Startup Kenya

A Gado cartoon of people sitting on the fence demanding for their own colour left me ROFLMAO. In case you haven't caught on yet, its about fence sitters to the referendum on the proposed new constitution. More than give me a serious rib ache, the cartoon also prompted me to stop sitting by the sidelines and take a stand. It is therefore with a profound love for my country and belief in a better Kenya that I submit that my answer to the referendum is a big yes. As part of my education, I had sought to find out what the NO camp objections were, and what I discovered shocked me so much that I felt compelled to respond. You can read my response here www.yes4kenya.org

I woke up this morning with the lyrics of Boomba Clan's song Sina Habari . The exact line was where one asks "Nairobi Water niliwafanya nini, siwezi fua siwezi osha mwili " while fully soaped up in the shower but with no water from the shower head. Needless to say I was also having a dry tap morning. I remembered someone mentioning that with the new constitution, I could sue the government if they did not provide water. I decided to check it out and see exactly what it says. [Aside] Checking out the constitution is now much easier thanks to a great new website called katiba.mobi who get my two thumbs up for their fantastic effort. I wish though they would include a search on every page, and Previous/Next navigation as it would make the site so much more useful. Finding the article dealing with water was however much easier than the PDF file from COE that I've been using. Article 43(1)(d) does give every person the right to clean and safer water in adequate quanti...

Away from the controversy, I sought to know what the draft law says about holding two passports. This is of particular interest to me as one of the services we offer under formAKenyanCompany.com is work permit registration. I regularly communicate with many folks who are curious about the provision for dual citizenship in Kenya. In the current constitution that's a flat no, but I wondered what the draft law said. A very brief section 16 spells out the main criteria for dual citizenship, you must first be Kenyan by birth. Section 14 describes what a citizen by birth is: (1) on date of birth, one of the parents is a Kenyan citizen, (2) applies to persons born before the effective date of the new constitution or (4) a child found in Kenya who is less than 8 years old. The birthers would find this interesting as it means that Obama is still a Kenyan citizen, and even if he had renounced Kenyan citizenship when he turned 18, then (5) allows him to acquire citizenship on ap...

A detour from the constitutional debate. This week there has been a very public back and forth between Safaricom on one side and CCK, Yu, Zain, and Telkom on the other. The brouhaha is over a set of regulations published by CCK, which you can view here and here . Now, I'll be honest I tried reading the regulations but I got bored, but if I'm to believe the arguments of CCK and Safaricom then I'm going to give this one to Safaricom. Why lie Safaricom deserves to be market leader. Not only have they cranked out great product after great product, they've done this while keeping their business very profitable using the "just good enough formula". In case you have not read The Innovator's Solution , by Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor, then I'll explain. The just-good-enough formula means that a product need not be perfect to be marketable, it must only meet the minimum threshold of the job the consumer is trying to achieve. The clearest example ...

Jumping straight into the fray, I want to get started on one of the more thorny topics - kadhi's courts. The churches have made this one of the stickling issues to their opposition of the draft constitution, so I sought to read the clauses myself and see what all the noise was about. At first glance the sections on Kadhi's courts in the current constitution (s.66) and draft constitution (s.169,170) appear similar. Both give parliament the power to determine how the Kadhi courts will be run Both make the courts subordinate courts. Subordinate courts means that their decisions can be appealed on and overturned by superior courts.  Another similarity is that both specifically state that these courts will deal only with matters of a personal nature, to people professing Islam. I have noticed at least one difference. In the proposed constitution, in addition to professing Islam one is also required to submit to the jurisdiction of the court. I'm curious how this works, if ...

I've got to say, I'm pretty pleased with myself. I recently acquired something which makes me very proud, no its' not a 52" flat screen TV (damn!) but a spanking new voter's card. Despite chronically suffering from last minute syndrome this time round, I managed to get my card well ahead of the deadline, on April 16 to be exact. I never voted at the last referendum, mainly because I had no card and didn't really care about it. Things are different this time. After seeing the devastating effect of politics gone awry I am now keen on putting my best foot forward in making sure my voice counts with what happens in this country. It is why starting today I intend to vigourously examine the proposed new constitution to determine whether it merits my YES vote or should be given a big NO. I will warn you that I might already have some biases, being human after all but will do my best to keep this examination open-minded and impartial. So go get your voter's c...