What is his Endgame? It’s a Time Piers Should let it Go.

Image: Courtesy

The Arch critic of the Sussexes has once again been seen expressing his exasperation through a tweet on recent news of Meghan apologizing to the court that she did forget about the biography briefing notes and that she had no intention of misleading the court or the defendant. The former co-presenter of the ITV Breakfast program, good morning Britain who walked out of the show after a heated discussion about the royal family member and refused to apologize on-air to Meghan, is again in the spotlight. This is after tweeting that he never believed in anything that Meghan Markel said to the court. Piers is one of the broadcasters who has never postulated anything said by Meghan since the Duchess of Sussex ghosted him. Talk not about doubting what Meghan said a while ago on the suicidal thoughts she had while living with the royal family. The most startling thing about Piers is how he decided to turn around his relationship with Meghan after she started ghosting him. This is an aspect that would make me put Pier’s personality on reproach. What kind of friend is he? A friend who, when one distances themselves from, start to vilify them, lower their self-esteem, and even make them feel melancholic.

There have been several royal family critics, but it can be attested that they did not go much far as where Piers is today. Can we say that they did not have any formal or informal relationship with some royal family members? These are some critics who perhaps knew where to draw the line. It is inevitable to mention that hell hath no fury like a woman/man scorned, as Shakespeare would put it. Lord Altrincham (John Grigg) was also one of the biggest critics of the Queen. He was so profound in his criticisms to the Queen. Besides, most of his criticisms were so insightful and even got implemented by the Monarchy. We did not see him reach Pier’s point. Critiquing the Queen’s speech or style of talking as “a pain in the neck” and saying that the Queen came off as “a priggish school girl” was indeed funny and tomfoolery at the same time, if I may say so. His criticism and some others made him visit the Queen and talk about some of his proposals that the royal family implemented. Is it the same thing that snowflake Piers want? Maybe yes, maybe no.  Does he want an audience with the Duchess of Sussex or the Queen for him to stop his incessant critics? I know not; perhaps he knows this better. 

The recent damning critics of Piers are so comparable to those of fictional John Armstrong’s to the Monarchy. This is where he said that the only thing awe-inspiring about this lot (Duke of Edinburg and Queen) was their size of an over-inflated sense of self-entitlement and their ability to practice a line in a small talk that would have life support patients reaching for the off switch. Even a most ardent and sworn critic of the Monarchy can concede that the most substantial pieces of armor in Pier’s arsenal is his primary sense of mystery and his sense of entitlement that he was not prepared or ready to lose. This is where he derives the criticism power to the Sussexes. The mystery also makes him continue resenting the Duchess of Sussex and leveling to her his shameful disingenuous criticisms.

His end game is yet to be known even as he claims that he only wants the Queen to stop the Sussexes from ruthless exploitation of the royal titles as they simultaneously trash the Royal family. They may or may not be doing this. They are just allegations from Piers that are so uncalled for. What is it then that would make Piers not to embrace their friendship as it started before, just like how Cleopatra would want it as expressed in Anthony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare; Prithee, a friend, pour out the pack of matter to mine ear, the good and the bad together: he’s friends with Caesar, in state of health, thou sayest, and thou sayest, free? Does he only want to embrace good things when they resonate with him and go the opposite way when he feels he has been left out. It is a high time that Piers should well know that “One day he may be a cock of the walk, and the next a feather duster just as emphasized by Margot Barber.  This will help him to let it go!

LET’S CHAIN THE DEVIL WITH DRACONIAN DECISIONS

 The title of my piece may be intriguing and that’s what made you slide in to have a glance at the content. If this isn’t disinterring the labyrinth of your humor then your sense of humor must be so deficient. Anyway, didn’t mean to offend in any way. We do encounter several billows in life, some of which we have always mastered the art of mitigating either by involving confidants, families, and even our acquittances. I am saying this to project to you that we are not always saints in life. We are human beings and this is what makes us most of the time fall short of God’s glory just as annotated in the Holy Scriptures. Devil may mean several things, it doesn’t have to be the devil we know in our lives always; that is the Arch rebel of the Holy God, the one who  started a huge rebellion in heaven as represented by Hellen G. White in the book; The Great Controversy. In this case, the devil will mean the dilemmas we face in life, the hard and complex decisions we encounter that most of the time may throw us in turmoil and ire.

 Reiterating our human qualities, we always have some aspects that act as a distinguishing factor between us and the animals be it wild or domestic. In as much as we always try to have or make a rational decision to subdue nature, we still get ourselves in the quagmire of nature pushing us too much to anchor our decisions to its side. The fact that I appreciate and embrace ourselves as non-saints would make me say that in as much as you are half a person or human being, I am also one. I am a Ganesha or a Minotaur who has been ripped from the pages of some bizarre mythology. We are two-sided and that is what makes us, half-human and half-crown who are always engaged in a fearful civil war, which never ends. And which blights our every human transaction as a brother, husband, sister, wife, and mother. My only fear or blessing; maybe a blessing in disguise is that I will always be half – King. The only tragedy is that I have no kingdom maybe you have one.

It is always a civil war when it comes to unearthing our inner self, how do these results, or what makes us experience this? it is majorly a result of our encounters in any normal daily undertaking we engage in. In almost all instances of our lives, we get to make rational decisions. This always comes after we have been ripped off by the demands of nature. Nature wanting and pushing us to bow to its demands. These decisions (what I refer to as to the devil more so in our dark times) we usually make at our workplaces, in our homes, in our relationships, and even during the electioneering periods. Such decisions end up damaging the relationships that we once had with friends, with closest confidants, our leaders, our bosses, and even our relationship partners. Quite a devastating and worrying phenomenon. It is something that we are forced to make for us to get over it and to put our focus on the most important things in life. It makes us have a purpose. Once we make such decisions, we may feel free from the strong cocoon that has chained us. Failing to make these complex decisions will mean that we have been overwhelmed by the desire and demands of mother nature and that we are in a colony that is not easy to break away from. It is something that needs a deep intuition nonetheless.

Humanity which is the fruit of both our hands and our minds continually strives together as a team with the main urge of subduing nature. It is this aspect that acts as a distinction between human beings and trees, beast and also any other creature that exist in the kingdom of nature. Just a quick one, do we have any creature that can trap and yoke the wind, steam, and even lightning? A creature that can make lightening and steam their prisoners, make them submissive and also obedient to their needs? This is a depiction that there is a very big difference between human nature and animal nature. Close to all animals stoop too low before nature, making them to be controlled easily by the rules of nature, being turned this and that way by nature just as little boys turning sausages casually in the fire. On the other hand, as human beings, we will forever wrestle with mother nature and strive in all ways to command her and make her our colony even after being tattered and torn apart by her. We make the life decisions to put nature where it belongs, for it not to control and act as our Godfather, these are decisions made regardless of the negative impacts they will cause to our loved ones and also the collateral damage they may cause.

Just as Ngugi would present it, our lives can be vividly described as a battlefield onto which a continuous war is being fought between the forces that are highly pledging to confirm our humanity and the forces that are keen on dismantling our humanity. Some forces strive to build a protective wall around our lives and there are also those whose wish is to bring this wall down, those who have an intention of molding it, and those who are highly committed to breaking it up. There are those in this war that have a good desire of opening our eyes to make us see the light and make us look to tomorrow, as we ask ourselves about the future our children will have, and those who want to lull us into closing our eyes highly pushing us to succumb to the demands of the law of nature and failing to make a rational decision now and for posterity. It is a war without any spectators since each man is part of the forces that have been recruited for making humanity grow and blossom to nurture human nature and create our heaven. In all these aspects you know your duty, nail the devil on the cross or help the devil get off the cross!!

Let us Demystify Privatization of Parastatals and Macroeconomics Impact

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Privatization refers to transferring industry, business, and services from public ownership to private control. It can either be a full or a partial transfer of the Government’s responsibility to the private investors or sector. Various governments worldwide have privatized most of their recently owned corporations to help curb the bureaucracies that exist when they take up core functions in state institutions. These institutions provide jobs to their citizens in an environment that is highly laden with creaking bureaucracy. This is what has been making most of the Educated professionals in Africa leave domestic jobs not because they have not helped but because their country has a perpetual flounder in a seemingly never-ending corruption cycle, poverty, and diseases. A situation highly catalyzed by the bureaucracy in the state-owned corporations.

Kenyan National Government plans to put some of the State Corporations in the hands of private investors due to the poor performance that these parastatals pose. However, bottlenecks such as a prioritized bureaucracy make it a tall order for the Privatization Act (2005) to materialize effectively. Selling 26 poorly performing parastatals was a core reason for enacting this act. Selling them to competent and risk appetite strategic investors could effectively reduce the dwindling performance. This would also help in reducing the overreliance of these parastatals on the exchequer. The aftermath of this would be channeling these funds into development agendas that have stalled due to lack of funds.

It is noteworthy to posit that most state enterprises or government parastatals are highly marred with corruption and incompetency cases. As a result, suggestion would therefore be put across to hand over these parastatals to the hands of private investors would do the taxpayers justice. Mentioning some, KEMSA is an emblematic one where the tender was awarded to individuals who did not even qualify. The KPA has been in turmoil since the DPP discovered irregularities of close to Khs244 million. As if this was not enough, the EACC unearthed tenders that had been irregularly awarded by the SOE of an amount close to 40 million. This is a tender given to a mother of a clerical officer at the KPA, something which threw most of the citizens to frenzy.

Institutional Corruption is not only the rot affecting these institutions. There exists very deep-rooted nepotism in these institutions. Therefore, it could be suggested that the private investors who have got the central aim of exemplary performance and making the best of these institutions be contracted. The corporations discussed herein have flouted most of the procurement regulations they bend to fit themselves and their never-ending greed and make most fortune at the taxpayers’ expense. A question to pose would therefore be, should stringent procurement rules be followed to the latter? Is a cure to this never-ending sickness only be transferring these corporations to the investors? Individuals in these institutions have a very well-crafted scheme that they use to embezzle public funds, and coming up with more acts to nip their acts in the bud would be futile. After all, the laws are always meant to be broken.

Privatization does not only come as a shell or in a vacuum. It is only the SOE that is presenting an abysmal performance that needs to be restructured. Mwaura (2007) argues that it is the non-performing SOEs that need to be privatized since this will enable the Government to limit the disbursement of funds as the investor expands the economy by running these corporations. Privatizing the SOEs also has a principal aim of reducing the Government’s deficit and using the funds in some other profit generating projects. By doing so, the performance of the SOEs will be improved as there will be proper management of the SOEs that is quite essential for a positive outcome compared to when these corporations are left in the hands of the Government.

In most instances, the idea of privatizing the SOEs has been generated by internal and external sources. The aspect of privatization in most of the developing African countries has been externally generated. As a result of this process, it is highly conspicuous that the substandard performance of the SOEs has been continuously occasioned by the subsidies that the states offer to these institutions that are coupled with the planned economies. External forces privatization gives a prescription of privatizing the SOEs, and that is majorly to toss out the SOEs and work on the essential services that the state in needed to offer. In other instances, the external forces pushing the state to privatize the SOEs enable a country to open up its economy by removing controls such as import and price controls. This is majorly to minimize the involvement of the state in the commercial sectors. Most of the private investors who take up the SOEs will have a significant role in most of the state economic activities, thus helping to set up a market economy rather than a mixed economy that often suffers government interference at the citizens’ expense businesses in the market.

 Moyo (2009) elucidates this in another perspective; in the IMF Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facilities, poor governments were to receive cash in the form of budgetary support. These governments, as a result, would agree to embrace a free-market solution to development, and one of these would include a privatizing previously nationalized industry. This would mean that trade would be liberalized, and the civil service would also be dramatically reduced. The central aspect of this is making the SOEs that had been posing poor performance be restructured and enable the economic expansion due to good management.

During this period of the IMF and World Bank Structural adjustment, some African countries were seen shedding more than 10 percent of their civil service workforce. This included Benin, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Madagascar, Uganda, and Mali. The fact that the African SOEs were being privatized across all sectors, including energy, mining, trade, transport, tourism, electricity, and communications, brought about a positive result. The Government was only to have a stake of 10% in these corporations for six years. The aftermath of this was free markets being enabled and giving most African economies an exceptionally splendid opportunity to succeed. A few failed, but most of them succeeded.

Time is imminent, and privatization of the State-Owned Corporations is a long-overdue plan by the Kenyan Government. Moving with speed by the Privatization Commission to implement the Privatization Act (2005) will help prevent and embezzlement funds in these institutions. A delay in the sale of the parastatals has highly promoted mismanagement and poor performance of these institutions. Being that the privatization process is not quite an easy process when it comes to legal formalities and requirements, the Government, including the National Treasury, the Cabinet, and the National Assembly, should therefore approve the major privatization requirements pronto to help save the taxpayers and also the economy of Kenya.

Written by
John Andele
I’m primarily a Finance Scholar just getting started in Finance academia but also interested in reading and engaging in all sorts of social commentary.

Owning stocks in listed companies

People and Pennies

Kasiva Mutisya

While not all of us can have enough capital to a start-up business that wow the world, yet, we can still get to be part of some of the already-listed companies in the various stock markets that exist in the world. So in time, that amount of money you have been saving in a bank account can be a good start to creating some ‘paper wealth’ with quality returns in stock prices and dividends.

Benjamin Graham says, “A stockis not just a ticker symbol combined with a price tag, but an ownership interest in a business”.The stock will give you a piece of some of the best businesses around the world.

Initial public offerings(IPOs) and private placements in the secondary market have made it possible to own shares in previously private entities: Safaricom Plc, East Africa Breweries Limited, and Williamson Tea Kenya Limited are some of the…

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Islam Radicalism and Countering Radicalisation of Kenya’s Youth.

Muslim faithful chant slogans during a protest against the August 27 killing of Sheikh Aboud Rogo Mohammed, after Friday prayers at the Masjid Musa Mosque in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, on August 31, 2012. Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

The Kenyan population is made up of various community and Muslims is one of those communities. It is important to note that the Muslim community comprises more than 10 percent of the overall Kenyan population. The community makes more than 30 percent of the coastal population. The more or better part of this community is on the Kenyan coast. Most members of this community is also in Nairobi specifically at the neighborhood of Eastleigh, and North Eastern.

The persecution has been much felt by the ethnic Somalis and also some of the Muslim communities. This is something which has increased in recent years. Police are seen allegedly engaging themselves in extrajudicial killings and excessive use of force to the suspect of terror. The police, however, denies these claims. Such things being done by the police always succeed only on the alienation of the local population. This also turns the matter of Islam radicalization into the importance of National security. It makes the young people the police’s enemies, which makes the matter of radicalization to be much worse.

The problem of counterproductive terrorism has always been experienced in most parts of the country which is Muslim dominated. This problem has still been exacerbated by the Kenya police, which always carries out mass raids rather than targeting the suspects at places where there are Muslims. This is a practice that always keeps or makes the youths remain repressed. The youths then seek to retaliate by seeing their community as a sect excluded from the entire country. An example of this is the youths from the Kenyan coast keeping up with ”Pwani si Kenya.”

Special treatment of Christianity is an aspect that is seen to split Muslims from a larger society of the Kenyan community. Christianity came to dominate most of Kenya, and through this, there were a lot of schools of Christian descent established across the country by the Colonial government., As this was being done, the Muslim churches or schools became culturally isolated. Western schools and churches dominated most parts of the country.

The Muslim radicalism did shift as the Muslims now came to perceive themselves as being excluded from most of the employment opportunities given to the other people of Kenya. This was seen as most Kenyans from the interior came to buy or purchase properties at the Kenyan coast and began setting industries. This aspect saw most of these people gaining at the expense of the owners of these places by the burgeoning tourism industry at the coast.

The significant factors known as the big promoters of radicalization are Unemployment, Poverty, and Political Marginalization. Through their partnership with the local communities, the NGOs have acknowledged the dire need of developing counter–radicalization policies that will prevent the youths from turning into violent groups. Some have emphasized that the current Kenyan government can significantly help since they had the youths in the basket in their manifesto.

The Muslim communities, through government aid, have presented their grievances to the sitting government. They have done this by making the government know that economic empowerment to the youths starts with the government by providing employment opportunities to them. This will help them not to be idle and therefore promoting the radicalization process by the insurgents.

The  Islamic Imams Preachers Association have been trying to sit the youths and engage them on the importance of maintaining their sobriety by observing the Islamic teachings and not dissuading away from them. The Association has been organizing seminars and workshops with youths to enlighten them on how radicalization will impact their lives, mostly to the negative.

Because I could not Stop for Death – Summary and Analysis

Even though lives may come to a halt when our time on earth is over, death will not notify you when its time is nigh. Albeit some saying positing that for us to accept life, we must accept death too, it is sometimes not authentic to do so. We are born, and we live with the main ambition or aim of accomplishing our dreams, heart desires, and the set goals. It is at the period of death that we come into terms with the importance of life. It becomes our time of epiphany. At this point, the young lady Emilia faces the worst in her life as she does not want to accept her death period, yet it is overwhelming her. Death becomes her visitor, and instead of welcoming the disguised visitor, she is more than perplexed and does not want to associate herself with the abstract visitor.
Most of the poem’s power juxtaposes from its denial to offer an easy or straightforward answer to the greatest mystery of life, that is what happens when people die.

Therefore, the best interpretation of the poem is that it is all about the anticipation of a Christian afterlife in haven and as something so dark and bleak and down – to – earth. Emilia posits that She could not stop for death. This can indicate that death is a subject of nature that is inevitable and cannot be controlled by any human being on earth who is mortal and subject to it (death). The poem is marred with several uncertainties when the poet wonders about what will happen to her after the dreadful circumstance when she passes away. The teenage girl diagnosed with a fatal illness gets herself riding with death, which she personifies; she boards a carriage when already dead and heads to a place of an afterlife—a place unknown to her.

The poet depicts this journey on a carriage as so unknown to her, and she has no control over it. Here, the speaker’s death is presented as strange, natural, and inescapable because of the fatal illness she has been diagnosed with. It is also actually not known if the speaker is already dead alive or something in between the two. What can be drawn from her experiences is that she fears losing her life and cannot control it. At the beginning of the poem, death is presented as a charming gentleman who ”kindly” considers stopping his carriage so that the speaker can climb in. Death becomes so kind to her up to the point of stopping by so that she can board. This means that the speaker is so overwhelmed by her illness’s nature and can do nothing at all to control it. It is quite saddening that this is a call she is compelled to oblige to (call of death).

Another personified abstract figure mentioned by the poet is immortality; this is a kind of a chaperone. Does immortality speak one of the human’s most in-depth questions of where do we go to after death? It is one of the edgy questions to Emilia, and this tortures her mentally because these are all things that only the supreme being understands. As humans, we may take them literally as we like to answer what we think it is. It seems to be absolute of some aspect of ambiguity since its presence can only support Christians’ ideas about the afterlife. Some criticism can be drawn from this since sometimes immortality can be said to be irony because it hints into something which may not exist that awaits the mortal human beings at the point of their death. It is the only thing awaiting Emilia, of which she does not understand at all. In either way, it depicts that there is an eternal inevitability of death and that death itself is not something delaying in taking the poet’s life. It does not delay at all as long as the health position of the poet is concerned.

The carriage which death stopped to let the poet in stops at the school, this may also be the poet’s final resting place- the speaker’s grave. We can say that this part represents the general life stages that always start from childhood, adulthood, and the last stage after one has accomplished on earth is death. At this point, Emilia has nothing else to think of but to accept that even though she has not accomplished all that she would want to in life, death is here to take her regardless.

The finals stanza of the poem is surrounded by ambiguity and contradictions. At one point, the poet posits that the carriage passed such sites several centuries ago and notes that the time that has elapsed is just shorter than a day. Behold! At such a time when Emilia seems not to accept the situation of death, hundreds of years may feel or seem like a blip on the radar. It may be unimaginably long for one experiencing the pain at the situation of their death. Such contradiction, therefore, highlights the difficulty in imagining eternity. Life can generally be measured by the period, which moves through different phases as people age. They will have a sense of the story of their lives unfolding as time passes. At your death bead just as Emilia, all perceptions about time completely cease to exist. It may only exist if there is an afterlife; this is an idea which the poem I open to but is so inconclusive about.

THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC INTERVENTION OVER COVID – 19 PANDEMIC.

Albeit being welcome by most of the analytics in the Economic sector, there is still a quibble that the head of state still need to do more to the public which will help in shielding Kenya from the adverse impact of COVID – 19 to the economy.

The measures announced by the President on Wednesday which included scrapping income tax on those who earn less than Sh24, 000 monthly, reducing corporate tax to 25%, cutting Value Added Tax from 16% to 14%, reduction of Turnover Tax from 3% to 1%. Voluntary salary cut of 80% for head of state and his deputy, 30% for Cabinet Secretaries and their assistants and 20% for principal secretaries still being major proposals.

Though considered to be positive by most economists, the PAYE relief will only benefit a few who are the low income earners and those who attract the 30% leaving out quite a number of people, mostly the middle income earners, this makes me come into consensus with the FKE chief executive Jacqueline Mugo’s remarks; that the government should have considered a domestic relief to all the employees.
Just to provide an insight on the reduction of PAYE from 30% to 25%, the difference in your tax liability is not going to be 5% as many understood it but it will be 16.6%; thanks to Mr. Kwame Owino’s tweet illustration.
Assume you earn Sh100
PAYE Liability = Ksh30 at 30% and
KSH25 at 25%

The difference in the amount saved under lower tax rate will be (30-25) = Ksh5

The difference in your tax liability will be 5/30×100 which is 16.6% and not 5%.With this reduction, an employee’s disposable income will be increased.

Employers having asked the government to reduce the VAT by a margin of 50% that is from 16% to 8%, the government only agreed to reduce it by a margin of 12.5% and not 2% reduction as had been literally interpreted by many. See the illustration below;

From 16% to 14% it is not a change of 2% but 12.5%
(16-14) = 2% ×100 = 12.5% Change.

Assume one wants to make a purchase of a commodity which costs Sh125
Vat Charged

Former rate = 0.16×125. =Sh20
Current rate = 0.125×125. =Sh15.625

Amount saved. =Sh4.375

The amount saved in the illustration above acts as a policy to increase an individual’s disposable income. Major implication of this VAT reduction is that it will drive down the prices and hence a rising demand of goods. It is important from the outset that there is a little doubt that permanent or temporary lowering of VAT rate on particular goods (or service ) sooner or later will lead to a reduction in the prices of good more or less correspond to the monetary equivalent of the lower VAT rate.
There is also little doubt that as prices slide, consumers demand for this particular good or service will sooner or later expand.

Consumers switch part of their demand towards the good with the lower tax rate because the prices are lower than before. Production and employment in the sector producing the good will correspondingly expand to meet the higher demand. If consumers react only weakly to lower prices, production and employment will not increase significantly, a true replica to the case for basic goods, for example food as consumers prefer to preserve their level of food consumption and use saved expenses to increase other types of less basic but more luxury goods. In contrast which best suits our current state of affairs – that is the COVID -19 crisis, if consumers act strongly to new prices due to a reduction in the VAT i.e. if consumption is price elastic, production and employment may increase significantly.

A study by Copenhagen Economics indicates that if production is very labor intensive, there seems to be a strong production and employment response of lower VAT rates in the industries affected, but since we are the victims affected by this crisis which has led to a curfew an euphemism for lockdown whereby those labor intensive production industries employers are forced to establish shifts and reorganize their operations and some are even laying off staff.

Curfew can be termed as a gross economic miscalculation step taken by the government while lowering VAT at the same time. I couldn’t agree more with the government on reduction of the VAT but we should ensure that policies passed are not counterproductive.

A reduction of the Turnover Tax from 3% to 1% is neither a good move by the head of state. As a result of this curfew nightmare, the SMEs which is the main sector paying this tax are really between a rock and hard place since this is the moment they will even be forced to make sales at a loss but will still be forced to pay this tax . The government should have considered scrapping the Turnover Tax altogether since it is charged on total sales.

Before time is overdue, I hope the government is coming up with some economic measures to save the MSMEs which are at their nadir and shutting down due to lack of cash flows. A notion that these MSMEs are informal, unregistered and unorganized enterprises that do not pay tax is not a valid report at all. According to KNBS MSMEs survey in 2016 there was 1.6Million licensed MSMEs which have employed 6.3Million people that are over and above the formal private sector three times, paying 34billion tax a month, Sh270billion a year which in 2016 was 23% of tax revenue. These MSMEs were paying workers/ owners Sh10billion a month and estimated to have contributed 1,780.0billion compared to Ksh5668.2 billion for the whole economy. See the table below.

It is understandable that there is a limit to what the government can do but these measures are not yet enough. The government should be ready to do more as situation unfolds because all these are to the benefit of the citizens, economy and to the government itself.

Written by
John Andele
I’m primarily a Finance Scholar just getting started in Finance academia but also interested in reading and engaging in all sorts of social commentary.

SHOULD TAXATION BE IMPOSED ON THESE MUSHROOMING HANDY CLAPPY ‘CHURCHES?’

While Churches, like Caesar’s wife, must be above suspicion, pure and honest, my sources reveal that the conduct of a single church could lead to a huge blow to the entire religious society and erode public trust in the institution.

Imposing taxes on these mushrooming ‘churches’ will be justice enough to them since many self-proclaimed pastors have turned each and every square room around your rented house into a business center in the name of ‘where two or more meet the holy spirit is amongst them’ but when you take a keen look into that square room in the ground floor of your house is that what you see even close to worshipping?

Many critics and naysayers are not going to agree with my school of thought about the tax to be imposed onto these churches. See, that church started this morning is just a branch of that which was started last year, but due to wrangles between the pastor and the woke individual who is not comfortable with how the church affairs are carried out, he ought to rather ship out secure a room and start his own ‘church’ rather than stay in a place where the minority voices are always futile.

With the spiritual knowledge and interpretation those woke individuals have gained from the Holy Scripture overtime, they’ll be recruiting their ardent minorities as the founding members of their churches who at this point will also act as their lap dogs. Most of my readers know that this has been the main source of chaos around their dwelling estates, the recent one was seen in Mombasa, Kenya where the pastor stabbed his wife during a church service on the pulpit and then slit his throat main reason being dispute over the ownership of the church.

A panacea to this never ending problem would be imposing tax to these mushrooming churches. Just as the Turnover Tax to the SMEs, the taxman should come up with a name of tax which will be more apt for these churches. The tax will be charged on any donations and contributions these churches receive at a certain percentage and is to be filed after a specified period of time which will be stipulated by the Taxman. Taxation will not only serve a purpose of bottleneck, but will also be for productivity purposes of a countries economy. This will be able to reduce conflict and make the churches to act as one by serving their main sole purpose of preparing the individuals in readiness for Christ’s second coming. In addition, this will bring back the worshipping modesty, decorum and discipline which befit the churches and by having few main or mother churches which serve their main function as stated by the Holy Scripture which I won’t mention today, we will once be in the forefront of serving the sole purpose of religion.

“You know these days the church even organize fundraising with main agenda of purchasing pastor’s car” a source said. Under Chapter 470 of Income Tax Act of Kenya, donations made to charitable organizations which exist with the purpose of eliminating distress and poverty are always Allowable Expenses but is that the main purpose of this donation made to pastor? Should it be classified under Non Allowable expenses? The Taxman has a best answer.

I know religious and rights groups will say this idea will be an infringement on the right to worship but what matters is that this imposition will be timely in this period when the country is at its nadir and spending 763 billion for debt repayment and pensions. Statistics shows that the number of these mushrooming churches is beyond imagination. Are these boreholes that give people water? I don’t think we have as many boreholes. Do we even have as many factories? The taxation will help tighten rules on registration and functioning of the churches as my idea puts it through any church which is found not to have an active license or up to date tax records must be charged accordingly and these licenses must be renewed annually if not monthly.

Just as mentioned earlier, you will find such a mess of churches in society which has nothing to offer as ours. In Kenya and Africa, there are those who want to see us in such chaos and when authorities intervene and stop them, they lament that it is a human rights abuse. People should have a right to worship in whatever church but not in a mess or fraud.

Our country has not yet reached level where it needs all these churches, such a big number of churches is not even suitable in bigger and developed economies that have means and systems to sustain them, this is one of scenarios on how development can be explained. Kenya still doesn’t have the luxury and means to sustain such churches. It is not rocket science to interpret the graph below.

Let me finish with a personal anecdote. I was born and raised in this country and I’ve been able to see these churches sprout each and every day with thrust, but the most mind boggling thing is that these churches aren’t serving their main purpose. A lot of people fail to do background assessment when they want to join these churches and hence end up regretting their gross miscalculation in spiritual decision making. Just like Dr. David Ndii would put it, No individual owes society more contribution to change than any other. Moreover no one has a right to make demands of others. It’s not an entitlement. You do your bit as you see fit. I do mine as I see fit, but until you take part in yours, we will continue to repeat our horrible socioeconomic mistakes.

Written by
John Andele
I’m primarily a Finance Scholar just getting started in Finance academia but also interested in reading and engaging in all sorts of social commentary.

CROWNING OF MR. AND MISS MMUST GONE SOUR.

We all know that runway modeling creates unnecessary standards of perfection for girls and maybe boys to meet. However, a frequently unstated problem is the effects of this industry on its own participants; the models. The pressure put on runway models to maintain the proper image is a whole other issue in and out of itself. Remember that little girl who told you she wanted to be a model? I would tell her to think again. The ‘glamorous’ life is riddled with deceit and misery. The Crayon modeling club has been on keen look in maintaining their diet of a liquid diets 9 days before important show and they work twice a day ; 12 hrs. Before show, they stop drinking entirely. The diet has a positive impact and that’s why many of these models have always been meeting the standards for the shows they contest.

Not being able to do the above will make matters worse for the new comers in the modeling industry hence very few of them will reach an extreme amount of success in the industry. The pressure albeit shouldn’t be so much high for those who don’t feel like being in the industry. The job of modeling shouldn’t require such physical and mentally detrimental upkeep as the Crayons have always put it but Mr. Phil will ask you, is it worth it? If yes what follows for the Crayon’s is a big win. “You cannot expect 1000 dollars if you put 1 dollar effort in an activity,” Phil said during the interview.

Even after putting so much physical and mental training towards the highly contested Mr. And Miss MMUST in the recently concluded MMUST Tamasha festivals, The Crayon’s modeling club have been baffled if not dismayed by the alleged cancellation of last week Tamasha results. The post for which one of them, the renowned Sam Mdoe was contesting for. Clear guidelines were put in place for the Mr. and Miss MMUST – competition selection of judges who were to preside over the contest. The Entertainment Director Bahati Mongare was to assist in coming up with a list of competent judges, but due to the perennial incurable disease with the name corruption which thrives well in such areas, the current Mr. MMUST – Philip Abuto had mistrust issues with Bahati being the only person to come up with the whole team of judges and raised a concern over this, he proceeded and reported this to Dr. Opunde – The Tamasha committee Chair. Dr. Opunde being a noble person never questioned this much because he wanted to provide a fair competition ground for the contestants. Each person was given an opportunity of coming up with one judge, that’s Bahati, Phil and the School. Main aim of this being maintenance of high standard of transparency and fairness in competition as was wanted by Mr. Phillip Abuto.

Just after Sam Doe being crowned Mr. MMUST to be, Director Bahati Mongare’s speech was out with contemptuous innuendos about the looming corruption in Crayon’s modeling club and whining about Phil bringing a ‘goon’ as a judge who seemed to have predetermined event’s winners and terming the whole event to be a fait accompli. As put by Bahati in his speech, something which was never so according to the people interviewed. The judge whom Phil selected to preside over the contest is said to be more than competent judge who has been in the runway modeling industry for quite a period of time and knows the minimum standards required to be met by one to win such awards. Being referred to as a ‘goon’ is the most profane and defaming vocabulary which was least expected from Bahati who is a public figure not only to MMUST but to the entire Kakamega County.

A Relationship stirred with misunderstanding?

Mr. Mongare has always proved not to be even with the outgoing Mr. MMUST. Though they are in the same field – Bahati being the Entertainment Director and Phil being Mr. MMUST, they ought to be working together to achieve their main big agendas for the school being men of impeccable leadership skills. A suggestion raised by Mr. Phil for Mr. and Miss MMUST to at least be given some token for representing the institution in some official occasions was met by a big rejection by the one Bahati Mongare who was expected to be the person who could push for that agenda to be passed. Just to mention but a few the relationship between the duo has always been marred with constant difference in opinion and is said to be at the end of the totem pole – a cruel marriage whose divorce is being talked over. This industry is supposed to represent the society. A change engineered by Phil will greatly have impact in MMUST as a whole that’s why the outgoing Mr. and Miss MMUST had been representing the institution in different official occasions.

Bahati and Doe

The two had built a good rapport but not until they got themselves in the same competition where both were contesting for Mr. Medic and Doe emerged victorious something which was never expected by Bahati since the judge was a close ally to him. Since then, the two models have tended to be odd with each other and this may have hugely influenced the cancellation of the highly contested Mr. and Miss MMUST. Mr. MMUST to be Sam Doe has been in the modeling industry for quite a long period of time and has largely gained experience and maintained a proper image for his talent. It can be said that that Doe is facing the harsh or the uncomfortable realities of being a runway model. Personal vendetta has always taken the batter part of the talent and modeling industry. It is not amazing to see this happening in MMUST but it is quite sickening. It is also alleged that Bahati had someone whom he wanted to be crowned Mr. MMUST over the same occasion and to his dismay this never happened making him have huge egg on the face.

Doe, the model recently crowned Mr. Signature knows all the minimum standards to be met by one to win these no mean feat contests. It is quite evident that the cancellation of winners for Mr. and Miss MMUST is a witch hunt against Mdoe and Phil. Meanwhile as we are waiting the senate and commeetees’s proceedings redults the main final outcome maybe the current Mr. and Miss MMUST reigning for another one year or the Tamasha winners being crowned Mr. and Miss MMUST. Which one do you think will carry the day?
Compiled by John Aseto.
The writer is an independent blogger from MMUST

The Deepest Craving for Self Relevance in all Aspects. Economics Related.

It has always been clear and so evident that in all our life, our living and everything we undertake in our daily lives we do with a clear intention, albeit any opposing view from the life
participants who may not have seen this. There is a paramount purpose my readers can attest to
my hypothesis.

The deepest craving of human spirit is to find a sense of significance and relevance. The search
for relevance in life is the ultimate pursuit of any man, woman, youth even a child of a tender age. This internal passion is what motivates and drives every human being, either directly or indirectly. It directs his decisions, controls his behavior and dictates his responses to his
environment.

A classical study of this kind, The Pursuit of Purpose published in 1992, was carried out by
American Evangelist and advisor Myles Munroe. It postulates that the need for significance is the cause of great tragedies. Many suicides and attempted suicides owe their manifestation to the
compelling need for satisfaction. Many mass murders and social killers confess the relationship of their antisocial behaviors to their need to feel important or to experience a sense of
self-worth.(M. Munroe 1992, pg 4-5)

However, unlike a century ago where morals were upheld and societal values regarded as the key
principles of life, this passion has perpetually lead to an indication or shown indication of laxity
and complacency in keeping up to the societal values in some way, something that may come to haunt this generation a few decades to come if not managed now.

Myles went much further saying that this passion for relevance and sense for significance makes one race or ethnicity elevate itself above another. It also gives prejudice and causes the fabrication of erroneous perception and that result in grave injustices and the conception of abominable dreams and inhuman behavior. This desperate desire to feel important and relevant
to one’s existence also cause the sacrifice of common sense, good judgment, moral standards and
basic human values, In addition it makes one to live his life falling on his soul to protect or do whatever everyone else like and in the long run it suffocates one and makes him miserable because of the constant sacrifices.

It is seen as the fuel for most capitalists and progressive economies. This is argued out by David Ricardo an early thinker in Paul Ormedi’s book The Death of Economics: Ricardo explains this by the theory of Comparative advantage, which is still the basis of the international trade theory in economics today. Some could not imagine that a country, such as Britain in the early nineteenth century with a lead in technological development could still m produce any given product rather than leave at least some for the economic benefit of other countries.

The theory says that even in those circumstances everyone could benefit from trade. The most efficient country should concentrate its resources on producing those goods where the gap between its efficiency and those competing nations was the greatest. The less efficient countries should produce those products where the gap was smallest. In this way, more resources could be concentrated on those goods, which could be produced the most efficiently of all. Still in this you get the most efficient country – Britain still producing at both aspects in areas of its efficiency and the areas where it is less efficient at leading to more and more rapid growth in its economy than the other countries. This goes deep to the purpose of relevancy and corporate fulfillment.

The Central theme of individual and corporate self-relevance and fulfillment is precisely to show there are propensities in human nature which incline us towards society, such as fellow feeling and the desire both to obtain the approval of others and to be worthy of that approval. For Adam Smith in his best-selling book The Wealth of Nations, the sentiments of an individual to another exercise a crucial influence on the self-control and restraint of individuals in their behavior towards others.

It is believed that many behavioral problems of fulfillment would be eliminated if only people could see themselves more clearly ’’in the light in which others see us.’’ Importantly, the tendency for individuals to control their behavior because of the options of others is not seen as a pragmatic act, but one which arouse quite naturally. In other words, self- restraint could arise in a system in which people followed purely their own self-interest, simply because of the practical value of such restraint. Life could be intolerable if everyone pursued a career of fraud, murder or any other civil wrong. For me, self –control is not dependent upon self-seeking evaluations, but is a natural integral part of human nature.

The enlightened pursuit of self-interest is seen as the driving force for a successful economy, It has been found that the craving of one to become more relevant in the society will lead him to work or do an exemplary work in in owning or making of more wealth. When this is seen by many in the same set up to be working, there will be an interest from them too hence making them to venture much over the same thing and this becomes a going concern from one generation to another and becoming perpetual, the definite result of this can be more inventions leading to employment opportunities and thus a growth in the economy.

In conclusion, it has been a setback for the government to fix the current problems related to this big craving therefore state has a very important role to tackle this problem through going back to the drawing board and using the virgin ideas which have not been tried, by providing a level of education sufficient to render every individual capable of exercising an appropriate level of intellectual and social “virtue.” The concerned bodies in the state should even extend its range of activities into the cultural sphere, in order to raise the overall intellectual level of the population to benefit of all and for everyone to remain sophisticated on this. In addition, in my humble submission, this deep desire remains relevant and to be worthy of approval runs deep individuals and is seen as the main motivator of mankind. It is the source of enthusiasm and perseverance and can absolutely not be disputed. It defines you and thus moves you to another standard of achievement if you have a purpose!

Cited works

Paul, Ormerod. The Death of Economics. New York; 1997. Print.

Myles, Munroe. The Pursuit of Purpose. Bahamas: Nassau; 1992. Print.

Adam, Smith. The Wealth of Nations. New York: 1776; Print.