Re: [kictanet] Malaysia/Policy Clarifications
Daktari, This response is a clear sign of top notch leadership. Thx for clarifying for those of us who were in the dark. On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 8:07 PM, <bitange@jambo.co.ke> wrote:
Dear All, I am in Malaysia. This country's development is awesome. Their e-applications are indeed something we all aught to learn from. You can see the positive energy to move their country out of poverty in their eyes. We must find ways to emulate these people and move away from self interest that is tearing our country apart.
Prior to my travel here, I made some statements regarding local ownership of ICT investments with the aim of reviewing our policy. This is what I am employed to do and I am still consulting with stakeholders to see how to advance the policy change. Specifically, I argued as follows: • The drop in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in our sector is as a result of rigid policy on ownership of investments; • We must work toward attracting FDI if we have to sort out unemployment of our youth which has reached crisis levels; • Large ICT multinationals have requested exemptions to this policy and would rather have the local ownership through the stock market; • That those who have in the past purported to have the capacity to raise sufficient local capital have failed and cannot raise new capital thus compromising the competitiveness of these firms; • Protectionism leads to poor service and uncompetitive environment; • The problem of local equity participation can be summarized by the experience we went through during the search for the SNO – promises of non-existent funds and extortionism; • The absence of local equity participation in some foreign banks did not stop Equity Bank from growing phenomenally; • There is no threat to domination from foreigners since local firms have made great strides to eventually partner with multinationals from points of strength (read KDN/Altech; Safaricom/Onecom partnerships) and it is encouraging to see other local firms such as Access, Jamii, Wananchi etc coming up strongly that we don't need to require multinationals to seek for partners up front at the expense of our unemployed youths; and • My liberalist economic approach is what in my view would make our country considering that some decisions we made along the same lines have greatly impacted all our lives. Take for example the liberalization of International Gateways. There were threats to our lives that we could not survive to see the benefits. These were threats made by those who benefited from illegal terminations of calls through Telkom Network leading to losses in excess of one billion shillings per year. I am surprised that this move pains some people to date when we are enjoying lower tariffs with a more efficient Telkom. I have no regrets on Telkom reforms at all and I am sure you all know that I never run from any responsibility.
The Libyan matter has never been an issue before considering the fact that this are standard MOUs that we sign regularly whenever we market Kenya out there as an investment destination. Yes I signed the MOU and the two ICT items in the MOU, that is, Telkom Kenya and Teams never went to Libyans since they lost in the bid process and rejected by local investors respectively. In the same MOU were Energy items and of course Grand Regency but MOUs are not sale agreements. We sign lots of these MOUs and even today here in Malaysia I have had to sign two. These are public documents accessible to any Kenyan and there is nothing to hide in the course of serving our country.
I have never in my life met Moi and as far as I am concerned I have never crossed his path either in his business or himself as a person. The decision to extricate the Government from the Econet saga in my view saved the tax payers a great deal of money. I was not there when this matter started and I still do not understand the whole transaction but it makes great sense to remove the Government from any liability. If such a decision did not favour anybody, then the courts can settle and in any case, this matter is still sub judice.
Back to policy. If you have noted, we are launching an average of two ICT firms per a week. Large BPO multinationals have told me to my face that until we sort out the local ownership issue, they are going elsewhere. These are firms that employ in excess of 30,000 BPO agents. Investment in the sector runs into billions of shillings which people like myself cannot even dream of raising even 1% (and this is true for many of us in Kenya). Do we let such opportunities slip by because we want to be nationalists?
Regards
Ndemo.
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Wahesimiwa Listers;), Ndugu na dada zetu, @newbies afraid ... Nyote, I am proposing that John Walubengo leads a discussion on this subject so that we can all participate and contribute our precious policy thoughts. In fact, increasing consumer-beneficial competition accompanied by consumers protection are our association's topmost 2 priorities. About four days ago I had proposed that from next week, that ICT shareholding composition discussion takes place on the consumers mailing list. Therefore, it would be better to discuss it here rather than our list (partly because we are always biased towards consumers!) Walu, are you ready, willing and able to undertake this national responsibility? Kindly, let me know of your decision so that I can announce to consumers. Regards, Alex BTW, "Walu" is my lexicon for sobriety and neutrality;) The moderator could be Hassler or anybody (including you) AG ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> Date: Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 10:15 AM Subject: [ke-internetusers] Debate: 'sustainable telecommunications competition' To: ke users <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Dear All; With now clearly visible Telecommunications competition taking root to benefiting consumers, there is a urgent need to strengthen competition grounds so that never again shall we go back to monopolistic regimes. Whereas we no longer have "incumbent" state monopoly, we should be afraid of a future of "private monopolies" local and/or foreign - worse still if they belong to few individuals Kenyan or not. Monopolies and oligopolies that skew prices, cartels that collude to extort consumers via exorbitant price fixing. Indeed, we need sustainable competition increased further to benefit consumers more. In this regard, I would like to us have a discussion next week on ways how sustainable competition could be increased in the telecommunications market place. Our views are most welcome! Regards, Alex _______________________________________________ ke-internetusers mailing list ke-internetusers@bdix.net http://www.bdix.net/mailman/listinfo/ke-internetusers ---ends--- On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Bill Kagai <billkagai@gmail.com> wrote:
Daktari, This response is a clear sign of top notch leadership. Thx for clarifying for those of us who were in the dark.
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 8:07 PM, <bitange@jambo.co.ke> wrote:
Dear All, I am in Malaysia. This country's development is awesome. Their e-applications are indeed something we all aught to learn from. You can see the positive energy to move their country out of poverty in their eyes. We must find ways to emulate these people and move away from self interest that is tearing our country apart.
Prior to my travel here, I made some statements regarding local ownership of ICT investments with the aim of reviewing our policy. This is what I am employed to do and I am still consulting with stakeholders to see how to advance the policy change. Specifically, I argued as follows: • The drop in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in our sector is as a result of rigid policy on ownership of investments; • We must work toward attracting FDI if we have to sort out unemployment of our youth which has reached crisis levels; • Large ICT multinationals have requested exemptions to this policy and would rather have the local ownership through the stock market; • That those who have in the past purported to have the capacity to raise sufficient local capital have failed and cannot raise new capital thus compromising the competitiveness of these firms; • Protectionism leads to poor service and uncompetitive environment; • The problem of local equity participation can be summarized by the experience we went through during the search for the SNO – promises of non-existent funds and extortionism; • The absence of local equity participation in some foreign banks did not stop Equity Bank from growing phenomenally; • There is no threat to domination from foreigners since local firms have made great strides to eventually partner with multinationals from points of strength (read KDN/Altech; Safaricom/Onecom partnerships) and it is encouraging to see other local firms such as Access, Jamii, Wananchi etc coming up strongly that we don't need to require multinationals to seek for partners up front at the expense of our unemployed youths; and • My liberalist economic approach is what in my view would make our country considering that some decisions we made along the same lines have greatly impacted all our lives. Take for example the liberalization of International Gateways. There were threats to our lives that we could not survive to see the benefits. These were threats made by those who benefited from illegal terminations of calls through Telkom Network leading to losses in excess of one billion shillings per year. I am surprised that this move pains some people to date when we are enjoying lower tariffs with a more efficient Telkom. I have no regrets on Telkom reforms at all and I am sure you all know that I never run from any responsibility.
The Libyan matter has never been an issue before considering the fact that this are standard MOUs that we sign regularly whenever we market Kenya out there as an investment destination. Yes I signed the MOU and the two ICT items in the MOU, that is, Telkom Kenya and Teams never went to Libyans since they lost in the bid process and rejected by local investors respectively. In the same MOU were Energy items and of course Grand Regency but MOUs are not sale agreements. We sign lots of these MOUs and even today here in Malaysia I have had to sign two. These are public documents accessible to any Kenyan and there is nothing to hide in the course of serving our country.
I have never in my life met Moi and as far as I am concerned I have never crossed his path either in his business or himself as a person. The decision to extricate the Government from the Econet saga in my view saved the tax payers a great deal of money. I was not there when this matter started and I still do not understand the whole transaction but it makes great sense to remove the Government from any liability. If such a decision did not favour anybody, then the courts can settle and in any case, this matter is still sub judice.
Back to policy. If you have noted, we are launching an average of two ICT firms per a week. Large BPO multinationals have told me to my face that until we sort out the local ownership issue, they are going elsewhere. These are firms that employ in excess of 30,000 BPO agents. Investment in the sector runs into billions of shillings which people like myself cannot even dream of raising even 1% (and this is true for many of us in Kenya). Do we let such opportunities slip by because we want to be nationalists?
Regards
Ndemo.
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Dear Dr. Ndemo, Thanks for a good detailing and i totally agree with you on the growth in Malaysia. I made a trip there last year because i was curious about what i had read and seen about the same country that attained independence as Ghana with three times less our GDP in 1957. However in celebrating our 50th anniversary in 2007, Ghana compares no where near Malaysia. As a matter of fact Malaysia learnt palm plantation from Ghana and yet they have out grown us in the palm production, process and distribution and that is the basis of their "wealth" creation a nation. Two things i found very stricking and most of my friends there confirmed was sound leadership and a national (closed their tribal and political ranks) commitment to 5 and 10 years development plans which have being consistent till now. Ghana on the other hand "assassinated" our founding President and since then had a consistency of civil unrest so could not commit as a nation to 5 or 10 year development plans though we had them on paper. Most people argue that African has had bad leadership but i say, we killed the "amazing" founding leaders God gave us whiles the Asians allowed thier to lead them. In many ways than not one could ascribe all kinds of tendancies to Mahatia Mohammed but Malaysia hails him because they allowed him to lead - there is no perfect leader. Now, let me jump to the subject of FDIs. We should not let the opportunity slip us by but we must be careful not to be exploited. The World Economic Forum has consistently reported Africa to be the most profitable market, yet it is the least developed so the issue is "capital flight" and in other cases a few "wealth redistribution". The billion dollar question is, in formulating a strategic policy, how do you ensure that the foreign investors invest in the country or continent so all the profit does not get repatraited? Okay, the profit would always be repatraited but how do you ensure the investment creates room for your private entrepreneur and investors. When you look at the Telecom industry, only the ISP sector in most countries has local indegenous participation and the examples you mention below are clear but how do you ensure much more local ownership. Point is if you empower the local private sector to create wealth, there is a much likely possibility that most of it would be in the country and make impact. The Malaysians found a way of empowering their local private sector, whiles there you would see how much of the great stuff is owned by locals. So for me, the question is not about being nationalistic but rather a "strategic policy intervention which ensures foreign participation in a way that empowers the local investors or entrepreneur"? Have a good weekend. On 10 Oct 2008, at 09:59, Bill Kagai wrote:
Daktari, This response is a clear sign of top notch leadership. Thx for clarifying for those of us who were in the dark.
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 8:07 PM, <bitange@jambo.co.ke> wrote: Dear All, I am in Malaysia. This country's development is awesome. Their e-applications are indeed something we all aught to learn from. You can see the positive energy to move their country out of poverty in their eyes. We must find ways to emulate these people and move away from self interest that is tearing our country apart.
Prior to my travel here, I made some statements regarding local ownership of ICT investments with the aim of reviewing our policy. This is what I am employed to do and I am still consulting with stakeholders to see how to advance the policy change. Specifically, I argued as follows: • The drop in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in our sector is as a result of rigid policy on ownership of investments; • We must work toward attracting FDI if we have to sort out unemployment of our youth which has reached crisis levels; • Large ICT multinationals have requested exemptions to this policy and would rather have the local ownership through the stock market; • That those who have in the past purported to have the capacity to raise sufficient local capital have failed and cannot raise new capital thus compromising the competitiveness of these firms; • Protectionism leads to poor service and uncompetitive environment; • The problem of local equity participation can be summarized by the experience we went through during the search for the SNO – promises of non-existent funds and extortionism; • The absence of local equity participation in some foreign banks did not stop Equity Bank from growing phenomenally; • There is no threat to domination from foreigners since local firms have made great strides to eventually partner with multinationals from points of strength (read KDN/Altech; Safaricom/Onecom partnerships) and it is encouraging to see other local firms such as Access, Jamii, Wananchi etc coming up strongly that we don't need to require multinationals to seek for partners up front at the expense of our unemployed youths; and • My liberalist economic approach is what in my view would make our country considering that some decisions we made along the same lines have greatly impacted all our lives. Take for example the liberalization of International Gateways. There were threats to our lives that we could not survive to see the benefits. These were threats made by those who benefited from illegal terminations of calls through Telkom Network leading to losses in excess of one billion shillings per year. I am surprised that this move pains some people to date when we are enjoying lower tariffs with a more efficient Telkom. I have no regrets on Telkom reforms at all and I am sure you all know that I never run from any responsibility.
The Libyan matter has never been an issue before considering the fact that this are standard MOUs that we sign regularly whenever we market Kenya out there as an investment destination. Yes I signed the MOU and the two ICT items in the MOU, that is, Telkom Kenya and Teams never went to Libyans since they lost in the bid process and rejected by local investors respectively. In the same MOU were Energy items and of course Grand Regency but MOUs are not sale agreements. We sign lots of these MOUs and even today here in Malaysia I have had to sign two. These are public documents accessible to any Kenyan and there is nothing to hide in the course of serving our country.
I have never in my life met Moi and as far as I am concerned I have never crossed his path either in his business or himself as a person. The decision to extricate the Government from the Econet saga in my view saved the tax payers a great deal of money. I was not there when this matter started and I still do not understand the whole transaction but it makes great sense to remove the Government from any liability. If such a decision did not favour anybody, then the courts can settle and in any case, this matter is still sub judice.
Back to policy. If you have noted, we are launching an average of two ICT firms per a week. Large BPO multinationals have told me to my face that until we sort out the local ownership issue, they are going elsewhere. These are firms that employ in excess of 30,000 BPO agents. Investment in the sector runs into billions of shillings which people like myself cannot even dream of raising even 1% (and this is true for many of us in Kenya). Do we let such opportunities slip by because we want to be nationalists?
Regards
Ndemo.
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participants (3)
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Bill Kagai -
Eric M.K Osiakwan -
Gakuru Alex