Dennis Kioko

Kenya is a capitalist country, according to the definition of capitalism, and according to what I was taught in my primary education. The ideal definition of this is that Kenya is a country with equal opportunities; a country where everyone is offered a minimal quality education common to all. From here, everyone has a freedom to undertake any career/business, without government intervention or restriction within legal limits. The government does not restrict flow of capital and labour, and access to resources is open to the highest bidder or those willing and able. This is contrary to communism, or its softer cousin called socialism.Under this system, the government aims at maintaining equal supply of goods and services and to maintain equal access for all. As such, the socialist system controls the number of professionals in all fields and the amount of labour involved in production of goods. it is also supposed to maintain the amount of goods produced, ideally. The above economic sy...

Our politicians are the biggest problem in Kenya, and they need to change in order for Kenya to develop. Liar!Politicians are no problem. the problem is the people of Kenya, who a few end up becoming the politicians that we so much hate upon. Most of my friends and other fellow Kenyans usually tell me how they would pocket tax payers money were they given this chance. After all, the money is not theirs, but everyone's. Therefore nobody cares how you spend it. That is why our government is so corruption riddled. Before you start celebrating and toasting to this fact, be aware that competition is very high, and very many other governments are trying to outdo each other in the race to who gets the most of the tax payers cut. From anti-corruption crusaders (United Kingdom) to stricter communist governments(We will still discuss the communists versus the capitalists in a coming soon post). Nevertheless, we still seem to be performing averagely in these sectors.According to the Global In...

Traveling in this country of ours, which we keep been reminded of its beauty, is a night mare. For clarity purposes, I am talking about traveling during the day, and not night, when I mention night mare. Traveling in the night on our highways especially in some parts of the country is just an easy way of getting mugged. The nightmare I am talking about is caused by bad roads, and endemic traffic jams about the city center. About the bad roads, well you all know about the percentage of tarmacked roads in Kenya( more info available here ). As for the tarmacked roads, well they aren't as smooth as they are shown to be on their blue prints. Most are riddled with pot holes which appear as soon as the contractor has tarmacked the next few kilometers ahead. Other defects include sections that are outdone by earth roads in their ability to withstand been washed away by the next moderate rain fall.There is also that issue of unmarked bumps- small hills put on the road and which we are led...

I was listening to 2 presenters arguing on radio, as they are employed to do nowadays. (the radio stations have figured that we have a lot of music at home and very few arguments, and therefore we look forward to hearing less of music and more of arguing in their stations). The presenters were talking about how we need to help people displaced by perennial floods in Budalangi. It got me wondering about Budalangi, and its perennial floods. After a few seconds of thoughts, I was quite bewildered. What puzzled me, is that the floods are a predictable event. Matter of fact, by December, we will be blessed with floods at the same place. So if the floods are predictable, how come that there are people who are affected all the time? The floods occur due to the river bursting banks. So for people to be affected every time, the river must expand every time it floods to areas it has never flooded before. The alternative is that the victims move back to their homes every time the floods subside. ...

One day, several years ago, before Kenyans made head hunting a political past time, I helped a so called friend of mine with my Motorola phone charger. My so called friend then left the phone charging at a certain location. One of the more than 3.3 million thieves in the country could not believe his luck, having come across an unguarded phone complete with its charger. The rest is history. Since I did not have a charger, I decided to look for a replacement, and I came across one pretty soon from a phone repair shop. This second hand charger served me well till early this year, when my mismanagement finally caught up with it, and it failed. Again I hit the road to source for a replacement. Little did I know that it would be a hard path now trodden by many. Chargers had dropped prices and I could obtain one for about 100 shillings. The sellers tested the chargers at the point of sale, and they did work. The sellers also told me that they do not offer warranties on such ele...

Every time school re-opens, I hear many people advising students to study hard because life is hard out here. They go ahead to show how education has bettered some peoples lives, occasionally giving doctors (academic) and professors as good examples. I have no objection to the above, but sadly, that is what I call missing the point by a mile. Contrary to the saying that Education is the key to success, it is not. If you took a student to school, and the student put in a lot of hard work in their studies, they will not be necessarily successful. They may even be a failure, and a big one at that. Consider the people that you consider as failures in your life. How many of them have undergone a decent education? Well, you may come up with the very educated excuse that the person dropped out at a certain level. Even if they did, didn’t they go through education? And what gives you the impression that they did not study hard? Nevertheless, lets raise the bar and state that the ...