Too many accidents, poorly maintained locomotives, lack of insurance and very few locomotives available forced them to this predicament. Slow moving trains of slow but sure. The drivers depend a lot on their phones to call ahead for clearance since most signals are down.
Structural Adjustment Programmes forced on developing countries by the World Bank and the IMF in the 90’s.
That’s when the notorious retrenchments and golden handshakes gained currency in government.
SAP was the worst thing forced on developing economies. It didn’t help at all what it did was causing death through stress related ailments. WB give u a loan and they attach so many conditions yet u will repay the loan at their term…Upusu kabisa!
And the civil servants to be retrenched were never taught on how to put their pay out into profitable venture. Again, at that time business was doing extremely poorly…yaani WB and IMF never cared about these poor souls…they just showed them the middle finger and said, “fuck-off.” See, people might shout on how Chinese loans are bad, but, at least they all can see tangible developments as a result of the loans.
I have a very bad experience with a WB funded project…if something happens that delays the project implementation and hence affecting the loan disbursement period, they always cancel the loan after the elapse of the disbursement period. Only on very few occasions do they extend the disbursement period.
The one thing I always wondered was: SAPs forced our gov’ts to retrench and reduce gov’t investment in especially education and healthcare yet, in those western capitals where WB and their twin IMF are headquartered, gov’ts were increasing expenditure and investment in those same services. Just, how?
There’s a certain young man I know whose dad was retrenched at that time. Coz of the stresses related to job losses, mzazi squandered the cash on alcohol (became alcoholic) and pool (billiards). As a result, the young man and his siblings dropped out of school and never had a chance to further his education, sth that made him very resentful and angry. In the course of time, the dad died of alcoholism and depression, the surviving parent just couldn’t afford to take them to school. The young man came to town and became a matatu conductor and eventually a driver. The anger (depression?) however never left him. Speaking to him you could tell sth was not quite right. Juzi tu amepata accident na matatu ya mwenyewe and he, sadly, perished.
That’s extremely sad! Just coz some jungu somewhere thought that SAP was the best thing for the black man and forced it on him, we lost two innocent souls (RIP). These jungus will never know peace. As of now, terrorism has been taken right at their doorsteps!
