn, Africans offer both skilled and unskilled labour. this has helped African countries to set up industries using the imported skills. These skills are enough to make African industries take over the world market.

African countries have embraced formal education, mainly borrowing from their respective former colonial masters. However, their universities accept students from different African countries. This has helped in bonding and sharing of ideas.

African countries have lessened restrictions of crossing borders and working in different countries. This has helped in economic  growth. This has enabled landlocked countries like Uganda have access to services that only countries with a coastline would enjoy.

Although some of African countries are still war-torn, they are being supported by neighbouring countries. For example Kenya has offered refuge to many Somalians who cross the border to seek security. Kenya ha s also helped in fighting against AlShabaab. With this kind of unity, Africa is promised a safe environment conducive for growth.

Continue reading →

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IS THE FUTURE FOR KENYA

As the calls for a referendum loom, I wonder is it for the greater good of the society as a whole.

Will it benefit each and every Kenyan, including people in El Molo dying of hunger? Kenyans in Wajir and Mandera counties involved in inter-clan fighting? Kenyan affected by the recent Lamu attacks, whose security has been ‘improved’ only through presidential political rhetoric rather than in actual sense seeing as people are dying from what has been confusing intelligence reports placing culpability on everything and everyone from al Shabaab, to political incitement, MRC, land grabbers, etc. It seems no one cares enough to stop insecurity in its totality and secure the people of this nation that all leaders swore to protect!

This brings me back to my main agenda, public participation. Public participation works through involving people likely to be directly affected by a decision made by public officials, in the actual decision-making process. It portends that persons affected should be provided with relevant information and should be told how their input will affect the decision. We are living in an era where elected and appointed officials cannot make arbitrary decisions purportedly on our behalf as Kenyans, but must consult us at every juncture of decision-making.

As the opposition attempts to collect five million signatures for a referendum, I'm not aware of any of my friends or relatives who has ever endorsed or participated in any decision-making that touches their lives. The only thing that most Kenyans engage in is voting for leaders who ideally should be our eyes, ears and hands in top decision-making places, but who end up using their offices to satisfy their greed or their bosses’ greed. This is especially true of those who were voted merely by calls for a ‘three piece suit’ system to give the big men numbers in Parliament.

The moment we stop lending and auctioning our politicians and our brains to political mediocrity the earlier we will achieve development and kill the tribal card that has always been used to amass votes for one political elite side against the other. We have to be involved directly on every decision that touches our lives by first voting people who share our views and agenda for development, then indirectly, by the leaders we have voted through actions that totally represent us and not themselves.

How representative have decisions by the current government and opposition been of us Kenyans? How representative are they of all ethnicities, religious affiliations and races? If none at all, then it’s high time we do away with them come next election and more so vote for a referendum that is about us and not them. To these political formations, public participation will be through hired populous in their rallies where they marshal up troops to lie to us that we are all one. We must stand up and be counted! Ni Sisi!

The hard hitting reality will be when Kenyans stand up for themselves and be counted. I quote Brian Eno “Democracy is a daring concept, a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people”

Extract from my article on the Star

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-184812/public-participation-future-kenya       

Continue reading →

WHY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

The decision to use social media for marketing allows businesses to obtain very positive results. The benefits may be both within the economic sphere, as referring to the reduction of costs for the marketing or the increase in revenues in the long run, both to aspects such as reputation and brand awareness (brand awareness).

Among the main advantages associated with the use of social media marketing must emphasize the speed of communication through the instruments used, which improves the company positioning on search engines online and promotes rapid indexing of content on the Internet; the possibility of reducing the cost required to develop marketing strategies obtaining, at the same time, more than satisfactory results; the ability to be in constant communication with users potentially interested in the information about the enterprise. Finally, businesses that offer customers a technical support service can take advantage of additional benefits.

Increased speed of updates with respect to search engines

Users who want to search for content on the web using search engines. Their operation is quite complex, as are the complex dynamics that allow web content to be indexed in the engines themselves. The main search engine is Google, which shows a series of results divided by pages; the number of connections that can be displayed within each page varies depending on the settings chosen by the user. Statistics show that the vast majority of users, to carry out an online search, choose to display only the connections that are in the highest positions of the list, while those found in the bottom of the page are displayed by a minority; even only 5% of users view the contents on the second page of the search. The objective of Search Engine Optimization, as previously mentioned, is to analyze and optimize the variables that affect the operations of indexing the contents of the web pages on search engines, in order to ensure that such contents vested with a high position in the result list research.

The process of indexing the contents within the search engines is a slow process, and the results of the optimization variables for the positioning of pages are obtained only with the passage of time more companies publish and share content and the more you check the possibility that such contents vested with high positions in search engines. The slowness of the indexing described above makes it particularly difficult for the company to promote individual advertising campaigns. Consider the case of a company that decides to launch a promotional campaign for a period of one week, or who choose to offer discounts and free gifts to the first user who submit a comment, message, or respond to a question, of course, the time spent by search engines to index and to highlight the web pages related to these initiatives is sometimes greater than the duration of the initiatives, precluding any possibility of successful enterprises. With the use of social media such issues are resolved, because the communication takes place instantly, and users can view the contents even before they are present on search engines.

Every single social media tool has an internal search engine can quickly find the content published, and every piece of content, it is instantly indexed. Also, for some social networks like Facebook, the search system is particularly "smart" in that it takes into account the personal characteristics of the user: if, for example, a teenage girl entered as search keywords "Paris Hilton", a of the first pages that will be displayed will be the personal profile of the rich heiress Paris Hilton; in the case in which the research was carried out by an adult woman, probably one of the first results page would display the Hilton Paris. With social media, then, for example, a firm may offer free tickets for a show that will take place the next day, or even organize promotional campaigns lasting a few hours or even minutes.

Consumers receive information to which they are potentially interested

Through social media, users have the opportunity to choose the topics on which to be continuously updated, for example, by following a certain channel on YouTube, users can automatically see on your profile all the videos that are posted by a particular user, or on Twitter when you choose to follow a profile, or on Facebook by clicking "like" within the pages. Firms that adopt social media as a communication tool can therefore exploit the advantage of being in contact with a group of people claiming to be interested in their own upgrades: this implies a potential increase in the possibility of obtaining income and increase sales through commercial communications and information that is shared.

The awareness by companies that users who follow her through social media are people interested in the brand and the company itself, also allows you to create targeted marketing strategies and direct to the public for fan only, then a public non-generic and new but already informed about the brand and on the company. Finally, the formation of virtual communities also allows companies to be particularly friendly, conversational and fun with users, so that users have the same feeling of talking to a real person, an integral part of their lives.

Get good results at minimal cost

The use of social media by businesses may result in the incurrence of costs that can vary depending on your budget and strategies that you want to pursue. To obtain a winning strategy through social media is not only necessary that the company is forced to spend huge sums of money, but enough to have the right skills to exploit to its own advantage all the tools at its disposal.

Reduction of costs

One of the positive aspects of using social media marketing is the fact that the costs for marketing are lower than those incurred for strategies that leverage traditional channels of communication such as advertising, advertising in radio or magazines. As has been previously stated, the use of social media is absolutely free and the amount of costs to be incurred depends exclusively on the will of the company. The outlay required for the creation of textual or visual content such as images and logos is almost equal to zero, except for certain categories of video particularly elaborate. The cost items to be taken into particular consideration are only those relating to remuneration for those involved in the management of communication through social media, but communication itself is done absolutely free. In addition, social media is a place full of information about users, their habits and their taste: the data collected through social media allow, therefore, reducing the costs related to analysis of the market and consumers.

Given the many benefits that social media marketing is able to provide businesses, the low share of the costs necessary to operate successfully through social media is clearly favorable compared to the costs to be incurred in marketing through the traditional channels of communication.

The benefits in the long run

Even beyond the economic aspect, the use of social media brings many benefits for the company in the long run:

Loyalty: the continuous interaction with users strengthens the bond-enterprise user. The user can actively participate in the life of the company, making their own contribution and sharing their experiences and feel part of a community of people bound by a common interest; the company may well strengthen the loyalty of its customers and generate competitive advantage against competitors.

Reputation: This is another aspect that suffers a strong influence because of the dynamics that govern social media. The companies that are able to establish direct contact and effectively with their users-customers are able to increase their reputation and enhance the brand.

Visibility: the social media presence allows companies to be using a storefront available to all network users, both those directly involved as members of a page and those indirectly involved as friends of the members.

Customers: the mass of users present on social media is a new market in which firms can enter in order to identify and intercept potential new customers.

Feedback: the interaction with users allows you to get feedback on their products and services and understand what are their strengths and weaknesses to improve them to be more competitive.

The special case of technical

Some companies offer to their customers through social media, the ability to use a technical support service for its products or services. These companies enjoy additional benefits in terms of reducing costs and benefits in the long run. The views expressed by the users that are online can be a major pitfall for companies: a possible negative comment User assumes a significant redundancy in the network when it is published under the watchful gaze of others. It is therefore in the best interest of companies to succeed, not to hide or remove the negative content, but to provide a service that is able to hear and resolve the problem encountered by the user in a transparent and public. The speed of online communication through social networks like Facebook or Twitter can be a side business to be immediately responsive to face the problems of the customers, on the other hand the user to request immediate assistance. Some companies have understood how the presence of a service center dedicated exclusively to social media can be a valuable tool to improve their reputation and customer loyalty: for example, Safaricom has established a technical staff exclusively dedicated to instant messages on Twitter.

The problems that are expressed by users and solved by the technical staff through social media take on huge significance than those who are resolved through traditional means such as call centers and service centers. In fact, all users, including those who are not really enterprise customers can verify firsthand that the company works and is willing to listen to the demands of the customer, in a friendly, accurate, timely, and most importantly, effective . The technical support service with social media is also used in cases where customers do not manifest their problems directly to the business: for example, when a user publishes a negative comment on your profile in Facebook or through Twitter, companies can intercept the comment and enter into the discussion, trying to establish communication with the customer, understand the reason for his discontent and resolve the problem.

In addition to the benefits that can be obtained in terms of reputation and customer loyalty, service through social media allows you to reduce the firm's costs relating to traditional technical assistance instruments: for example, the manufacturing company of computer Lenovo has detected a reduction in costs of 20% due to the decrease in the total number of calls received by the call center business from customers requiring technical assistance: most customers have, in fact, preferred to contact the company via social media , instead of exploiting the traditional instruments.

Continue reading →