A small axe to the safaricom IPO

I am not the daughter of a Big Man. Neither am I married to a Big Man - or even to the son of a Big Man.

I had the good fortune to have essentially middle-class parents who worked hard to give my siblings and me a good basic education. And I had the good fortune to have a mother whose citizenship made it possible for me to attend university, courtesy of the student loans system of her country.

The student loans covered fees and accommodation. But my parents couldn’t afford to send us much money - getting $100 on birthdays and at Christmas was like getting a windfall. So I worked to supplement the student loans, from the time I left Kenya at the age of 16.

Of course, I now recognise that, despite not being associated with a big man’s family, in comparison with the majority of people in Kenya, I am not only fortunate, I am actually extremely privileged.

But, despite that recognition, having worked since the age of 16, I also know the value of my money. I have worked for what I have. This is why, for instance, I get apoplectic with rage about corruption.

Under Kenya’s ridiculously constructed tax brackets, I fall into the same top tax bracket as Kenya ’s Big Men. And I get nothing for it, having to pay privately for everything-including security where I live and medical insurance. But, my privileges taken into account, I certainly wouldn’t mind paying the amounts of tax that I do pay if I felt the money went to help those with fewer privileges, not to pay the obscene salaries of those who cannot be bothered to assure the House of a quorum sufficient to pass even 10 Bills a year - or to build the “bigness” of the Big Men.

The other night, some friends and I calculated the share of Safaricom’s reported Ksh17 billion ($253.7 million) profit that would have gone to Mobitelea - the company that, according to the Public Investments Committee, is irregularly in possession of no less than five per cent of the mobile phone company’s shares, meaning that there are apparently no records of Mobitelea having paid for that shareholding.

MEANING THAT MY TAX MONEY, which went into building and sustaining Telkom and Safaricom, was essentially given away. Meaning that, coming back to our calculation, the alleged owners of Mobitelea - the son of a Big Man and the son-in-law of another Big Man under the former regime and a Big Man in this regime - earned themselves no less than Ksh850,000,000 ($12.6 million) last year alone. From doing nothing at all, except live off the profits of having stolen from us. Ksh850 million off my back (and your’s as well). Again, I am incapacitated with rage.

And yet, the Treasury insists that Safaricom’s initial public offer will proceed, regardless of the outcomes of the PIC debate within the House or any court cases that might ensue.

What?!

FRANKLY, DESPITE OUR NEWFOUND fascination with IPOs, I don’t think a single one of us should put a single shilling forward. Those of us who do work hard and honestly deserve better. If shares in Safaricom could essentially be given away to Big Men, their sons and sons-in laws, then they can be given away to us. Why should we pay for them? They’re our property in the first place, which the government was meant to hold in trust for us. If it breached that trust for three of us, then it should share the love with all of us.

It might not seem like it, but there are, in fact, victims of corruption. Those victims are you and me - every single Kenyan who dutifully pays his or her taxes. I’m furious. I’m ready for a tax boycott - the residential associations led the way and it’s time to scale up their efforts. We need to say to hell with that IPO until the issues raised by the PIC have been satisfactorily dealt with. We need to be the “small axes” that Robert Nestor Marley talked about and cut down all those “big trees.”

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is a political scientist based in Nairobi

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 8:51 am and is filed under Governance, Corruption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Responses to “A Small Axe To The Safaricom IPO”

   1. gathara Says:
      August 30th, 2007 at 4:46 am

Too true. Sadly, our media and society are more interested in the politics of Big Men than in the bread-and-butter issues of the common mwananchi.

   2. Mwenyeji Says:
      September 3rd, 2007 at 2:47 am

The truth of the matter is even Vodafone did not pay Telkom a single cent for the percieved 30%. Coz they CCK 22 million for the licence and not for value of Safaricom.It is the shaiest deal I have ever seen from a company from a country that is always fighting graft.

   3. Okoth Says:
      September 3rd, 2007 at 11:08 am

It is good to have ventured into this site in order to meet like minded people like you all. It is so anoying to see Kenyans begging, jobless, lacking basic needs and even being labelled as squaters in a country they belong and a few people owning land the sizes of countries and still looting. We need drastic change and it is us to change our attitude and act without fear. Fellow kenyans be prepared to defy even your brother if he selfishly makes a fellow country man to suffer. However pray GOD to guide us all.
Theodore.

   4. tkjumbe Says:
      September 5th, 2007 at 3:50 am

When cases of grand looting are reported or written about in Kenya, the typical Kenyan simply frowns and exclaims with horror.And that’s it!Slowly then time erodes it from our memory and at one time, it becomes just like those old narratives.It’s high time Kenyans stood up in solidarity to protest against the “Big Men” with their relatives looting this country.it’s our country and we have to protect it.We cannot just sit there and turn our faces when a cabinet minister who’s supposed to be the custodian of our public resources, blatantly tells us off that the Safaricom IPO would proceed with or without approval from PIC.We cannot just continue smiling back at him when he’s even unable to explain who owns Mobitelea, and how it came to own a percentage of Safaricom, which’s a public company!
Titus.

   5. Leonard Moss Says:
      September 11th, 2007 at 10:08 am

Our Parliamentarians have lost morals to Govern. Why would they do something like awarding themselves such colosal amount of money. I thought parliamentarians are pensionable after serving two terms? In which case that would be a normal payment among the parliamentarian package. Tell me is this in addition to the pension and gratuities for those who are not pensionable. Kenyans should go out and look at selfless leaders. The time is now,Opportunity is now and so get yourself the voters card. That is the only weapon to instill discipline.
Leonard Moss,
Juba Southern Sudan.

   6. TANGUS BENARD Says:
      September 25th, 2007 at 4:40 am

I THNIK THE CEO. OF SAFARICOM SHOULD GIVE VERY CLEAR REPORT ON HOW THE SAFARICOM REVENUE IS SHARED.HOW MUCH THEY REMITE TO TELKOM, GOVERMENT TAXES, VODAFONE AND THE OTHER SHARE HOLDER.

   7. Prince Says:
      October 18th, 2007 at 12:34 pm

What puzzles me is how the people in authority have little regards to the citizens of this country. They do all kinds of illigal things and just get away as if nothing has happened. I don’t think kenyans are mad people who just woke up one day after dreaming about Mobitelea, yet to date no one is ready to explain who these Mobitelea people really are. Untill when will we be despised?