Now That’s a Book, the EvenIng Mob’s!

 CHRISTINE QUARTET!

Set yourself in the front seat of the best African literature of this century!

 Ever heard of a book called CHRISTINE QUARTET? Doubt you have. It is from the virtuoso himself, the light behind The EvenIng MOB! It is a four-novel opus in the field of creative fiction tinctured here and there with a FACTUAL world view and a philosophy of life. Get yourself in the front seat of the best African literature of this brave new century-the 22nd alas! Buy it on Amazon-link here-and meet Christine Nyaruai, an introverted, shy, gifted young woman analysed by four different narrators in four books-in-one.

Imagine Where

Timothy Wahome

Here we have an interesting compendium of original resources from a land in East Africa to examine.

Can you look at this picture and cite where and/or why on earth it was ever shot. Hint: an East African nation. Match 90% Kenya. Match 80%Uganda. Match 40% Tanzania. Match 90% Malawi. Match 0% Ethiopia.Settle for two highest factoring selectees:

Odds: Kenya is a savannah land. Evens. There are swampy grounds aplenty in formally tse tse fly-prone marshlands of Western Kenya and the Coast. Besides, almost any rain puddle in the world can look like this.

Universal odds(Kenya): almost any puddle of mud can look this way. Universal evens (Kenya)-possible location (no GPS) prevails.

Odds: Malawi is warm, tropical country. Evens. There are swampy grounds around Lake Malawi and other reservoirs in the country.

Universal odds (Malawi): It is possible for any place in the world to have a puddle mired in slime like this one.  Universal evens (Malawi) No other region other than East Africa is featured here (only GPS placement is lacking).

Assessment: Since all odds point to Kenya and evens too, and the fact that the photographer hails from this land, we do not need scientific Geo-maps or the date of the picture but to conclude that the picture is taken in any part of Kenya during the rainy season, March though May or October through December. Facts rest.

SGR: The Rise of an Empire

Timothy Wahome

Eclipsing the old pre-independence railway to a twittering old flame, the Standard Gauge Railway was over 1300 kilometers in length when it finally reached Malaba, in late 2010s, earmarking the initial phase of connecting the three neighboring countries mutual to the agreement including south Sudan, Rwanda and Uganda to Kenya.

With construction beginning in fall 2013,  the first phase ended in early 2017 before the president inaugurated the Madaraka Express train that made headway to Nairobi's depot on the eve of the country's freedom day on June 1 of the year.

Before its completion, the railway attracted eclectic views from both the populace and media alike. In tandem with construction was the relocation sagas along the line especially around Nairobi, in the first phase, and later along the Rift valley belt with some officials coming to book for soliciting bribes from families seeking compensation along the line. 

The immediate fact sheet of the construction of the railway dates back to 2009 when the country's  then regime ratified a memorandum with its then biggest East African trading counterpart, Uganda, to engineer a railway with modern gauges of less than a meter apart that would have electrical propulsion capabilities. There would follow a tripartite agreement pitting Rwanda to the prior ratification with the signing taking place in August, 2013.

The Chinese consortium that constructed the railway had to fulfill its mandate in several lines including one to Rwanda that had to hail at Kigali  by 2018 from its Mombasa initialization. The second line had to reach Kampala in proper infrastructural time via Malaba in Western Kenya from its initial phase of 2014. 

Upon completion of phase one, which received a lot of celebration due to, in part, high speed, low fare and acclimatization of most Kenyans' dreams to reach Mombasa in less than the minimum 8 hours it used to take buses to make it to the coast, the railway introduced sanity features to surface transportation in Kenya. For instance, the rail, running parallel most of the way with the then unruly, single track A109 highway to Mombasa, had beautiful, terra-cotta embankments, modern offices and accommodation villas, plus stations every regular number of kilometers, besides high rise flyover bridges running kilometers on end in some places, and the top cake of it all, the availability of an aerial electric line, all within a non-stop perimeter wall.

With funding coming from a China-based bank that provided ninety percent of the funding with the Kenya government settling the remainder, the financing of phase one alone, in 2017, was equal to almost an eighth of the country's gross budget for that year which stood at KSH2.6 trillion.

With perfect gradients and topographical maximization, the costly infrastructure project that was SGR ended the transportation deficit of delivering goods and passengers from the coast. It also created a more sustainable economic bloc that is modern-day East African Community (EAC).

Parasitic Capitalism in East Africa as Digital Working Creates Neo Africa

By Timothy Wahome

Strategists have repeatedly warned that the on-surge of a digital gig economy will deprive the creators’ backyards of handy manpower-as they concentrate fully on the digital companies’ math regalia. However, the biggest concerns are that, despite the worker vacuum these 24-hour companies create, once they flourish, they do little to develop the region in which they ‘operate,’ with the nitizen-approved excuse that by virtue of being online, they are in a global village and can thus develop any part of the earth: tongue in cheek for personal enrichment through the cloak of the World Wide Web.

In East Africa, the future is as bleak. In fact, Kenya, according to an Internet hosting company based on the continent, ranked back in 2017, as conceited as this may eventually turn out to be in coming years, as having the best Internet connectivity in the continent. Be it as it may, and as much as the youth are flocking to SEO-related informal careers, leaving manual work to old men, and as much as the region, with severe economic deprivation is becoming the farcical no country for old men and young men alike, but for the monied few, a new dark reality is revisiting the East African digital world slowly.

Hear it now:

As youth flock to digitized editions, contribute tons of copywrite material in exchange of a few dimes, most of which go to their local outsourcing agents, who in turn sell it, sometimes in 1000% profit to their rich clients in the West, the pension of the post-college writer, designer, videographer or artist is becoming a pipe dream.

For one, once the fortunes of the agents and their outsourcing companies nod for the sunset of retirement due to the lucrativeness of parasitizing on talented yet monetarily inconvenienced youth who can’t break the shackles if they want to put bread on the table or pay for their university fees, these companies abandon their workers in ex-ma-china fashion. Because there is usually no contract, per se, the worker cannot resort to legal representation and has to hunt for the next netizen-boss online who he will never see or even eschew (due to barrage of work) until he discerns a blank screen on where the former site used to be.

Therefore, even as East Africa blossoms in cyberspace and creates jobs for people who otherwise would not ever dream for a bed of roses for lack of jobs for which they have studied in the formal sector, it is an early call for a future of parasitic capitalism in the digital context of the region…..

How Far To a Central Common Securities Wing in the East African Community?

It has been a long time since 1977, the date the EAC bloc collapsed courtesy of some little discourtesies of leadership across the borders. Flashback more than four decades later and one realizes the progress, albeit gradual and sometimes not fulfilling, of the fully-fledged regional community. From shared ideals of the ‘60’s to a common market of the 2010’s, now the East African Community awaits the final straw of its success story, a common securities market with a single currency.

The East African Business Council

One of the momentous areas of inclusiveness that the EAC leadership can claim is establishing the East African Business Council (EABC). This, via its Strategic Plan, will oversee the fast-tracking of the common agreements that will pave the way for a fast harmonization framework. If the EAC will become the next European Union, at least as a growing formality, then EABC must address the following areas:

1. Common Securities. Currently, the initial phase of harmonizing the major capital markets of the inclusive states has but a year to complete. It began in 2011 and culminates 2014, ready for the take off of the ultimate phase that lasts up to 2019. The hindrance, however, is the eclectic mixture of tiny and large markets across the borders.

Kenya has shown acumen in claiming the largest piece of the cake at the expense of neighbors. 14 local entities have border-listed in Security Exchanges, including seven in Kampala, five in Dar es Salaam and two in Kigali. In comparison, only an electric-generation company from Kampala has found a listing in Nairobi. This is the inequality that the EABC ought to rein in before a single securities’ market comes into existence.

Local companies that are building equity in regional securities include EABL, KQ, KCB, Equity Bank and Nation Media, alongside Centum Investments Co. Ltd.

2. Extracting non-tariff barriers. Some of the freedoms that have always failed in their maturation stages, due to conflict of financial interests, in sovereign nations, are taxes. The region has no harmony in the levy-enforcement design. It is the purpose of EABC to remove many of these unnecessary barriers and make the region one that enjoys a single levy. Happy news is that at the onset of the Common Market in July 2010, five nations, devoid of Kenya, eradicated duty-enforcement across the borders.

Rwanda also helped lobby the removal of tariffs that hindered the mobility of transit content from ports to landlocked nations. This saw the region increase a one-time border fee but remove barriers that protracted the entry of goods from one country to another via long-distance vehicles.

A Snapshot of the Recent Past

In theory, a shared currency was to have made headway by 2012. This became a pipe dream, at least for now, until the ratification of the common securities agenda, which vaunts two phases, beginning 2011 to 2019, came in place. Had a shared denomination hit the region in 2012, this could have meant eradicating the various barriers including the free-duty premise that only Kenya, the region’s economic powerhouse, had declined to sign.

The predecessor to the common currency, in the offing, has been the Common Market. This came up in July 2010, when member signers removed barriers to trade, particularly on long-distance carriers, through the agency of especially Rwanda.

Why the Common Securities may not be Long Overdue

Courtesy of the East African Business Council, a lot of new happenings are apparent from a civil point of view. These include private-sector partnerships, workshops and labor harmonization, across the board.

Some of the events perpetually on the calendar are national employers’ organizations’ conferences that seek to proffer better labor relations across the borders. This means doing away with diverse entry visas throughout the region. The EAC Single Tourist Visa will be the new boy in town once labor policies go under the microscope.

Vimal Shah, the chair of Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) is the new head of EABC for tenure of 12 months:

“Our key areas of advocacy include…the removal of Non-tariff Barriers…and the introduction of the EAC Single Tourist Visa.”

Another key area of harmonization is that of standards. A conference going back to 2012 showed that even if traders can cross the lines on the map in search of new pastures scot-free, they have to cope with new regulatory mechanisms guiding the kind of goods they can sell in a new land. There is KeBS in Kenya just like Uganda has its own, and so does Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda. Each presents quality regulations that may label legitimate goods contraband in their own jurisdictions. This is one of the major challenges that intra-regional commerce brings to distributors.

Benefits of Securities

The secret behind a common securities market, such as, the one the EAC bloc is contemplating is the agility of movement of financial, asset, non-asset and futures trade. According to a head of  a section in the Nairobi bourse (NSE), one market for all stakeholders would ensure that funds transfer easily with no inconveniences.

“EAC investors should be able to invest in other EAC domestic markets through local intermediaries,” he said in the second week of July.

Thus, it is fair to say that the integration of the EAC as a Common Market may only be the first step of a deserved common securities market. Though the transition is taking a snail’s pace, no one knows whether or not the fair wind of change that will drive the ship fast to harbor is in the East African Business Council. Where leaders have failed, these business-savvy connivers may yet help toggle the fifth gear. Let the gears hold for a while as every one waits for the promise that a common currency will be in place by the year 2015.

 Furthermore, the involvement of regional leaders may be the remaining jerk that will make the integration a practical one for everyone, including inter-border securities companies

For these are the top 10 masterpieces in the architectural future of Nairobi

Futuristic Eastafrica

Sunday, March 25, 2012

For these are the top 10 masterpieces in the architectural future of Nairobi

10. Panari Sky Center, off Mombasa Road. Grand architecture with squat, imposing glass-work when viewing the facade from a close angle. Linear, cube shaped, tall structure when viewing the cone of the building from the South Eastern bend of the highway. Silver, neutral hue of the all-pane building highlighting the colonnades of same color and , seemingly material, with flying angels that give it a 'sky' identity.

09. KICC on Harambee Avenue. Barely missed the list but for the round curves, inter-planetary curves that give it a futuristic epithet not seen in many other buildings. Furthermore it has some stunning open attic at the top for revelers at the top of a skyscraper under the sun.Wonder how it could have looked like if the Founding Father had kept his word to make it 60 stories.

08. Times Tower, off Haile Selassie Avenue. The intricate hexagonal, block nature of the tallest building in the city makes it inaccessible. It is insignificant in its grayish silver from afar, but becomes overwhelming from a proximate vantage point due to its solid, grounded foundation. Novel in the sense that it contains some alluring paintings (Gothic?) embossed on its ground floor entrance.

07.Yalah Tower, Biashara Street. Contains some flying buttresses that make it quite airy , almost a gem in the midst of other laid-down buildings in its surrounding. It brings that slice of the Abu Dhabi to Nairobi, making you feel for the first time to be in an oriental locale, by the sea. For as you know, the building , I was told in an interview, was made to resemble a ship, a dhow by its owner. Made by the Chinese by the way.

06. Nation Center, Kimathi Street. The bottle-like aspect of this masterpiece at the center of the mass media in Kenya is always intriguing, with the horizontal silver-and-white lines effervescing with friendliness. It is a tall office building that appears like a plaything for a child showing just how the globe keeps turning daily bringing news events to the world without caring a whit about commentary.

05. The Rahimtullah, Upper Hill. Seems like all gray, silverly things win the appeal of the neutral bibliographer. This tall building with a spike pointing to the heavens in Upperhill in its  bright  silver color and an imposing barricade of mammoth blocks, as if to tilt it from its off-the-cliff position in Upperhill gives an illusion of direction to the Nairobian. It appears to be in Westlands sometimes, others at the city center, while yet other times, where it should be. Do not trust to its triangular linear projection just like you should not treat its protruding scaly bars kindly too. Pass it in awe only for its beauty.

04. Teleposta, off Kenyatta Avenue. If an award were to go to any piece of architecture with these merits, then they would go to the tower of the GPO: Elegant, cone-like., two towers side by side, inviting yellow-gold color, slim and modernistic. It is the only building in the city that can be seen from almost every direction despite being in the extreme end rather than the heart and despite being in the shadow of its tall, squat neighbor, Nyayo House. If any of the tower is unseen, then its robotic, perpendicular mast is.

03. Victoria Towers, Upper Hill. Elusive, phantasmagoria of blue illusions. All glass and almost a statement that the theory of relativity was after all right in that inverted and normally standing shapes can co-exist. The building is not so tall but it has immaculate curves that seem to be wrapping around each other in bottle and wing fashion.

02. Delta Corner, Westlands. In its finishing touches, Delta Center is by far the closest replication of how the Twin Towers in New York could have looked like in this city. In fact the 18 story twin towers are about to be possessed by the leading banker in the globe. It is a double-barreled masterpiece in the offing.

01. The Citadel, Westlands. Built in a hidden corner of the city, the Citadel deserves acclaim as the  most futuristic of all Nairobi buildings for it overcomes the theories of Roman-Greco architecture of adhering to form. It simply lacks form especially in its upper portion. Though solid and even linear, its color interplay overshadows any notion of solidity. Perhaps the car park underneath also gives the concept of a floating structure. It deserves the name citadel for its lack of grasp, being almost church-like, which makes it invincible. It is like a piece of graphic rendered solid in the air.

And at the VERY TAIL OF THE TALE....

Thirma kissed me again and again for the last time that night, as a light appeared in the east.

…a familiar light, only that this was redder, the light of the militia computeligents…

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Brief Introduction To East Africa

East Africa is made up of countries on the horn of Africa that comprises of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya and Tanzania have ports on the Indian Ocean whereas Uganda is landlocked. The three countries also share a common interior water mass, Lake Victoria, whose largest portion is on the Ugandan side. Economically, the region is an agricultural society whose main exports include, tea, coffee and livestock products. It  also enjoys industrial growth in areas like telecommunications, fines arts and manufacturing.

The political structure of the three countries follows the Commonwealth form of Constitutional Republics. The latest exception to this system occurred in Kenya, which promulgated a new constitution on 27th August 2010 setting up a county system of government. Other countries in the region including, Rwanda and Burundi are categorised as East African states through the shared EAC bloc, which is on its way to becoming a Common Market.

Tourism is a multimillion industry in the region due to the many national parks and diverse wildlife and the sandy beaches of Mombasa. The Kilindini harbor is the entry port for much of the foreign trade. Uganda has traditionally received imports via the port on the Mombasa-Uganda railway.

On the Common Market Of the EAC

Me

For any outsider to the East African Community (EAC), the fast rate in which the Common Market Protocol has been effected would seem incredible at first. A key prop to this assumption is that for an economic bloc to cross the barriers of the Customs Union, which is usually the precursor to a single market that embraces all states, within a record time, would require inexorable joint stamina.

The European Union, whose economic integration took several decades to implement is a measure of how long the process can take to implement. This is exactly what the five states that currently make up the EAC (Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda) are set to achieve beginning the first of July 2010.

One can attribute these positive steps to the mutual cooperation between the five border states of East Africa. Unlike Europe, which is a heterogeneous society with disparate geographical barriers like the sea, and different political structures, the East African countries share common values like heritage and have a similar political system derived from the British. However, in order to realize a Single Market in this region, there are several milestones, the EAC  needs to cover by the by. These challenges include the ratification of the four freedoms and the show of political will to give security of tenure to already existing freedoms among the states. This will pave way for the formation of a common currency.

 These cross border freedoms that need ratification and implementation include convenient and cheap air transport, making the securities markets regional, enforcing free broadcasting rights across the region, customizing educational requirements, and modernizing travel and work documents.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Explanation on this Novel

Title: The Anti-Cousin
Synopsis: It is the year 2037 in postmodern EA Nation, a federal state
formed by East African countries. Against a background of a rotten court
system, two individuals are on the run after writing treasonable content.
Now the question is, who between them has done the capital wrong? Or is it
the state that is to blame? A forensic officer and robotic agents are out to
find out. The judgment on these two individuals, if caught, will resort in
the subtle salvation of a nation or the indictment of a whole society.
Finally, will the first person narrator,who is also the protagonist be finally
saved whereas the real culprit is brought to book?

The 63000 plus word novel is written in a
pseudo-surrealistic style that is deemed best to highlight in an undertone
the evils of impunity. The message is targeted at the here and now: the
future state, though realistic, is just a technical cap to drive the point
home.

The work is under copyright

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Followers

About Me timwah44 From the outset I have been an afternoon person whose bulk of work is fated then. I love walking regularly in the streets of my city, Nairobi, under the constellations of the Milky Way that succeeds the beautiful tropical sunset. Spending an evening at a performing arts venue is my passion. I indulge in creative work every now and then especially writing. That is why I'm here in this blog. Ardent listener of the BBC. Won't somebody post a comment on my posted novel? Anybody out there under the stars? View my complete profile

Blog Archive ▼  2012 (1) ▼  March (1) For these are the top 10 masterpieces in the archi... ►  2011 (1) ►  2010 (3)

Awesome Inc. template. Powered by Blogger.