Privileged information

One meets all sorts of people living here in Kenya. Well I do anyway - part of the ex-pat thing I guess. So I meet journalists, diplomats, pilots, professors, business people, many of whom have privileged contacts and information. And they tell you stuff. I'm a bit of a nosey parker, so I love knowing stuff, and would love to tell you everything I know, but well, I don't think they would want me to put what was said to me over a glass of wine or a cappuccino into my blog. But it helps build up a picture of what's going on here. And a coherent picture at that - whether Kenyan or ex-pat the same themes emerge - corruption at the highest (and lower) levels. Actually, it's quite similar to what one reads in The Nation, but without the concessions and 'alleged's that a newspaper needs to use to prevent being sued.

So, over the last few days I've learnt why one of the reasons electricity is so expensive here - emergency diesel generators, owned by well-connected people, are used pretty much the whole time, generating nice profits, leading such well-connected people to block major new projects which could provide more sustainable power generation. As a result Kenyan factories have to spend so much on electricity that they're not competitive on the international stage. A few people swindle, and the whole country suffers.

Any new project is seen by the well connected as a cash cow; funding for free education, which the UK government has, in my mind, rightly cut off; a new company testing petrol who charge several times as much as before (I heard about this, and the names behind it, several weeks ago, so am surprised it's only become news today) - in a piece of good news, it looks like the deal has been struck down; and corruption allegations related to building the Machakos technopolis. All 3 stories are dated today - plenty of this is going on.

So that's the bad news. A Kenyan friend (with good info) tells me that despite all this, things are getting better, innovating companies are, well, innovating, and there are many good signs. I think the fact that all this rot gets into the papers is good news itself. And I hope that other privileged information that I have, about senior politicans, will come to light, and justice will be done. That too would be good news.