Nairobi Notebook

2008 Fuel Bug

This time 9 years ago the world was freaking out about the  "Millenium  Super Bug" that the doomsayers  were predicting would send the planet  into  IT meltdown.  Corporations spent who knows how many millions of dollars ensuring their systems would stay up and running into the year 2000.

So you might have thought the executives of Kenya's fuel distributors would for some time have been pondering  over what exactly to do when the need came to hike the price of petrol above 99.99 shillings a litre. Would their digital petrol pumps be able to handle triple figures? After all the price of oil has been rising for some time. In fact the price of the black stuff has increased by over 500% since September 11 2001 from a little over $20/barrel to $126 this week. No nobody can say they have been caught on the hop.

But industry sources told the Daily Nation newspaper that the Kenya Oil company had wanted this week to lift the price to 100.50 shillings a litre, only to be prevented by a technical hitch.

Still, maybe this temporary reprieve for motorists will also aid the governor of Kenya's Central  Bank who at the moment is struggling to control inflation which stands at around 21%. The cost of oil is one factor, so too are rising food prices. It feels like every week the supermarkets in Nairobi are printing out new price lists. As fellow freelancer Sara Nics points out everyone is hurting, from the farmer to the transporter to the customer...I mean  8 bob for an egg!

The outlook is not great either...the rains are playing up again and no one knows when to plant their crops. For tens of thousands of displaced farmers the rains are irrlevant anyway as they remain too afraid to return to their shambas. Kenyans are yet to take to the streets in protest at the impending food crisis, but the wait might not be that long.

The Price of Peace…

…500 million dollars to be precise. That is how much Kenya’s Finance Minister says the grand coalition government will cost over the next two months. A small price to pay you might say for both President Kibaki and Raila Odinga to ensure all their cronies enjoy the feast, paving the way for a return to calm.

That certainly seemed the attitude on the lawn of State House a couple of weeks ago as one by one the 42 ministers and 50 odd assistant ministers pledged their allegiance to serving Kenyans. It was all cross-party handshakes and backslaps. Long lost friends re-united across a suddenly forgotten political divide.

Unfortunately for the Finance Minister he is presented with something of a headache: He is now $300 million dollars over budget. That is bad news for Kenyans. According to Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper the shortfall means slashing the budget of larger ministries. There will be $160 million less to spend on the education of Kenya’s next generation. The country’s potholes look set to deepen as the Ministry of Roads loses out on nearly $10 million – around about the cost of the Prime Minister’s office! But that’s ok…Odinga can chose between his government limo or privately-owned Hummer.

And this is just for the next two months. The Kofi Annan brokered deal is supposed to stick until 2012. Something will have to give: either tax rates or the cost of running this government…given the propensity of Kenyan MPs to hike their own salaries it seems unlikely to be the latter.

Hon. Kimunya better be sure he has a large-screen calculator ahead of this June's budget. He has some serious figures to fudge.

 

Twenty Twenty Vision

It seems that Raila Odinga is having issues with his vision. Not his vision for Kenya – though you could be forgiven for thinking that might be the newly installed Prime Minister’s priority - but his eyesight! So while Kenya’s grotesquely bloated grand coalition government begins its works towards Vision 2030, the country’s blueprint for becoming a “middle-income” country over the next two decades, it appears that Raila is happy to settle for a twenty twenty vision of his own.

The timing however seems suspect, if not a little careless. According to one of Raila’s aides the decision to travel was made last week, just days after he was sworn into President Kibaki’s cabinet. How convenient, for now it will be the Kenyan tax payer who funds Raila’s first class air-ticket and laser surgery. Or perhaps it’s only right, as his aide says, that “the State take care of the PM’s health”.

That though is unlikely to go down well with the 140,000 Kenyans who continue to live under tarpaulin, dependent on handouts and too terrified to return to their villages. They thought they were Raila’s priority. After all, Raila had just told them so as he and President Kibaki completed their Tour of Peace in the Rift Valley. Who can blame them for feeling Raila’s vision is a little blurred?

But Raila has an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: while in Germany he can drop in on the factory building his customised, armour-plated Mercedes and check the DVD screen isn't too small.