Dennis Kioko

Ever wondered why some places in Nairobi are mosquito prone, while others are not?
There's popular folk-lore that Nairobi was established a settlement because it's altitude, or height above sea level, is above that preferred by mosquitoes. But this proposition quickly runs into headwinds as much of Eastlands, including JKIA, the country's main airport (long pun coming) are frequented by mosquitoes. 
So, I got an expert from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) to clear some air on this buzzy issue. 
Here is what Professor Clifford Mutero of ICIPE had to say:

The digital world is a very different one for newspapers, and this explains why many have shut down.

The ones that survived took some time in the wilderness before figuring it out.

Yet the ones that are transitioning seem doomed to repeat the mistakes of those who have been ahead of them.

The first problem with digital news publishing is competition. Print newspapers are near monopolies. Setting up a newsprint plant and investing in distribution vans is very costly. You therefore end up with a handful of papers or even just one for a certain geographical zone.

Exactly how much does a tube of toothpaste cost?

Looks like an easy answer, right? I mean, it’s exactly the amount you pay for the tube.

That’s until you walk into a supermarket and realise that something weird is happening.

Other than the very small tubes, most of the other tubes look the same size. Or rather the boxes look the same size.

But then why do they cost vastly different prices - why do some tubes cost twice or almost thrice the price of others if they are the same?

In Kenya, when the government first announced measures against Coronavirus - many people on social media pointed out that they would especially affect the poor. More specifically, it has been said that if the poor didn’t get help soon, they would turn to crime.

This should be good, right? It shows that we care about the poor? Yet, it raises some dark questions. Was the concern here really about the poor? Why is it that we only remember the poor when bad things are happening?

I know a number of people who are going through rough patches due to the measures to combat Coronavirus. There is reduced spending by many businesses and equally by many individuals, and this is directly having an effect on numerous individuals and businesses whose income has effectively dried off. It does not help that the government barely has a welfare fund - when times were good, we spent away all the money.

Normally, these people would not be classified as poor. But they are really bearing the brunt of Cor…

In Nairobi, beers are usually served cold, or sometimes warm depending on the mood of who’s serving you.

Outside Nairobi, warm beers may come as a standard and you may have to specify that you indeed would prefer a cold beer, as I once found in Naivasha.

I was at an infamous bar next to the Nairobi - Nakuru highway and this was my first time ordering a KB Lager. By the time I realised I had been served a warm beer, it had already been opened and the only option was a second bottle of cold beer then I could mix half-and half.

It did not escape my attention that the waitress serving me slightly hesitated when I asked for a cold beer. I got the impression that it was taboo to order a cold KB Lager.

For many people in Africa, more so Sub-Saharan Africa, local manufacturing is a concept we are very much in love with. We wish that our countries manufactured 90 percent of what we used locally, and by doing so, our feeling is that our countries would become developed countries.


Of course, manufacturing 90% of all locally consumed products means we would only import 10%. Early in school, we are taught that 1+3=4, and likewise 4-3=1.

Equally, if by manufacturing 90% locally means that we import very little, then the assumption is that importing very little means we manufacture a lot locally. And so, many people call for the banning of imports to promote local manufacturing.

Most governments understand that banning imports is hard, and so what they do is raise taxes on them. But interesting enough, raising taxes on imports does not lead to increased local manufacturing. Instead, it leads to a decrease in local manufacturing.

In 1981, manufacturing contributed to a quarter of sub-Sa…