Uhuru should focus on this expressway - kind of legacy defining stuff

[KenyanPlato]

If it easy why was sgr not funded and had to terminate in naivasha? I think you take a lot of things for granted. Who is willing to lend kenya 4 billion  dollars today when we are having an issue managing the current debt? If it was that easy moi could have done it. This economic idiot uhuru could have done it. The only place he could borrow from was xhina. The last several trips abroad jubilee has been seeking for money and no one was willing to lend..kibaki was seeking money to develop the railway land in Eastlands and transform dtw nairobi no investor took the bait..i saw..who will buy safaricom which I suspect has seen better days financially

[RV Pundit]

We did it in electricity sector - about 10B dollars in 10yrs - bringing electricity close to everyone.
Moi left with 300K customers of KPLC.
Kibaki left with 2M
Jubilee are already at 8M
Next 2yrs - we may get to 10M
Leaving only 2M household without electricity.
That is phenomenal.
The kind of thing we need to replicate in water and paved roads.
Then you guys can resume with long theories on priorities, small gov, lean gov, lower taxex, bicyle lanes.
Otherwise BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE IS PRIORITY NUMBER 1 for gov.
Every Kenyan deserve clean piped water, paved road and electricity.
If you already have all these - like HK - don't kick the ladder down.
Just like FOOD, SHELTER AND HEALTH IS for you.

If it easy why was sgr not funded and had to terminate in naivasha? I think you take a lot of things for granted. Who is willing to lend kenya 4 billion  dollars today when we are having an issue managing the current debt? If it was that easy moi could have done it. This economic idiot uhuru could have done it. The only place he could borrow from was xhina. The last several trips abroad jubilee has been seeking for money and no one was willing to lend..kibaki was seeking money to develop the railway land in Eastlands and transform dtw nairobi no investor took the bait..i saw..who will buy safaricom which I suspect has seen better days financially

[Arcadian_Dreamer]

 

[RV Pundit]

very funny.

[Arcadian_Dreamer]

How will that help - you cannot apply a lipstick to pig like Nairobi. The existing roads are tiny, the railway rickety, the water not enough, sanitization poor and affordable housing non-existent. That is infrastructure. Now when you come to easy stuff - like public transport - matatus, motorcycles - those are software issues - change of policy - not really investment are needed there.

What Nairobi and Kenya need is 100B dollars worth of investment to bridge it's infrastructure deficit.

Where do we get that money - from loans - or from private sector like this 70B kshs that chinese are investing and hoping to recoup - or from selling some gov assets - like Safaricom.

100B is not a lot of money - and it's doable - if we invest 10B annually - we can bridge the divide in 10yrs - if we do 20B - we can do it in 5yrs.

The development we need is simple - medium term - next 15yrs.

1) Expand our paved road network from 20,000kms to something like 100,000kms. Our total road network is now 200,000 - with classified about 100K. We know the average cost per Km is close to 200K dollars per KM for low seal volume - and 1M dollars for highways- if you eliminate corruption. So you need 20-50B dollars.

2) Expand our railway network from rickety 2,000kms to something like 20,000kms - we know average cost is nearly 5M dollars per km if you eliminate corruption - so this could cost us 100B dollars - and this being expensive - we have to scale down.

3) Expand water and irrigation - nearly every county need about 300m dollars to build a dam and pipping for this. That is another 15B dollars.

4) Expand housing and related - this one can be driven by private sector if gov nails a few software issues - but generally we have 12M household - and the housing deficit is about 2M - mostly in urban areas.

Once you do that - kenya will move to a middle class country - like South Africa.

To move from South Africa to developed nation is where lipstick is now applied - bicycle lanes - traffic lights - kind of thing.

The cargo cult is strong with you. 

During World War Two, the erstwhile isolated, poor South Pacific Islanders of Vanuatu (then known as New Herbrides) enjoyed a brief episode of prosperity.

This was on account of the Western Allies establishing military bases there.

With the bases came bounty beyond belief, as well as jobs. Ships and aircraft brought supplies regularly. Western goods became commonplace.

Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the prosperity vanished. The war had ended. The soldiers left. The ships and aircraft stopped coming.

This episode gave rise to the most famous of what anthropologists call cargo cults—religions that have sometimes emerged when hitherto isolated people are suddenly exposed to western consumer culture.

Charismatic religious entrepreneurs took to promising the villagers that they could restore the flow of cargo, which they claimed was actually sent to them by their ancestors.

They devised cargo summoning rituals that involved imitating military practices such as marching and building symbolic life-size replicas of aircraft, control towers and even airstrips.

WEALTH AND PROSPERITY

The cargo did not come, and many of the cults soon died out. The most prominent survivor is the John Frum movement practised in the island of Tanna.

Its adherents believe that John Frum, a messianic figure usually depicted as an American soldier, will return and bring back the wealth and prosperity of the good old days.

Asked by a western reporter how the movement has survived so long, one of its leaders quipped: “We’ve only been waiting for our prophet for only 60 years. You’ve been waiting for 2000.”

The term cargo cult has become a metaphor for misguided modernisation ventures that confuse form for substance. There is no shortage of such delusions in recent history, perhaps none more deluded than Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.

Mao believed that industrialisation could be speeded up by producing more grain and steel, so the Chinese government seized all the resources it could marshal to produce them.

One of the commonest manifestations of under-development is a tendency among the ruling elite to live in a world of make-believe and unrealistic expectations. This is the cargo cult mentality that anthropologists sometimes speak about — a belief by backward people that someday, without any exertion whatsoever on their own part, a fairy ship will dock in their harbour laden with every goody they have always dreamed of possessing,” he wrote.

This country, and much of the continent, is in the grip of a cargo cult. It is now an article of faith that grand infrastructure is the fairy ship that will deliver all the goodies we have ever dreamed of possessing. What else are we to make of this?:

[Arcadian_Dreamer]

Pundit is a fan of building dams because that is where huge monies can be siphoned off, the bigger the project the bigger the cut.

During its first term, the Jubilee administration spent upwards of KSh 160 billion on water and irrigation projects with nothing to show for it. Those Arror and Kimwarer dams are costed at KSh 51 billion. Ruto is doling out that loot in churches so he can have chance to loot infinitely when in power.

Those small water companies like Eldoret water company, Nyeri water company and Athi water are doing great.

Big government = big corruption. He unashamedly condones corruption, eti 10% cut. Bure kabisa

[RV Pundit]

i don't condone corruption. I am the big picture guy. What is latest status on clean piped water post Martha Karua water bodies.

Pundit is a fan of building dams because that is where huge monies can be siphoned off, the bigger the project the bigger the cut.

During its first term, the Jubilee administration spent upwards of KSh 160 billion on water and irrigation projects with nothing to show for it. Those Arror and Kimwarer dams are costed at KSh 51 billion. Ruto is doling out that loot in churches so he can have chance to loot infinitely when in power.

Those small water companies like Eldoret water company, Nyeri water company and Athi water are doing great.

Big government = big corruption. He unashamedly condones corruption, eti 10% cut. Bure kabisa

[KenyanPlato]

Big picture guy
Do you know kenyan productivity is so low. Most kenyans in rural areas work an average of 4 hours a day. Because the way we farm is still very old fashioned it is not mechanized so most the people can only use a manual tools for 4 hours. In construction I am sure it about 6 hours average..this where we need to work on before you go building trams and highways to no where with no money to finance these projects. You leave in your own dreamland and you need to wake up. I have noted that majority of kenyan middle class is very idle. There is no productivity in this group. Time is spent mostly selling trinkets or idle chatter online. On weekends this gro I predict in the next 15 years you are going to see a big social disaster. Most of the people in their late 40s with kids still in school is high. This group is likely to head to retirement with no retirement benefits and will continue to crowd the informal job market and eventually leave a lot of burden to the society. Worry about human development first and increase in productivity then the gpd will expand to help your poor nation dig it self from a millennium of povery

[RV Pundit]

Not true. Most kenyans work hard. You have to work to eat. Most have 3 or 4 side hustles. Nearly all of them are farmers of some sort. Those in rural areas also work hard - In my place - they spend the nights at tea buying center sometimes.

And this is HARD BACK BREAKING labour - something unheard of in developed world - where machines make work easier. All you do is grind the hours - otherwise everywhere there is a fucking machine for everything.

Now go to the farm - and try dig for 8-10hrs idiot - with you own hand - and see how far you can keep doing that - before you drop dead. Drive your truck in US super highways or free ways or express ways - for 10 hours - but don't attempt in kenya to drive for 2 hours without taking a rest - and have Jesus Christ rosary in front of the car . The roads are bad - and everyone is squeezing in.

Kenyans are sweaty and smelly coz of such hard labour..abroad even a construction work never get to sweat - all he does is hold or point a machinery somewhere.

All that is realm of INDIVIDUALS AND PRIVATE SECTOR - gov cannot buy you a tractor or a street sweeper.


Now let get back to basic gov services.

What has all this got to do with providing every kenyan clean piped water, electricity and modern road?

Once you do that - you don't have to come back again - just a small annual maintaince fee.

So the BIG PUSH initially is what is required.

In US or Europe - they don't rebuild roads or dams - heck those projects are unheard of - they just maintain the already laid down infrastrucuture.

Majority including the buildings are 200-500yrs old.

Big picture guy
Do you know kenyan productivity is so low. Most kenyans in rural areas work an average of 4 hours a day. Because the way we farm is still very old fashioned it is not mechanized so most the people can only use a manual tools for 4 hours. In construction I am sure it about 6 hours average..this where we need to work on before you go building trams and highways to no where with no money to finance these projects. You leave in your own dreamland and you need to wake up. I have noted that majority of kenyan middle class is very idle. There is no productivity in this group. Time is spent mostly selling trinkets or idle chatter online. On weekends this gro I predict in the next 15 years you are going to see a big social disaster. Most of the people in their late 40s with kids still in school is high. This group is likely to head to retirement with no retirement benefits and will continue to crowd the informal job market and eventually leave a lot of burden to the society. Worry about human development first and increase in productivity then the gpd will expand to help your poor nation dig it self from a millennium of povery

[gout]

Pundit you are conflicted on the big-small-devolved-delegated-centralized government units and service delivery. On power you harp lyrical on how we need to break up Kenya Power monolith. On fintech, how we break up MPesa yet you are raining on Karua's reforms in water sector in same direction.

 

[Arcadian_Dreamer]

Pundit you are conflicted on the big-small-devolved-delegated-centralized government units and service delivery. On power you harp lyrical on how we need to break up Kenya Power monolith. On fintech, how we break up MPesa yet you are raining on Karua's reforms in water sector in same direction.

Precisely!

But he is the big picture guy. I kif up.

[RV Pundit]

I believe national gov should retain big projects - like national highways, dams, and such projects - railways.
Small issues should remain with counties.

Pundit you are conflicted on the big-small-devolved-delegated-centralized government units and service delivery. On power you harp lyrical on how we need to break up Kenya Power monolith. On fintech, how we break up MPesa yet you are raining on Karua's reforms in water sector in same direction.
 

[Nowayhaha]

I believe national gov should retain big projects - like national highways, dams, and such projects - railways.
Small issues should remain with counties.

Pundit you are conflicted on the big-small-devolved-delegated-centralized government units and service delivery. On power you harp lyrical on how we need to break up Kenya Power monolith. On fintech, how we break up MPesa yet you are raining on Karua's reforms in water sector in same direction.
 

With BBIs suggestion of 40% going to Counties forget about big projects , we are going to have county billionares with nil important projects , only Big County Government buildings and some murram roads here and there, forget about Airports and ports, Dams, Highways, Railway lines etc

[RV Pundit]

40% is okay as long as they take education and start paying teachers salaries. 60% is more than enough. National gov if it remove all extra fat - doesn't need 30% - to develop inter-county or national projects. I am talking KENHA, Kenya Railways, Kenya Ports, Kenya Airports, Kengen, Kenya water, Kenya pipeline, kenya power, such big ticket projects - should remain national

With BBIs suggestion of 40% going to Counties forget about big projects , we are going to have county billionares with nil important projects , only Big County Government buildings and some murram roads here and there, forget about Airports and ports, Dams, Highways, Railway lines etc