“The problem with Kenya is not the gavament or even the corruption. It is the people. Every body here wants to scam you. EVERY BODY. You get into a restaurant as a mzungu and they double the beer prices. You go out to eat at a roadside establishment and suddenly it becomes a five-star cost experience. Even in your darn matatus, they charge us wazungus double or triple the fare to Westlands, 200 shillings.”
“But the worst experience I have had is running my business. Nobody keeps their word, even on time. Somebody says they will see you on Wednesday, 10am, they come on Friday. A cheque that was supposed to be banked on Monday is banked 15 days later, if at all. Your own workers are always getting angles to steal from you through circuitous cash transfers, discounts and commissions. Running a business in Kenya is like running an entire criminal investigations department or a spy agency. You have to have informers who inform you on your other informers. It’s terrible really, terrible.”
“Mzee, I could get you a 100 million Danish krones almost interest free from banks in Denmark, but people back home now have a very bad attitude towards Kenya. You are becoming the second Nigeria. They ask me, why invest in such a high-risk social environment when we can take our money to Rwanda and sleep well? Mzee, how can I be sure you are not planning to scam me yourself? In two years I have lost my car to Equity Bank because I guaranteed a Kenyan friend, a business associate. At 61, I have also lost more than Sh15 million in investments to my Kenyan wife, Njeri, who I see nowadays with an old Brit in North Coast. You can understand that I have a problem with trust. Kenyans are very warm and very hospitable people. I don’t know why they are all thieves when they live in such a beautiful, beautiful sunny place”.
We have our very own revolution leader Gen @eddy mahelo. Amejitolea mhanga kupigania revolution and wails the loudest hapa when corruption scandals emerge (ok, hashindi @maizeroaster ). Juzi ametokea na plan ya kusneak into the country a cheap SUV imported from UG, then he changes plates into Kenyan ones. Yaani apige chenga KRA.
This is not verbatim mzee. I can sniff out one of those ‘a chinese man on a plane told me this about Kenya’ type of stories. Needless, I agree with you. The cost of even being a consumer in this country is just equally difficult if not worse. When you realize the price of those faux gold watches you buy at 1500 - 2500 are actually retailed at 300ksh or even a t-shirt that retails at 100 bob in gikomba for one person and for the next at 600 based on how well you are dressed. Hakuna biashara safi hii kenya, na kama inakaa safi the product will disintegrate and lose its utility in few months if not weeks when the seller is long gone.
Of course when I say verbatim this is highly condensed and edited. I didn’t have a tape recorder afetr all. But I can tell you, this was the gist of it. The guy was very bitter about his Kikuyu ‘wife’ and the scams at his solar-energy business…