A slum dwellers confession on the Sinai Fire tragedy.

My friend Peter Kiogora Odhiambo(not his actual name) called me yesterday with a confession to make, he requested me to meet him at the local changaa  den and with a little "encouragement" he was willing to spill the beans on what actually happened at Sinai on the day of the fire tragedy.

The following is a blow by blow account of what happened on the tragic day according to my friend Peter who works as a car washer at the Kenya Pipeline depot and doubles up as a petroleum "broker" at the same depot.

As a broker, he’s duties are to drain petrol from the numerous tankers he washes, and to sell them to the various dealers who have warehouses nearby. I won’t get to the details of the work he does there. We will have to save that for another day.

Peter: On Monday morning I woke up late with a crazy hangover and I was broke as well. I passed by madhes place and took some breakfast. Usually we have ugali and meat for breakfast but on this day, madhe was late as well and we therefore had to be content with madondo and chapati. Ugali was ready at other places but since I had no cash on me, and this was the only place I got credit facilities, well, I had to make do of what was available.

Soon after finishing my breakfast, it was around 7:00 am; I took my tools and went to the car park to wait for the first customer. In total, we are a crew of around 30 boys at the “base” and so we spend most of the time making jokes with each other as we await the first trailer. This day was not different from any of the other days, at least not until when Tony came running with a crazy look on his face.

What is happening, asked Ochieng. There’s a spillage at the main tank, he replied. Like lightening, all the boys were up on their feet complete with the pails and jerry cans and we found ourselves at the gates of the pipeline terminal. If it were not for the G.S.U personnel who were deployed there, that facility would have been without a gate as we speak.  Mwas  is the oldest and most experienced in our team and I will remain forever indebted to him. This is because he saved my life on that particular day. I can remember him saying that the foul smell that had already filled the atmosphere was super petrol and whoever had a memory of Sachangwan was well advised not to go anywhere near that petrol.

Fortunately, my activities of the previous night had slowed down my reaction time and so, as I turned around, all I could see were shirt tail of the young boys who had joined us recently rushing towards Sinai slums at speeds that could shame Usain Bolt. A broke pocket is a broke pocket; let’s just say that the devil won and 5 minutes later I was at a manhole at the Sinai slums complete with a 20 liter jerry can. The petrol was gushing down the river at speeds never before witnessed and getting the stuff was actually a very tedious task. I bulldozed my way past the boys and into the manhole.

A minute later, my jerry can was full and as I resurfaced to ground, my hangover was gone and I felt like one who had taken 10 bottles of changaa. I walked a distance of approximately 50 meters and then I had a loud explosion. As I turned around, I saw a large ball of fire atop the slums and the confusion was so great that I am assuming it took me 3 minutes to make it to Lunga Lunga.

(to be continued)

Mobile Phone Tariff Wars and Benefits to the 'common' Mwananchi

Talk by the ministry of Information and communication in relation to the mobile phone price wars point towards setting up a minimum charge to stabilise the prices charged by competing companies.
The main argument by the stake holders (read Safaricom) is that low prices are detrimental to the economy with resulting job cuts and lowering of profits and tax contributions to the ex-chequer.
Now lets go down to the mtaani aspect. Kenya has a population of 50% living below the poverty line i.e below 80Kshs a day 
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2046.html
as at 11th March 2010.
In line with vision 2030, we want to achieve universal access to telecommunication services by this time, and what better way to do this by lowering rates to those affordable to more than 50% of the economy, those living below the poverty line?
The number of support staff in any service oriented setting is usually directly proportional to the number of subscribers; in the telecommunication sector, this applies to customer care, technical, sales and management. I may not be very well conversant with most of the big company's operations, so somebody tell me how a firm with 12 million subscribers will retrench staff and still have the capacity to handle the said number of clients.
The benefits to the citizens of the lower classes are so many to innumerate but I will just mention a few.
-Lower calling rates means freedom to do more transactions at minimal cost.
-Lower calling rates means lower cost of calling vouchers(scratch cards) with introduction of 5/= vouchers.    When Airtel lowered their calling rates some people were actually surprised to receive calls from people who  were known to never call.
The mobile tariff wars may cost Kenya $61 million in tax revenue, says the govt of Kenya, but I am sure the tax revenue will increase in tremendous magnitude since you have given 20 million more people the power to use mobile phone services. What they are actually not telling us is that a 'certain' company will lose millions in revenue, and that revenue will just be transferred to a different company by the Kenyan public who are tired of being fleeced of their hard earned income by a few companies with the protection of the government.
It is time the middle class joined the poorer classes to fight for sustainable economic conditions. This is because when the going gets tough for the lower classes, it is the struggling middle class who will suffer the repercussions.
Please write me a comment on your views,
Steve.

Towards a 24hr Economy

I have been checking out government efforts geared out towards the realisation of a 24hr economy and it saddens me to realise that on the contrary all govt effort is actually geared towards suppressing it.
With the coming of the 'Mututho' laws, one can only wonder who will be out working past 11pm since majority of the businesses operating out of the CBD and Industrial area at such hours are mostly FBCG related.
Very soon, the PSVs that operate on a 24hr basis in the eastlands area will have to resort to other 'tactics' in order to raise the extra revenue due to lack of customers.I am afraid to mention what will become of of the drivers, conductors and even the touts who man the stages at night, once they are rendered jobless.

Bars are closing down in large numbers as we approach April when the licencing process begins.Too bad the taxi and bodaboda operators are already feeling the pinch, more unemployment on the way.
Well, Eastlands get ready for the effects of resultant unemployment as more youth have just joined the jobless corner; am thinking of moving to Runda, a loan anyone?