The second tranche of Tandaa grants were dispersed yesterday. And the winners, as you expected, are not surprising. They are either people who have known Paul Kukubo and Bitange Ndemo for sometime or just seems to have secret deals with him. It does not mean that some of the beneficiaries are not well deserving Kenyans. Many are and I must confess that the 2012/2013 Tandaa grant awards have seen more truly Kenyan companies win including Virtual City and Eat Out. Again the fund disbursement has been changed from single instalment cash-out to 12 month instalments cash-out.
But we still have the usual tech colonialists from western countries or Asia who come to exploit what Kenya has without giving much. Some are but majority have an intricate web of relationship with Kukubo in his personal business dealings or Ndemo as a government official.
I am not saying that talent should not be rewarded but my argument is way beyond that. Look, I have worked in 5 different countries which require work permits. I came to understand why governments need work-permits and the process of issuing investor or business permits to foreigners from experience.
The 2012/2013 Tandaa grants have seen a business owned by an Indian who did not know that Kenya existed some 4 years ago, win some Ksh 4 million without much sweat. Sriram Bharatam came to Kenya in 2010 to set up Iridium Interactive. The business deals in the space of digital marketing. Sriram came to Kenya on the invitation of Google to set up www.kbo.co.ke because then, there were not many Kenyan companies and individuals playing in the fiield. Even now not many does it.
So through Iridium, Sriram earned the Google millions and was even lately involved in the theft of data from Kenyan-based South African start-up, Mocality. The issue exploded and with the sacking of Google Country Manager in Kenya, I believe Google cut down their involvement with Iridium. So Iridium started looking for business elsewhere and they thought of the idea of Kuza Biashara.
Look, I have no personal problem with Iridium, Kuza Biashara nor Sriram but the issue is what the laws of Kenya dictates. When you want to come to Kenya as an investor, you must show a host of things and first, you must show that at least you are coming to invest not less than Ksh 8,000,000 (yeah 8 million) in the country. You will then have to pay a fee of Ksh 250,000 to the Kenyan immigration to gain a work permit as an investor.
So to have some “investor” come and fight for a measly Ksh 4 Million with young Kenyans struggling to get even Ksh 50,000 to fund business idea, is just theft. The argument by Dr Ndemo and Kukubo when confronted with the issues is that “the individuals will employ Kenyans.” If Kenyans were just looking for what to keep their population busy, we would very much encourage robbery, prostitution and drug running. The moment a foreigner makes money locally while he has not much in common with Kenya, he will repatriate his earnings and the profits. The payment to Kenyans will always not add up to much.
Kenyans have ability and capacity to run and create successful ventures. From one of the #140Friday events, you would realise that Kenyans feels that they are being taken for a ride. We don’t need leeches who claim to come to build for Kenyans some ICT expertise which they don’t have.
The LinkedIn Profile of Sriram Bharatam
The same guy behind Iridium and Kuza Biashara won an award at Connected Kenya in Mombasa. Connected Kenya is also an event with the same characteristics of fraudulent ideas. Sriram was with Paul Kukubo throughout the 3 days the Connected Kenya lasted until some delegates joked that the two might have been involved in some homosexual relationship.
Again some of the fools who benefit from the fraudulent actions of ICT Boards or are employed to sing praise to the core beneficiaries argued that Kamal is Indian. Yes Kamala Budhabarty is Indian but he is not fighting for government grants to build Craft Silicon. He has fought to build a company and look for investors including bank loans which he services. VCs at Fanisi Capital have supported the likes of Kamal Budhabati and not the ICT Board grants
Again, how would you want to connect Kenya when you don’t invite KENIC nor KIXP to such an event? Where are the key achievements of Kenya ICT Board and ministry of communications? It is all hype. As long as we still don’t have basic government services delivered in a digital manner, we will never brag of any achievement.
Whenever a visitor comes to Kenya, he will always meet the bureaucratic government functionaries and functions which will just drain them to the last drop of energy. The police, registrar of companies, income and corporate tax filing as well as our immigration services should digitalise their core functions for Kukubo and Ndemo to boast of any meaningful achievements at the ministry. The newly built government data centre in Ruaraka is empty and consuming lots of energy while the government host its key documents including the Hansard from the Kenyan parliament on Google Cloud services.
The constant arrogant retorts by Paul kukubo and Bitange Ndemo on deals at ICT Board which can only be described as fraudulent are sickening. Whenever we have raised points which support them, none of them have complained how much we are praising them. When we raise pertinent issues on integrity, they would rather see no evil nor hear any evil.
Again, from the 2010/2011 beneficiaries, what has been the achievements of Tandaa and how many of the businesses which benefited are up and running? What happened to the rest?
Kenya ICT Board CEO, Paul Kukubo, has called for a formal meeting for me to raise up the issues with his office on Wednesday. I will share more after the meeting.
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You have indeed nailed it. Something must be done now and not tomorrow. As an entrepreneur I feel demoralised reading such stuff when our business ideas struggle for lack of a level playing field
You have indeed nailed it. Something must be done now and not tomorrow. As an entrepreneur I feel demoralised reading such stuff when our business ideas struggle for lack of a level playing field
you speak the truth
Well put! They will keep rewarding the same bollocks!
you speak the truth
Well put! They will keep rewarding the same bollocks!
Boss you should have mentioned it to me. I would have loved to be at that meeting. I do not even for one second like what has been happening with that Board. I would like the parliamentary budget committee and the efficiency monitoring unit to step in and audit this parastatal. Personally, I would summarily sack everyone and reconstitute the board afresh with a clear mandate.
Boss you should have mentioned it to me. I would have loved to be at that meeting. I do not even for one second like what has been happening with that Board. I would like the parliamentary budget committee and the efficiency monitoring unit to step in and audit this parastatal. Personally, I would summarily sack everyone and reconstitute the board afresh with a clear mandate.
You have to wonder why they have awarded a grant for a Traffic Police and Inspection Mobile Phone Application when the new Traffic Act 2011 disbands the traffic police? And that recently a very large amount of money was paid by the government for a new police communications system – is this new application going to replace the communications system, or integrate with it, or is there going to have to be a public tender to get every cop a smart phone?
Also, I would love to understand how a Traffic Police and Inspection Mobile Phone Application is anything to do with KENYAN CONTENT? What content exactly is going to be published for Kenyan consumers on this application? How is this content going to grow internet usage consistent with Vision 2030? Is there any evidence that this content – if there is any – is going to benefit Kenyan society in any way other than tell society what we already know i.e. that Kenyan roads are murderous and traffic chaos is abundant.
I think you could also strongly debate how some of the grant winners’ content is going to grow ICT usage in Kenya as intended in Vision 2030, from whence this Tandaa grant lottery came.
My sense is that at least half of the grant winners have been awarded for projects developing applications and businesses, but not developing the actual volume of useful Kenyan content that might grow the internet’s usage in the country as per the mandate of the ICT Board.
You have to wonder why they have awarded a grant for a Traffic Police and Inspection Mobile Phone Application when the new Traffic Act 2011 disbands the traffic police? And that recently a very large amount of money was paid by the government for a new police communications system – is this new application going to replace the communications system, or integrate with it, or is there going to have to be a public tender to get every cop a smart phone?
Also, I would love to understand how a Traffic Police and Inspection Mobile Phone Application is anything to do with KENYAN CONTENT? What content exactly is going to be published for Kenyan consumers on this application? How is this content going to grow internet usage consistent with Vision 2030? Is there any evidence that this content – if there is any – is going to benefit Kenyan society in any way other than tell society what we already know i.e. that Kenyan roads are murderous and traffic chaos is abundant.
I think you could also strongly debate how some of the grant winners’ content is going to grow ICT usage in Kenya as intended in Vision 2030, from whence this Tandaa grant lottery came.
My sense is that at least half of the grant winners have been awarded for projects developing applications and businesses, but not developing the actual volume of useful Kenyan content that might grow the internet’s usage in the country as per the mandate of the ICT Board.
How proactive is the Board? The “envoy” visits that we have seen in the past are not fruitful in any way. Millions are spent and where are we?
How proactive is the Board? The “envoy” visits that we have seen in the past are not fruitful in any way. Millions are spent and where are we?