We need more of Langat DL and less of Wanjigis

[RV Pundit]

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https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001248053/meet-the-shy-billionaire-behind-eldoret-s-sh200b-industrial-park

[Kadudu]

The problem in Kenya is that the Wanjigis and Langats of this world all got their wealth through dodgy means. David Langat is known to front many Chinese companies. Remember he is the same fellow who almost fell out with Uhuru over SGR. Now we can cheer him as he invests his loot.

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001248053/meet-the-shy-billionaire-behind-eldoret-s-sh200b-industrial-park

[RV Pundit]

At least he is investing locally - not stashing his loot in swiss & dubai like Wanjigi.

The problem in Kenya is that the Wanjigis and Langats of this world all got their wealth through dodgy means. David Langat is known to front many Chinese companies. Remember he is the same fellow who almost fell out with Uhuru over SGR. Now we can cheer him as he invests his loot.

[Kadudu]

Who told you Wanjigi has not invested locally? I hear he has invested in NASA.

At least he is investing locally - not stashing his loot in swiss & dubai like Wanjigi.

[Kichwa]

Anybody who has lots of money is Pundit's hero.  I wonder what he initially manufactured/grew/invented/created and sold to make so much money.

At least he is investing locally - not stashing his loot in swiss & dubai like Wanjigi.

The problem in Kenya is that the Wanjigis and Langats of this world all got their wealth through dodgy means. David Langat is known to front many Chinese companies. Remember he is the same fellow who almost fell out with Uhuru over SGR. Now we can cheer him as he invests his loot.

[Omollo]

KM

Not just that:

1. If you rob the entire country dry - even commit a few massacres - but invest your money in hallowed Kenya and crucially not outside Kenya, you will be Pundit's hero, forgiven and white-washed
2. Ruto is his hero because he knows how to steal - adding 10% to every contract - and he ought to be president because he is so good at stealing while Raila should not because he is so bad at making large sums of money!

[Globalcitizen12]

This guy pundit is a classic example what can happen to someone who lives in Kenya for so long. It is very easy to get coopted and to compromise your own principles and start following the crowd. He is at the age where most Kenyans lose faith and join the crowd and where most elites make the calculation that it is better to steal than to live in the uncertain life struggle.



For one Langat is not going to invest 200 billion in Eldoret. There is no economy in that part of the country to support such an investment. Langat must have found some people he wants to fleece and this is the bait.

Does this guy understand what kind of coordination and planning a 200 billion project would require. I guess people have started believing the hype that making a billion shillings is that easy. Even for the corrupt it is not that easy to get hold of several billions shillings

There other day he was he talking about Moi investment of 43 billion in a hospital. Another big white lie. Even Karen hospital after sinking billions cannot be able to utilize its capacity.. Medicine doesn't become cheap just because you can build a facility there is more that goes into running it than just the physical infrastructure and equipment.

Is someone living in Tatu city yet?
I know Kenya is contracting the chinesse to waste money on building Konza city. to that is a total waste. start by utilizing the idle capacity before investing billions in building a ghost town

Kenya wont climb development tree from top it will be done from the bottom. Moi built Eldoret Airport we know how much that contributed to development..

Until Kalenjin Nationalism dies down Eldoret will remain a small under developed town.

[RV Pundit]

Bla de Bla..kalenjin bla bla kalenjin bla de bal.

This guy pundit is a classic example what can happen to someone who lives in Kenya for so long. It is very easy to get coopted and to compromise your own principles and start following the crowd. He is at the age where most Kenyans lose faith and join the crowd and where most elites make the calculation that it is better to steal than to live in the uncertain life struggle.



For one Langat is not going to invest 200 billion in Eldoret. There is no economy in that part of the country to support such an investment. Langat must have found some people he wants to fleece and this is the bait.

Does this guy understand what kind of coordination and planning a 200 billion project would require. I guess people have started believing the hype that making a billion shillings is that easy. Even for the corrupt it is not that easy to get hold of several billions shillings

There other day he was he talking about Moi investment of 43 billion in a hospital. Another big white lie. Even Karen hospital after sinking billions cannot be able to utilize its capacity.. Medicine doesn't become cheap just because you can build a facility there is more that goes into running it than just the physical infrastructure and equipment.

Is someone living in Tatu city yet?
I know Kenya is contracting the chinesse to waste money on building Konza city. to that is a total waste. start by utilizing the idle capacity before investing billions in building a ghost town

Kenya wont climb development tree from top it will be done from the bottom. Moi built Eldoret Airport we know how much that contributed to development..

Until Kalenjin Nationalism dies down Eldoret will remain a small under developed town.

[Nefertiti]

Development can leapfrog - a principle Pundit and I espouse - but takes more than our current system is capable of. Now, if all looters invested locally Kenya would be much better off. There are trillions stashed out there. Even the US is contemplating waiving taxes on riches stashed away in tax havens... I hoped for this in the new katiba but to no avail.

This guy pundit is a classic example what can happen to someone who lives in Kenya for so long. It is very easy to get coopted and to compromise your own principles and start following the crowd. He is at the age where most Kenyans lose faith and join the crowd and where most elites make the calculation that it is better to steal than to live in the uncertain life struggle.



For one Langat is not going to invest 200 billion in Eldoret. There is no economy in that part of the country to support such an investment. Langat must have found some people he wants to fleece and this is the bait.

Does this guy understand what kind of coordination and planning a 200 billion project would require. I guess people have started believing the hype that making a billion shillings is that easy. Even for the corrupt it is not that easy to get hold of several billions shillings

There other day he was he talking about Moi investment of 43 billion in a hospital. Another big white lie. Even Karen hospital after sinking billions cannot be able to utilize its capacity.. Medicine doesn't become cheap just because you can build a facility there is more that goes into running it than just the physical infrastructure and equipment.

Is someone living in Tatu city yet?
I know Kenya is contracting the chinesse to waste money on building Konza city. to that is a total waste. start by utilizing the idle capacity before investing billions in building a ghost town

Kenya wont climb development tree from top it will be done from the bottom. Moi built Eldoret Airport we know how much that contributed to development..

Until Kalenjin Nationalism dies down Eldoret will remain a small under developed town.

[RV Pundit]

Exactly - I believe once all the conditions neccessary for take-off have been met - we will quickly develop. Most of the stashed money abroad by our politicians if brought back can lessen the pain of corruption. If a thief steal money and hide it abroad...it's double tragedy..if a thief steal public money and invest it wisely in private sector...we may get it some of it back through taxes/jobs.. the onus is for so - called developed world to make it very hard to launder money internationally - leave the thiefs to launder locally.

Development can leapfrog - a principle Pundit and I espouse - but takes more than our current system is capable of. Now, if all looters invested locally Kenya would be much better off. There are trillions stashed out there. Even the US is contemplating waiving taxes on riches stashed away in tax havens... I hoped for this in the new katiba but to no avail.

[MOON Ki]

Development can leapfrog - a principle Pundit and I espouse - but takes more than our current system is capable of.

Yes. As it is, we still struggle to feed ourselves, and, going by the records of history, it is hard to "leapfrog" on empty stomachs.

Now, if all looters invested locally Kenya would be much better off. There are trillions stashed out there. Even the US is contemplating waiving taxes on riches stashed away in tax havens... I hoped for this in the new katiba but to no avail.

That seems to be really huge news.   Can you provide some more details?

Globalcitizen:  It's great news that seems to be all over the place, although some of the reports conflict in some aspects that many would consider fairly important. In particular, one minor detail on which there is no clarity in all this is where the money is actually going to come from.  Who is going to put that kind of money into Eldoret, and why would they?

The other thing I'd ask is if the Chinese company involved has done any project of this sort, especially outside China, but even in China.   There are many Chinese companies that will happily get involved in bogus projects so that they can insert lies  into their financial statements and get money from suckers.   (In these the big ones tend to get help from smiling government officials, from all sides, shaking hands, cutting ribbons, etc.)

[Kichwa]

Globalcitizen12: Exactly. If it sounds too good to be true, its probably too good to be true.

This guy pundit is a classic example what can happen to someone who lives in Kenya for so long. It is very easy to get coopted and to compromise your own principles and start following the crowd. He is at the age where most Kenyans lose faith and join the crowd and where most elites make the calculation that it is better to steal than to live in the uncertain life struggle.



For one Langat is not going to invest 200 billion in Eldoret. There is no economy in that part of the country to support such an investment. Langat must have found some people he wants to fleece and this is the bait.

Does this guy understand what kind of coordination and planning a 200 billion project would require. I guess people have started believing the hype that making a billion shillings is that easy. Even for the corrupt it is not that easy to get hold of several billions shillings

There other day he was he talking about Moi investment of 43 billion in a hospital. Another big white lie. Even Karen hospital after sinking billions cannot be able to utilize its capacity.. Medicine doesn't become cheap just because you can build a facility there is more that goes into running it than just the physical infrastructure and equipment.

Is someone living in Tatu city yet?
I know Kenya is contracting the chinesse to waste money on building Konza city. to that is a total waste. start by utilizing the idle capacity before investing billions in building a ghost town

Kenya wont climb development tree from top it will be done from the bottom. Moi built Eldoret Airport we know how much that contributed to development..

Until Kalenjin Nationalism dies down Eldoret will remain a small under developed town.

[Nefertiti]

That seems to be really huge news.   Can you provide some more details?

This is rampant... even dying Yahoo! cannot sell its foreign stakes in Alibaba, etc due to tax aversion. Apple too, IBM,... the multinational nature of US companies exacerbates the problem.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/your-money/strategies-corporate-cash-repatriation-bipartisan-consensuss.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/04/27/trumps-profit-repatriation-tax-break-everyone-is-getting-this-wrong/amp/

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2017/05/trump-s-tax-plan-seeks-bring-back-trillions-corporate-profits-held-abroad-ca

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/01/apple-boss-tim-cook-repatriate-billions-to-us-treasury-next-year

[MOON Ki]

That seems to be really huge news.   Can you provide some more details?

This is rampant... even dying Yahoo! cannot sell its foreign stakes in Alibaba, etc due to tax aversion. Apple too, IBM,... the multinational nature of US companies exacerbates the problem.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/your-money/strategies-corporate-cash-repatriation-bipartisan-consensuss.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/04/27/trumps-profit-repatriation-tax-break-everyone-is-getting-this-wrong/amp/

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2017/05/trump-s-tax-plan-seeks-bring-back-trillions-corporate-profits-held-abroad-ca

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/01/apple-boss-tim-cook-repatriate-billions-to-us-treasury-next-year

Thanks.  I thought you had something else in mind when you wrote that "the US is contemplating waiving taxes on riches stashed away in tax havens".    I would have interpreted quite differently those articles you "link" to quite differently, for two reasons:

One is that the articles refer to corporate money that is legally held abroad temporarily "tax-free", not to individuals' money.   When it comes to individuals trying to hide their money, things appear to be  getting only worse, for both them them and their bankers (as the Swiss have found out).

The other is probably just a minor difference in how we see words---I tend to interpret "waive" and "reduce" differently.

1st one:

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump have indicated that they plan to tax at least some of that money and induce corporations to bring it home, though details are scarce.

and then goes on to talk about lower rates.

2nd one:

As part of the general discussion of how the tax code should be reformed Donald Trump has suggested that there should be a cut in the corporate income tax rate to persuade corporations to bring those foreign profits back into the US.

3rd one:

4th one doesn't even seem to be about reduced taxes:

[patel]

What about making it more difficult for people to loot, jailing looters or making it more expensive to loot so people can pursue honest living.....If all resources are deployed where they are budgeted and projects are completed on time and under budget don't you think we would leapfrog rather than waiting for thieves to steal from us then can develop the country for us, with our stolen resources.??????? I fail to understand this kind of upside down thinking.....

Development can leapfrog - a principle Pundit and I espouse - but takes more than our current system is capable of. Now, if all looters invested locally Kenya would be much better off. There are trillions stashed out there. Even the US is contemplating waiving taxes on riches stashed away in tax havens... I hoped for this in the new katiba but to no avail.

This guy pundit is a classic example what can happen to someone who lives in Kenya for so long. It is very easy to get coopted and to compromise your own principles and start following the crowd. He is at the age where most Kenyans lose faith and join the crowd and where most elites make the calculation that it is better to steal than to live in the uncertain life struggle.



For one Langat is not going to invest 200 billion in Eldoret. There is no economy in that part of the country to support such an investment. Langat must have found some people he wants to fleece and this is the bait.

Does this guy understand what kind of coordination and planning a 200 billion project would require. I guess people have started believing the hype that making a billion shillings is that easy. Even for the corrupt it is not that easy to get hold of several billions shillings

There other day he was he talking about Moi investment of 43 billion in a hospital. Another big white lie. Even Karen hospital after sinking billions cannot be able to utilize its capacity.. Medicine doesn't become cheap just because you can build a facility there is more that goes into running it than just the physical infrastructure and equipment.

Is someone living in Tatu city yet?
I know Kenya is contracting the chinesse to waste money on building Konza city. to that is a total waste. start by utilizing the idle capacity before investing billions in building a ghost town

Kenya wont climb development tree from top it will be done from the bottom. Moi built Eldoret Airport we know how much that contributed to development..

Until Kalenjin Nationalism dies down Eldoret will remain a small under developed town.

[Nefertiti]

How is it upside down? Immunity for criminal informants exists for a reason in places like the US. Moi's billions are stashed in Switzerland or the Caymans and are a big loss unless repatriated, so immunity for old corruption makes sense. This should at least be discussed, there are many ways to skin the cat - or is the skunk? - it's been criminal since immemorial and still persists. Intransigence is an ostrich approach.

What about making it more difficult for people to loot, jailing looters or making it more expensive to loot so people can pursue honest living.....If all resources are deployed where they are budgeted and projects are completed on time and under budget don't you think we would leapfrog rather than waiting for thieves to steal from us then can develop the country for us, with our stolen resources.??????? I fail to understand this kind of upside down thinking.....

[Nefertiti]

Thanks.  I thought you had something else in mind when you wrote that "the US is contemplating waiving taxes on riches stashed away in tax havens".    I would have interpreted quite differently those articles you "link" to quite differently, for two reasons:

One is that the articles refer to corporate money that is legally held abroad temporarily "tax-free", not to individuals' money.   When it comes to individuals trying to hide their money, things appear to be  getting only worse, for both them them and their bankers (as the Swiss have found out).

The other is probably just a minor difference in how we see words---I tend to interpret "waive" and "reduce" differently.

1st one:

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump have indicated that they plan to tax at least some of that money and induce corporations to bring it home, though details are scarce.

and then goes on to talk about lower rates.

2nd one:

As part of the general discussion of how the tax code should be reformed Donald Trump has suggested that there should be a cut in the corporate income tax rate to persuade corporations to bring those foreign profits back into the US.

3rd one:

4th one doesn't even seem to be about reduced taxes:

It's about English yes: waiver to me includes any tax "holiday" which is a reduced rate to encourage repatriation. This includes individuals as well - plenty of folks stash foreign earnings for tax reasons. Of course this is a far cry for Kenya where I have loot in mind and not "earnings". So here it would be a waiver of taxation and criminality, a path littered with legal, political and moral landmines no doubt.

[Nefertiti]

"MOON Ki is the resident hair-splitter" - RV Pundit

[MOON Ki]

It's about English yes: waiver to me includes any tax "holiday" which is a reduced rate to encourage repatriation. This includes individuals as well - plenty of folks stash foreign earnings for tax reasons. Of course this is a far cry for Kenya where I have loot in mind and not "earnings". So here it would be a waiver of taxation and criminality, a path littered with legal, political and moral landmines no doubt.

"MOON Ki is the resident hair-splitter" - RV Pundit

OK, we obviously use very different dictionaries as well. To me, something that is "waived" is something that doesn't have to be done or has been given up or something like that.   I haven't seen "waiver" much used to mean "reduction". Perhaps I need to get out more often ...

And are you saying that in the USA these "waivers"/"tax holidays"/"reductions" are being contemplated for individuals as well?  If so, I'd be grateful for any relevant information.

Anyways ...

I'm not sure that such schemes would make any difference in Kenya.    Are any of the looters in Kenya really keeping their money overseas because they are afraid that GoK would seize it?  If anything, current trends elsewhere suggest that their money would be "safer" with their fellow thieves in Kenya .... Obama's "Kleptocracy Initiative", British laws that allow then to grab Okemo-Gichuru loot, etc.

[Nefertiti]

The legal mind is easy to spot, always obsessed with dots and crosses, instead of solutions... or thinking without the legal box. It's like our new katiba which is apparently "one of the most progressive"... how laughable. How can a work of plagiary be an innovation? Lawyer types who line up parliament and commissions should already have solutions for such unventured areas as chronographic or conditional immunity... for big socioeconomic benefits like repatriation of billions. Instead of the legal sector always playing catchup to technology while claiming a copy pasted document is progressive.

Globalcitizen12: Exactly. If it sounds too good to be true, its probably too good to be true.