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AWF Blog

  • Beauty Queen on the Catwalk

    Posted: March 5, 2010, 11:07 pm by admin

    We have photographed three leopards that were previously not captured by our cameras at the Singita Kruger National Park (SKNP) concession. This is in addition to other leopards in the area. Nnzumbeni together with SKNP’s guiding team and in particular Glass Marimane did a splendid job of moving cameras to areas of leopard activities..

    Yesterday while doing my rounds at SKNP I found that we captured a female leopard near the lodge. At first I thought it was one of the new individuals in the area, but it turned out to be a a female we have not captured for more than a year;  I am glad the old girl is still looking good. Incidentally, it is the first leopard that was captured when I first tried the use of camera traps about two years ago. Remember the “V” sign on her right flank? Now that the camera will not be moved from its position for the next few years, we will hopefully be able to document the duration of her land use tenure and if luck is with us, the number of cubs she’ll bear in her life time; or from this point onwards. The information gathered will be compared with data from other sections of the Kruger National Park in our quest to understand the drivers of leopard population dynamics in this ecosystem.

    A quick note on the equipment’s top nemesis, the ellies: It is one elephant-sized challenge to escape them, but I’ll keep using pepper spray around the cameras. I am attaching a few clips from one of the cameras. The camera was left on video mode, and it happened to be on an elephant path. I have to admit they are amazing creatures (Dr. Alfred Kikoti will be happy to hear these words); I just wish they weren’t so playful, pushy, and inquisitive around our equipment. I’m on the verge of leaving a sign with a huge “ELEPHANTS ARE NOT ALLOWED ON THIS PATH.”

    [See post to watch Flash video]

    Next blog will be about plans for the year and things that happen in between.

Eyes on Kenya

  • Corruption scandals: Kenya’s bane

    Posted: February 22, 2010, 10:28 pm by admin

    Source: Nation

    Just so we do not forget, here is a list of some of the the corruption scandals plaguing Kenya, while on one hand its citizens pay taxes into the same corrupt coffers, and on the other, some die from the direct effects of these scandals. Since they are too many to list here, do have a look at the almost complete list at wikipedia

    1. The longest-running is the Goldenberg scandal, where the Kenyan government subsidized exports of gold, paying exporters in Kenyan Shillings (Sh) 35% over their foreign currency earnings. In this case, the gold was smuggled from Congo. The Goldenberg scandal cost Kenya the equivalent of more than 10% of the country’s annual GDP.

    2. A Sh360 million helicopter servicing contract in South Africa. Military officers had argued that the contract was too extravagant and servicing the helicopters could be done locally. Kenya Air Force (KAF) went ahead to spend Sh108 million as a down payment for servicing the Puma helicopters, whose tail number is logged as 418 at Denel Aviation, a South African firm.

    3. A Sh4.1 billion Navy ship deal. A Navy project was given to Euromarine, a company associated with Anura Pereira, the tender awarded in a process that has been criticised as irregular. The tender was worth Sh4.1 billion. Military analysts say a similar vessel could have been built for Sh1.8 billion.

    4. Kamsons Motors tendered for the supply of Mahindra Jeeps to the Police Department in the mid 1990s for close to Sh1 million (US$13,000) each, at a time when showrooms would have charged customers a sixth of the price. Moreover, the vehicles were being bought for a government department and were therefore imported duty free. Few of the more than 1,000 units that were imported over several years are in service today.

    5. The Prisons department lost $3 million after contracting Hallmark International, a company associated with Mr Deepak Kamani of Kamsons Motors, for the supply of 30 boilers. Only half of the boilers were delivered – from India and not the United States as had been agreed.

    6. The construction of Nexus, a secret military communication centre in Karen, Nairobi. The Government, through the Ministry of Transport, spent Sh2.6 billion (US$36.9 million) to construct the complex. Three years later, military personnel have not moved into the centre. A phantom company, Nedermar BV Technologies, which is said to have its headquarters in Holland, implemented the secret project. The tendering process for the Nexus project was circumvented.

    7. Between January 2003 and September 2004, the National Rainbow Coalition government spent about $12-million on cars that were mostly for the personal use of senior government officials. The vehicles included 57 Mercedes-Benz, as well as Land Cruisers, Mitsubishi Pajeros, Range Rovers, Nissan Terranos and Nissan Patrols. The $12-million substantially exceeded what the government spent over the 2003/04 financial year on controlling malaria — “the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Kenya”.

    8. In 2005 plans to buy a sophisticated £20 million passport equipment system from France. Here government wanted to replace its passport printing system. The transaction was originally quoted at 6 million euros from François Charles Oberthur of Paris – the world’s leading supplier of Visa and MasterCards, but was awarded to a British firm, the Anglo-Leasing and Finance Company Limited, at 30 million euros, who would have sub-contracted the same French firm to do the work.

    9. On 31 August 2007, The Guardian newspaper featured on its front page a story about more than GBP 1 billion transferred out of Kenya by the family and associates of former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi. The Guardian sourced the information from the Wikileaks article The looting of Kenya under President Moi and its analysis of a leaked investigative document (“the Kroll report”) prepared for the Kibaki government in 2004 in order to try to recover money stolen during Moi’s rule.

    10. In June 2008, the Grand Regency Scandal broke, wherein the Central Bank of Kenya is alleged to have secretly sold a luxury hotel in Nairobi to an unidentified group of Libyan investors for more than 4 billion Kenyan Shillings (approx US $60 million) below the appraised market value. Finance Minister Amos Kimunya negotiated the sale, and was censured in a near-unanimous motion by the Kenyan Parliament, though he vehemently denied the charges.

    11. More than 80,000 bags of maize valued at Sh150 million were allocated to briefcase millers and a defunct company in Nakuru at a time when the country is facing a serious shortage of maize. Some of the maize, which was meant to cushion Kenyans against rising maize flour prices and a looming famine, was sold in Southern Sudan for US$80 (Sh6,000) for a 90 kg bag. The allocation operation was running parallel to government efforts to avert a looming famine facing some 10 million Kenyans, as reported by Nation on the maize scandal.

    12. More than $1 million is missing from the country’s free primary education program.

    *Do not forget the above*
    Nor should you forget that there are still IDPs in camps, and many bodies riddled by police bullets, some yet to be claimed.

    The problem with Kenyans is that we are not tenacious, or we have the languor/ apathy that come over time due to year after year of unsolved issues. Recapping the last 10 years, not one year goes by without a scandal of such a magnitude that rocks the nation. However, less that 1% of them are solved, including the prosecutions that started rolling on the Goldenberg scandal (my favourite example) with the protagonist off and looking forward to vying for elections come next elections.

    What has become of us Kenyans? What has become of every docket and office in the country? What happened to the judiciary? Every time there is a new appointment into the judiciary especially, our hopes go sky rocketing high believing that our problems will be solved.

    This is for us the common mwanachi.The best thing would not be to sit on the side and watch all these unfold, have it as the topical conversations as we have our beers or teas, but to come together in a non-violent coup of civil society, taking to the streets as we did during the referendum. The hope should not be lost, and we have to demand this over and over without tiring. It is for example disappointing to see a growing middle class ensconced in their own protected worlds, with high walls and barbed wire, their little comfort zones that shield them from the rest of the country’s troubles. The middle calss have an education and a voice that can be hailed and make quite some addition in the discourse.

    How about other organisations? There are legal brains and NGOs in our midst who can take up cases to the courts and keep up the pressure. We have the media which will keep all the past scandals and progress of them high o-n the national and international agenda. We have other individuals and organisations that can take up other non-legal issues. These, especially the NGOs are too fragmented in their agendas, wanting above all funds and recognition at the behest of their managers who are more interested in being competitive in raising funds for their little empires. Does anyone out there have any though for those of us who are dying from hunger from the maize scandal, or who cannot get good education for our children? There should be unity in action, and this needs to come now.

    As for the leadership and politicians, there needs to be an overhaul of these corrupt tribal minions trying to make a quick buck and a big name before their term of office expires. Using these scandals (who knows to what extent they have engineered them and are using them to achieve their political motives), they go on a dog-fight to achieve their political ambitions. What to do about them? is a question that is currently in everyones mind.

    Remember how when the current parliament held session for the first time after elections, the first thing they did was to raise their pay packages (converted into Euro, is more than what an MP earns in Germany), and push not to pay taxes? How worse can it get? We as the common mwananchi have the power to oust them. Let us not elect tribal leaders but well versed individuals, who understand Kenya and its problems, who want to change it for the best. We elected them and we should be careful not to make the same mistake repeatedly. Our vote holds tomorrow’s change.

AWF Blog

  • Eco-Schools Limpopo Province Green-Flag Award Ceremony

    Posted: February 16, 2010, 10:22 pm by admin

    AWF was once again invited to the WESSA/WWF Eco-Schools Limpopo Province Green Flag Award Ceremony held in Polokwane on Friday January 22nd. Just like last year it was a great honour for me to have been part of such a great event. This also means that I must have behaved very well to be given another opportunity to attend the ceremony. It is inspiring to see that there are so many people out there who take conservation to the little ones who would hopefully take the knowledge gained back to their families and who knows, perhaps they can grow up with respect for nature, which they will hopefully pass on to their children…fingers crossed!

    Kids were performing poems that showed that they understood the importance of conservation and how people should play their part. Teachers brought their portfolio files and some of the posters that the students had made. Cathy Dzerefos, the Eco-Schools Limpopo Province Coordinator funded by De Beers was at her best form, beaming with pride and her eyes were twinkling with hope that all this work will not amount to nothing.

    The Department of Education (Mr N. Kgophong), the Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (Mr P. Tsheola), the Department of Water Affairs and Environment (Ms M. Molapisane), the Polokwane Municipality (Mr W. Mathumba), Lapalala Wilderness Node (Mr L. Ngobeni) and Birdlife SA (Mr J. Peu) all contributed towards making the day a special one for their schools. Awards were given to schools that had successfully integrated environment into the curriculum and had undertaken an eco-action project. Most impressive were the five schools that have been with the programme for five years and tackled the five Eco-School themes of Resource use, Local and Global Issues, Nature and Biodiversity, Community and Heritage and Healthy Living. They were presented with the International Green Flag:

    Chuchekani Primary
    Mosesane Baloyi Primary
    Rethušitšwe Primary
    St Patrick Mathibela  Primary
    White Family Home School

    A year behind with four themes were the schools awarded Gold namely:

    Kgomoshiakwena Primary
    Leboho  Intermediate
    Leganabatho Primary
    Malenkwana Primary
    Marken  Primary
    Mashamba Presidential Primary
    Matlou Memorial Primary
    Mmbara Senior Primary
    Mopane Intermediate
    Motholo Lower Primary
    Mpepule Primary
    Nkidikitlana Primary
    Phalaborwa Primary
    Phulanibyihola Primary
    Samson Shiviti Primary
    Sekanekamoyi Primary
    Seripe Primary
    Titirheleni Primary

    In addition 19 schools received the national Green flag for completing three themes in three years, 22 silver awards for two themes in two years and 28 bronze awards for one year and one theme.

    This time Ms. Earth-SA was not there, so I sat next to Mr. Joe Peu of Birdlife South Africa; on the day that I left my leopard perfume. Representatives from the Limpopo Government were there and they delivered good speeches relating to the importance of environmental education in schools. Mr. Peu also gave a speech relating to the importance of green living and he was one of the dignitaries along with the government officials handing out awards to the best performing schools.

    All in all, Eco-Schools is a wonderful initiative and I hope that it will keep on growing to involve all the schools in the province.

  • An Elephant’s Tears

    Posted: February 2, 2010, 12:44 am by admin

    “Why is it that poachers kill elephants for their ivory? Can’t they just tranquilize the elephant, cut off the tusks, and let them live? They grow back, right?”


    -Murphy, New York Mills, NY, U.S.A.


    I have been asked this question a few times over the years. It’s an ugly question with an even uglier answer.

    Fact:  An elephant’s tusks are actually its teeth, specifically, its upper incisors. Tusks are really only dentine and their composition is no different from ordinary teeth. Elephant ivory has a distinctive luster and shimmer and this has created a  global lust to make pretty things out of them. The elephant uses its tusks for digging out grasses and roots, excavating for water, removing bark from trees, clearing out brush and sometimes as weapons for fighting, among other things. Only about two-thirds of the elephant’s tusk is visible, with the remainder being lodged in tooth sockets and the cranial cavity.

    Tusks are referred to by scientists as ‘alive,’ in that the inside of the tusk is a pulp cavity filled with tissue that contains blood vessels and nerves  If an elephant were to have its tusk broken off, in a worst case scenario, the pulp from the inside of the tusks (i.e. all the nerves and blood vessels) would be exposed, causing a massive infection and an eventual, extraordinarily painful death. In short: cutting off an elephant’s tusk is the same as getting a root canal with your dentist never capping off the work.

    Elephants go through six sets of normal teeth in a lifetime.  Tusks are specialized teeth and elephants have only one set that continue growing throughout the elephant’s life. They are sometimes broken off as a result of natural movements, such as digging and sparring with other elephants. If a tusk is not broken off at its root, then yes- the tusk will continue to grow.

    Warning: this is the part where my answer is going to get very ugly.

    Poaching elephants is illegal in every country in Africa.  Poachers kill elephants rather than tranquilize them because they want to avoid arrest and tranquilizing an elephant is time-consuming,  expensive, dangerous, and requires a very specialized expertise.  Poachers are in the business of making money. When an elephant has been spotted by a poacher as a target, the elephant is killed and it is then mutilated. Because the tusks extend into the elephant’s cranial cavity, poachers hack out the tusks in order to get as much ivory as possible  This is why, when you see gruesome photos of poached elephants, much of their face and cranial area is missing.

    Walking with giants: African savannah elephants roaming in Masai Mara, Kenya (Photo Credit: Craig R. Sholley)

    It is not an understatement to say that poaching of elephants is barbaric. Through the implementation of AWF programs and the dedication of superb on-the-ground colleagues (such as the superstars of the Hifadhi Anti-Poaching Network and the Kilimanjaro Elephant Research and Conservation Project, both located in AWF’s Kilimanjaro Heartland) and our loyal supporters, AWF has been a leader in helping to protect these magnificent giants.

    Wait! Before You Go…

    I know we covered an extraordinarily important yet very grim topic today but don’t think you’re helpless in helping elephants: you are not. You can help AWF by donating to help support elephant conservation in southern Africa, give to AWF’s Elephant Conservation Research Project , help establish a wildlife corridor and of course, Adopt African Acres so you can help AWF help the elephants have as much room to roam as they need.

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

  • Mzalendo Revemped!

    Posted: January 19, 2010, 7:38 pm by admin

    Greetings everyone, and happy new year!

    As you may know, Mzalendo started off as a discussion many years ago that quickly took on a life of its own.

    We have been incrementally adding feature and content purely as volunteer work but with limited resources it has been an increasing struggle to keep Mzalendo up to date and functional.

    We are happy to announce that as of this year we have secured a small grant from the Omidyar Network to revamp and revitalize Mzalendo, adding features and functionality that will make it an unparalleled resource in monitoring statistics and information on past & present aspirants and members of parliament.

    Below is the roadmap. You are welcome to send in your comments and suggestions or email us at comments@mzalendo.com

    Some of the features we intend to add include the following:

    • Total revamp of the look and feel
    • Collection of additional data: constituency populations, registered voters and votes cast, MP quotes, activities & calendar
    • User logins using OpenID (Facebook, google, yahoo, twitter)
    • User & comment rating
    • Verified MP logins - to prevent masquerading
    • Polls
    • SMS commenting
    • Constituency & district maps
    • CDF fund & project tracking
    • Graphs & statistics

    Execution will being in February. While revamping the technical side of the website is important, we also need your help and participation as far as content - after all this initiative is also about encouraging Kenyan voters to be more active in monitoring their MPs - so keep submitting reports about your MP’s performance, send us your stories so that we can share them on our blog, and let us know if you’d like to be a regular contributor to the site.

AWF Blog

  • Send Me Packin’ To Africa!

    Posted: January 15, 2010, 5:51 pm by admin

    “Does AWF offer safaris to Africa to AWF members?”

    -Sean, New York, IA, U.S.A.

    Did you know that ‘safari’ is Kiswahili for ‘journey?’ Well, we absolutely have ‘journeys’ available to Africa for our members. In fact, we just announced our 2010 AWF member safari: Kenya’s Best- Height of the Great Migration.

    Wildlife, such as this black rhino, may be seen on an AWF safari (Photo Credit: Mark Boulton)

    Each year, AWF designs a one-of-kind trip to our Heartlands that is specially tailored for our loyal members. Last year, our members went on a fabulous 13-day trip to Tanzania (for an AWF member account of this trip, go here):

    This year, we are offering our members the chance to travel with AWF to Kenya to see one of the great wonders of the natural world, The Great Migration, in which millions of zebra and wildebeest migrate north from the Serengeti to the green grasses of the Masai Mara.

    Although the migration is a definite highlight, it’s not the only sight we have in store for you! On this trip, you’ll also be able to visit the Amboseli region, which is right at the mouth of the legend itself, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and home to some of the largest – and most studied – African elephant populations on the continent. You’ll also be taking a trek up to AWF’s Samburu Heartland, where you will meet up with some key AWF staffers, such as Dr. Paul Muoria, Ph.D., AWF’s Grevy’s Zebra Research Scientist, and Benson Lengalen, AWF’s African Wild Dog Researcher, as well as some local Maasai. Also, as a special treat (and this is really the pièce de résistance, folks), AWF is offering our members a special extended four-day trek to Rwanda.  A Rwandan Mountain Gorilla Expedition is a chance to see some of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas.  For more details (and an itinerary), visit us here:

    If you are unable to join us on our treks this year, please place your jealousy firmly aside and visit us on our website at to view our Safari Planner and plan for the day when you will be able to join us.  The Safari Planner will tell you all you need to know about traveling with an ethic (i.e. choosing the right kind of safari company), safari etiquette, how to take photos while on safari, the different types of trips we have available within our Heartlands and much more.

    Wait! Before You Go…

    Speaking of safaris, one of the best and most fun things to do (besides getting your camera n’ gear) is getting your wildlife guide! After all, what better way to get pumped up for your trip than to take a gander at all the great wildlife you’re going to see? With our handy guides, you’ll be the only person in your camp to tell the difference between a genet and a civet. Actually, you’ll probably be the only one to know what a genet or civet is. So drop on by AWF’s online store to find some of the very best guides to the wildlife you’ll see while on safari.

  • Returning to the Field

    Posted: January 13, 2010, 6:41 pm by admin

    We would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and very warm wishes for 2010. We apologise for slowing down in blog updates, but hopefully this year we will pick up the slack and you guys can see how we are doing regarding meeting our project goals. It is our hope that this year we will accomplish a lot and thank you all for your continued support. We hope you feel as much part of this process as we are and we will do our best to account for all your queries even though it is not always easy.

    I must confess it is a great feeling to be back in the field after seven months of studying at Oxford.   After driving through the gate at Orpen and driving up to Satara I had feelings of resounding joy, like I was home. I filled my sinuses with fresh air from the outside and was about to close my eyes and get lost in the moment when I realised that I was driving. I gave up that silly, but tempting thought all together and concentrated on the road ahead. Nnzumbeni and I arrived at Singita late in the afternoon, where my carrot-seed-covered socks awaited me; they were all there, every single one of them (with the seeds). Ouch!

    The following day I had meetings with Caroline Burke, the new General Manager at Singita KNP and Matthew Harding, Singita KNP’s Head Guide. The meetings went well and they said that they understood and appreciated the conservation problems that we were faced with. After that Nnzumbeni and I went in to the concession to collect cameras.   Most of the cameras were not too far from the road, so we didn’t struggle to find them.   The only difficulty was that the grass had grown around the cameras engulfing them.   Later near one of the cameras we found an extremely faint track that resembled a carnivore’s.   That was enough to ignite a debate as to which species the track belonged to.   The debate went on even though the air around us reeked of a bull elephant in musth.   The big fella must have been looking at us lesser beings discussing the soil from a distance and was just too lazy to confront us.

    NAKEDI: thought it was a leopard and was already taking pictures and GPS readings. (?)

    NNZUMBENI: thought it was a hyena as the track had claw marks.

    COMMON SENSE: thought it was probably a porcupine.

    VERDICT: It was definitely a porcupine track, end of story!

    We returned the following day with someone who is competent at handling a rifle. Along the way we came across a breeding herd of elephants and I immediately thought of hiding the cameras that lay in the back seat of the research vehicle. I had a disturbing feeling that they might just approach the car and deliberately rob us of the cameras just so they can kick them around like they were soccer balls. I have a sneaky feeling that elephants enjoy kicking cameras because the world cup is coming to South Africa and soccer fever is in the air. (?) Or they are just upset that the official mascot of the FIFA World Cup is a leopard. The mascot’s name is ZAKUMI. I wonder if he would be keen to visit the Leopard Project after his work is done.

    Collen Sibuyi, a promising young guide who has just completed his guiding course, but with vast field experience as he used to be a tracker, agreed to accompany us to collect the cameras that were left in dodgy parts of the concession. I’m talking about along the river banks and areas surrounded by thick foliage, the kind of places you’d wish there was a door on which to knock first before proceeding. Most of them had leopard signs in the form of tracks. Later in the afternoon we went back with Daniel Sibuyi and Andrew Mathebula (trackers) who helped us collect the rest of the cameras.

    Now we are busy collating all the results that we have obtained since April. Next week we will send an update on all the results and the next steps in our leopard work (with lots of pictures). Thank you again for your valued support without which this and other AWF activities would be near impossible to achieve.

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

  • Update

    Posted: January 7, 2010, 12:14 pm by admin

    We are working on a comprehensive update of the Mzalendo platform this year.

    The new roadmap will be published soon.

AWF Blog

  • Erin, once and for all-Zebras: are they ...

    Posted: December 29, 2009, 10:19 pm by admin

    Erin, once and for all-Zebras: are they black with white stripes or white with black stripes?

    –Jarrett, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.

    Ah… the Great Zebra Debate. Are they white with black stripes or vice versa? Kingdoms and friendships have fallen because of this debate, but here goes:

    After doing a bit of research,  the common consensus among reputable sources is that zebras are black with white stripes. Now, before anyone who disagrees takes my head off, you should know that there is actually a bit of logic and science behind this reasoning. First, most zebras have darker skin underneath their coats. Second, fair skinned equids would not have fared well over the centuries in the unforgiving hot, arid African regions. Third, scientists believe that zebras diverged from a solid-colored equine, with the African Wild Ass (Equus africanus) being the first species to appear after this diversion followed by the Plains Zebra (Equus quagga- aka the Common Zebra).

    You talkin’ to me?: the ‘darker’--and endangered--Grevy’s Zebra. © Paul Thomson

    Now, I know a lot of you out there in Ask Erin! land will say, But, Erin, how can you say that zebras are black with white stripes when, if you look at the underside of a zebra’s belly, they are stark white? There are many species of animals of different colors that have light or white colored underbellies or legs that no one would claim are white. The striped pattern of zebras comes about from a genetic process called selective pigmentation. What this means is, black is the predominant, actual color pigmentation of the zebras coat and the part of the zebras coat that does not contain pigmentation (or at least very little pigmentation) appears as the white stripes and underbelly.

    Zebra stripes work as a camouflage against predators and each species of zebra has a stripe pattern (or pigmentation) acquired for their habitat. For example, the Plains and Grevy’s Zebras have ‘darker’ pigmentation (i.e., thinner white stripes or larger black stripes, depending on how you look at it) in order to blend in with the African plains and savannas.  Zebras which live in areas with more rocky, mountainous locales are ‘lighter’ (i.e., wider white stripes) in appearance in order to blend in with their surroundings. There are three distinct species of zebra. The Plains zebra alone has six sub-species. Many people think all zebras are alike and most folks can’t tell a Plains zebra from a Cape Mountain zebra. It is because of this confusion (and by extension, different stripe patterns per species and sub-species), that the great zebra debate, no doubt, will rage on.

    Wait! Before You Go…

    Do your part and help AWF protect the magnificent zebra–adopt Leperit the zebra, a zeal of zebras or adopt an acre (or more) of land by visiting our adoption center. You can also take action by supporting AWF’s Grevy’s Zebra project.

The Displaced African

  • A Quick Word to All Recent Visitors of the Blog

    Posted: December 25, 2009, 7:15 am by admin

    If  you are new to tDA first up welcome, welcome, welcome

    Secondly, apologies for a couple of reasons:

    1) I recently had to completely delete and reinstall the blog due to malware and viruses and have been slow, to say the least, restoring the theme and backend stuff that made the blog sparkle. Rest assured, I am slow but steady in getting there.

    2) If you have left a comment in the last couple of months, sorry. I logged in to find more than 900 comments that have yet to be approved. If any of my crew – you know yourselves – wish to help me as I go through these comments, shoot me a mail ( what a weird expression if ever we use one) and I appreciate your help.

    3) Mwangi is not dead I am still very much alive and still a resident of Australia. If you have any questions or anything you want to know my contacts are all over.

    4) I am working on the theme and the backend….promise

    5) I don’t like spell checking. I simply love to write

    B blesd and bles othaz,

    Mwangi

AWF Blog

  • Gorilla Twins, a New Baby and Growing Community

    Posted: December 14, 2009, 6:25 pm by admin

    Wobbling down what seems like an endless descent from the lofty perches of Nkuringo Ridge, the village of Kahurire in the patchwork of green hollows below looks tiny no matter how close we get to it, like a scattering of child’s playhouses neatly arranged in neighbor friendly concentric circles.  The ragged leaves of the banana trees and deep red earth of Kahurire’s paths snake through the valley like bursting capillaries, the lifeblood of this patch of farmland on the forest’s edge.

    Just as we pass Kahurire and its early morning chorus of chattering children, our guide Herbert comes to a complete halt.  There is movement in the valley just west of the village – something romping through the long golden grass that flows in all directions from the wall of trees on the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.  It’s low to the ground and dense.  Herbert hands me the binoculars.  The Nkuringo gorilla group has decided on a jaunt outside of Bwindi today, and I spot Park rangers in their everyday green fatigues coaxing them back: out of the community’s bean fields and back into Bwindi’s dense sanctuary.  Today the rangers are on the spot, but when gorillas leave the forest they often encounter community members.  Here, the HUGO (Human Gorilla Conflict) team, an IGCP assisted project springs into action using their extensive training to encourage the gorillas to re-enter the forest.

    When we finally reach the gullies beyond the bean fields (gorillas do not actually like the bean plants for food and leave them alone, the rangers tell me) the family has scattered, but still has time to be cheeky: the newly silvered silverback Bahati, who has graduated from blackback status the last time I saw him, still plays the rebellious teenager and starts chasing us through the rustling ferns, which have turned reddish-brown under the high country sun.   After one or two bluffs, he settles into a spot near some tasty trees and ignores us, deciding a snack is more important than making this pale ape tumble backwards down the almost vertical slopes.

    Bahati, newly silverbacked, pauses for a snack.

    As Bahati tucks beneath the vegetation, Kwitonda emerges on the knob above us with her two fuzzy and precious packages clinging tightly to her back: the brother and sister twins Karunge and Muhozi, who were born just over a year ago.  Gorilla twins are rare. Rarer yet is both surviving past their first year.  Muhozi and Kaurunge both look healthy to these untrained eyes, and the rangers inform me they are doing just fine.

    Kwitonda emerges with brother and sister twins Karunge and Muhozi.

    There is rustling all around us and we follow Kwitonda up the hill, but it is hard to spot anything in the wall of ferns and grass.  As we double around and pass above the lounging Bahati we get lucky: there is Mama Christmas with her tiny two week-old baby, which she is vigilantly sheltering under her arm beneath her breast.  My mission today was to get photos of the newborn, but I am no match for a protective mother: I can only get a few fleeting glances and blurry snaps before she whisks the fragile youngster through some dense brush and out of site.

    Mama Christmas with her tiny two week-old baby.

    I have to content myself with Rafiki (“Friend”), the mellow silverback with the massive head who has perched himself on another impossibly steep hill and is stuffing his mouth with leaves and young shoots, occasionally closing his eyes in a sleepy haze like a sports fan with a protruding belly on the sofa drifting into a nap after a long day of overdosing on football and food.    We keep him company during the voracious munching, and blissfully content in his food wonderland, he doesn’t stir as we retreat for the muscle taxing hike back up the ridge, which by now is sticky hot with late morning sun.

    The Nkuringo family has increased from 18 to 20 members since my last visit.  They are healthy, safe and content, and their progress seems inextricably linked to that of their human neighbors in and around Nkuringo Village.  Later, I have a nice chat with Gervase Tumwebaze, the ebullient Head of the Nkuringo Community Development Foundation, the local organization partnered with IGCP and Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge that turns the benefits from gorilla tourism into development benefits for an increasing number of households in the area.  Gervase mentions current projects: a water extension project for a village, Nyabaremura, which had no source, pig and cow distribution which places the animals’ offspring back into the community’s needy families, school fee support for local nursing students, conservation of pocket forests outside of the National Park, development of school gardens.

    Walking through the village I meet up with Simeo, who has benefited from the cow project.  He points to his cow’s young calf, which bounces around his pasture below the village.  When the calf is old enough, it will go to another local family in need, and Simeo will get to keep his cow, which will produce milk for his family and for sale, as well as additional calves.  “The benefits go to both my family and others in the area,” states Simeo, proudly showing off a living benefit of NCDF’s work that has already had a positive impact on the families of this remote mountain hamlet stashed between the impenetrable green of Bwindi Forest and the vast expanse of the Virunga Volcano chain.  It’s a rare site, and rare treat, indeed, to witness the progress of so many families, human and hairy.

    - Jamie Kemsey

  • Charlotte Fellows Follow-Up

    Posted: December 4, 2009, 12:52 am by admin

    A big hearty HELLO!

    A few weeks back, I wrote to you all about the African Wildlife Foundation’s (AWF) Charlotte Fellows Program, which is a fellowship offered specifically to African nationals seeking their full or partial Ph.D. or Master’s degrees in conservation, biological sciences (see my original post here). As you no doubt will recall, I promised that as soon as I had word I would let you all know about the newest crop of students who will make up the Charlotte Fellows class of 2009-2010. Well, guess what? The word is in!

    As AWF recently expanded our work into western Africa (you’ll be hearing more on that very soon!), we specifically restricted the application process to students from West Africa. These future leaders of African wildlife conservation are as varied as any class we’ve ever seen – and just as brilliant.

    The roan antelope is one of the many fabulous antelope species found in West Africa. © Shana Laursen

    I present to you now the AWF Charlotte Fellows class of 2009-2010:

    Etotepe A. Sogbohossou is  a lion lover from Benin who is working towards a Ph.D. in Conservation Biology at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands.

    Issa Nassourou is from Niger and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Geography at the Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey, Niger.

    Boubacar Boureima is also from Niger and like Issa, is currently working towards his Master’s degree in Natural Resource Management, also, at the Abdou Moumouni University in Niger. He is studying the manatees of the Niger River (Betcha didn’t even know Africa had manatees, did ya’?).

    Mohamadou Habibou Gabou is from the nation of Niger (wow- Niger has really represented for this class!) and is working to earn a Master’s degree in Natural Resource Management at, you guessed it, Abdou Moumouni University in Niger.

    Isidore Ogoudje Amahowe is from Benin and is  pursuing his Master’s degree in Analysis of Wildlife Populations at the Rural Development Institute, Bobo-Dioulasso University Polytechnic.

    Amelie Traore Hien is from Burkina Faso and is conducting research on ecosystem degradation in the Kou sub-basin in her homeland while studying for a Master’s degree in Protected Area Management at the International Institute of Water Engineering and Environment in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso.

    Congratulations to our newest class of fellows! For more information on our new fellows, please visit us on our website here.

    Wait! Before You Go…
    As most of you know by now, here at AWF, we believe in empowering people as much as we believe in conserving and protecting wildlife. Our Charlotte Fellows program is living proof of this belief. However, just because the application process is closed for our 2009-2010 fellows class doesn’t mean you can’t still lend a helping hand to future African conservationists. Please visit us here to lend support to our Charlotte Conservation Fellowship Program and here to buy school supplies for our youngest future conservationists: the primary students at AWF’s Manyara Ranch School in our Maasai Steppe Heartland.

  • Two Flying…Foxes?

    Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:40 am by admin

    “I was recently reading a wildlife book in a train station to pass some time, when I thought I saw something about flying foxes. My train got called just as I was about to read the info so I’m still wondering if there really is such a thing as a flying fox?!”

    –Jacob, Chattanooga, TN, U.S.A.

    Your eyes were not deceiving you: there IS such a thing as a flying fox!

    Now, before anyone gets too excited (or weirded out), the flying fox (of the family Pteropodidae) isn’t what your imaginations are thinking it is: a cute, little red fox with wings or some type of folded skin that allows it to glide through the air with the greatest of ease. The flying fox is not really a fox at all- it’s a bat.

    Actually, to be more precise, it’s a mega bat which is exactly what it sounds like- they are mega-big bats, the largest in the world and they are not the stereotypical bloodsuckers- flying foxes are fruit bats and are only found in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world.

    This Rodrigues flying fox is native to Mauritius. © Martin Werker

    There are approximately 173 species of flying fox in the world. The flying fox pictured above is a Rodrigues flying fox (Pteropus rodricensus), and is native to the island of Rodrigues (hence its name), an island of Mauritius. As a native islander, the Rodrigues flying fox is quite sociable and lives in large, patriarchal groups (with a dominant male at the helm) with several females and their offspring. Like all fruit bats, our guy loves…fruit! Particular favorites are tamarinds, rose-apples, mangoes, palms and figs. It can reach up to1lbs. in weight and has a wingspan of approximately 35 inches. And our guy isn’t even the largest of the mega bat species: some mega bats can reach close to 3 lbs. in weight with wingspans of more than 5 feet!

    Flying foxes get their misnomer due to the species’ overall appearance: their tuft of fur, large eyes and pointy ears give their faces a similar appearance to a small fox and since they have wings…well, you can figure out the rest.

    Like many species in Africa loss of habitat is a main threat to population numbers. Since the Rodrigues flying fox is endemic to only one island in the world, its population is completely at the mercy of tropical storms that blow through its island home: its population took a huge hit in 1979 due to damage from Cyclone Celine II, which dropped the population from a few hundred to approximately 70. Thankfully, the 1980’s saw a comeback of sorts and now this fruit eatin’, pollen drinkin’, seed spittin’ critter numbers around 4,000 on its island turf.

    Did You Know …

    • Flying foxes are great for the environment: while eating fruit, they carry their treasured treats with them and spit out any seeds on the forest floor, thereby replanting flora as they fly about.
    • Flying foxes have a great ‘green thumb’: while milling about in front of flowers, the flying fox extends its long tongue to get at the pollen inside the flower. The pollen passes onto the bat, which then pollinates the next flower it approaches for more pollen to eat.
    • Many species of flying fox are threatened with extinction due to the bush meat trade: in many areas of West Africa, for example, flying fox meat is considered a delicacy.
    • Flying foxes belong to an order of mammals called Chiroptera, which means ‘hard wing.’

Since'97 :: David Mugo's Think Lines - Kenyan Politics, Views and Opinions :: A blog by David Mugo

  • Make Free Calls to Any U.S.A. or Canada Business Number!

    Posted: November 1, 2009, 7:47 pm by admin

    As the Telkoms industry gets deeper into modern technology, calls are getting cheaper to run and the small margins that are left to be made are high competed for. I came across one company offering free calls to any business number in the USA or Canada. I found this handy because I did not need to download any software to make a call, it has an in-built flash application that works as the phone.

    YakFree is a great service, so I can conclude after I used them to make a call to my host in the USA and the call lasted 16 minutes – for free! I found that rather impressing, for a free service that gives excellent quality and its a touch-tone enabled phone, meaning you can go through the IVR systems very well.

    It comes with a partner programme that allows you to place a call button on your site and this makes it even handy for business owners to have. Try it today, its worth each moment.

  • How to Make Your Facebook Home to Display Status Messages

    Posted: October 29, 2009, 9:54 pm by admin

    Facebook Homepage

    Facebook addicts and those of us who can’t get through a day without getting to Facebook are a little disappointed by the new look of the home page, confusing with what they are calling “Live Feeds” and “Live News Updates”. Being one of the frustrated fanatics, I have discovered a simple way to take back Facebook to the good old home page it was.

    Please take the following steps and continue enjoying the familiar facebook interface you are used to.

    1. Login to your Facebook account.
    2. If it does not take you to the default home page, click on home.
    3. You should see the stream that is now your homepage with Live Feeds and Live News.
    4. On the left bar, you will see the usual menu with News Feeds, Photos, Links…etc
    5. Under it you will see “More..”
    6. Click on the more.
    7. When the full menu is loaded, you will see “Status Updates as one of the items.
    8. Click on it and drag it to the top.
    9. Refresh your page and there you are! Enjoy the familiar Facebook that you are used to.

    You can leave a comment here if you like it or if you have other tricks to get around facebook.

  • Safaricom Launches Flight, Bus & Train Booking System

    Posted: October 22, 2009, 8:35 pm by admin

    Another innovative from Safaricom and Bernsoft, I must say that this is an edge and a proper show of implementation of what we thought was only potential in Africa. Mobile operator Safaricom today launched a system that has been on its portal on a testing basis for a few months now.  Branded EasyTravelPoint, the system enables users to check availability, book and pay for tickets from their mobile phone with the service which is intergrated with Safaricom’s popular payment and money transfer system, M-Pesa.

    The system developed by Bernsoft currently allows users to book flights from East Africa Safari Air, ALS and Air Kenya. You can book buses between Kenya’s main towns from Akamba and Crown Bus Services. You can also book Rift Valley Railways trains.

    This comes as a series of products are being launched all over East Africa with the better connectivity opening the markets for online business. Safaricom’s M-Pesa, though weak when it comes to online transaction, has become really popular and the most favorable way to pay in Kenya.

    While online business starts getting its roots in Kenya and East Africa, there is a need for banking institutions to come up with products that will promote online business or negotiate with international payment gateways to provide local businesses with a solution for payment.

    All in all, this is a great step and Kenya is a step ahead, thanks to Safaricom and Bernsoft.

  • Windows 7 Launches In A Few Hours

    Posted: October 21, 2009, 12:55 am by admin

    The official launch for Microsoft’s new OS premiers on 22nd October 2009 with a series of events expected for about 7 days with Microsoft chief officials. Computer stores worldwide are awaiting a huge excitement and better sales than Windows Vista which is said to have been a great success for Microsoft.

    The new operating system is said to be lighter and faster than Windows Vista which has faced lots of criticism for being slow and using up too much system resources. Microsoft has worked on a user interface that is familiar to Mac and Unix users to be able to tap into the users of its close competitors.

    Windows 7 boots up more quickly and is designed to work on low cost portable machines known as netbooks.

    Most analysts say that the launch is low key compared to previous product launches.

    The pre-orders were costing as low as £49.99 while any Vista purchased after June of this year qualifies for a free upgrade. A Home Premium edition of the software will cost £79.99 until 1 January 2010, at which point it will go up to £99.99.

    During the Beta or Trial period, Windows 7 has performed well and gained a lot of praise but being new one needs to be aware that like all software, new comes with more bugs.

  • Google PR No Longer a Determinant for Result Ranking

    Posted: October 21, 2009, 4:10 pm by admin

    The notion that Google PageRank is a key determinant in ranking on the World’s most dominant search engine turns out to be untrue after all. Google just dropped PageRank from its webmaster tools which is something they have been slowing doing for months now. However, its notable that PR is still on the Google Toolbar.

    Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa explained “We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true,” says Moskwa. “We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.”

    While ranking algorithms have changed with time, Google has slowly been discouraging people from paying too much attention on PR saying that its only a minor tool and just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. For a long time, PR has just been a comfort bed for SEO noobs.

    Meanwhile, Google encourages use of its analytic tools conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business.

AWF Blog

  • Studying Conservation

    Posted: October 13, 2009, 9:28 pm by admin

    “I am a university student from Zambia trying to obtain my Ph.D. in animal ecology.  Is there any grant or scholarship you offer that can help me with payment for school?”

    -Jeremiah, Karasburg, Zambia, Southern Africa

    Yes! AWF is committed to improving the capacity of Africans for conservation management in Africa. For African nationals seeking their Masters or Ph.D. degrees in conservation biological sciences, AWF has created the Charlotte Conservation Fellows Program and each year, we support a selected number of outstanding post-graduate students through our fellowship. In fact, we are getting ready to announce our new class of Fellows any day. I’ll be sure to post the names as soon as they are officially announced.

    Gettin’ down to business: AWF’s Zambezi Heartland team, headed up by 2006-2007 Charlotte Conservation fellow Jimmiel Mandima (seated in red cap) in a planning session. (Photo Credit ©: African Wildlife Foundation)

    Since AWF was founded in 1961, we have always held that Africans are the rightful stewards of Africa’s natural resources. As resources can be very limited to achieve this goal, AWF created the fellowship to help give as big a leg up to African students working in field conservation and sustainable development as possible. Created in 1996 in tribute to late philanthropist and conservationist, Charlotte Appleton Kidder Ramsay, AWF offers scholarships for full MSc. or partial Ph.D. programs with field research components relating to conservation challenges. Each year, the Charlotte Fellows supports up to five fellows and since its inception, the fellowship has helped more than 40 students from East, West, Central and Southern Africa pursue graduate degrees in varying fields of conservation sciences.

    Although selection for our 2009 fellows class is over, please visit us here to learn more and here to take a look at the application process and to learn about eligibility (which changes each year). If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact the fellowship directly at charlottefellowship@awfke.org.

    Wait! Before You Go…

    In my very first blog post I let you all know that as much as I love animals, one species in particular holds the key to my heart: the African wild dog. As a dog lover, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you all that October is the official Adopt-A-Dog month. Now, as much as I totally support you going down to your local animal shelter to rescue the newest member(s) of your family, I also don’t want you to forget Africa’s doggies, either. After the lion, African wild dogs are the second most hunted carnivore in Africa. At one time as many as half a million wild dogs roamed in 39 African nations, now their numbers fall between 3,000-5,000 in fewer than 15 countries. So join the pack and help AWF help the African wild dog by adopting Kerubo or an acre (or more) of land via our adoption center or by taking action and supporting AWF’s African Wild Dog Conservation Program.

Since'97 :: David Mugo's Think Lines - Kenyan Politics, Views and Opinions :: A blog by David Mugo

  • Free Adobe Photoshop for iPhone Launched

    Posted: October 10, 2009, 5:48 pm by admin

    Adobe has launched a sleek application, Photoshop App for iPhone which lets you edit pictures professionally from your phone and your photoshop.com account. This was launched Friday 9th 2009 giving iPhone owners the edge in image editing while on the move.

    On launching the app you are prompted to select a photo from your phone or take a new one. A simple toolbar-style drop-down menu interface lets you choose from a list of tools and effects including crop, rotate, and flip, exposure, saturation and tint adjustments, and easy to apply filters including black and white, sketch, soft focus, pop, border, vignette blur, warm vintage, rainbow, soft black and white and white glow.

    Below is a panel that allows you to Cancel, Close, Save, Upload, Undo and Red0 applied effects or edits.  Saving makes a copy of the edited image on your storage on the phone and upload allows you to login to your photoshop.com account  or create a new one. To me, this is a new level in image storage and editing. As always, Adobe makes another hit, lets hope they follow suite with Blackberry Apps and other phones.

    Anyone using the app please leave a comment here about the experience.

  • Using Facebook Pages, Groups & Paid Ads for Traffic Generation

    Posted: October 10, 2009, 4:04 pm by admin

    Facebook is the biggest social network on the internet today. With over 300 million users worldwide and at least 150 million logins each day, nothing comes close. Based on statistics found on their Press Releases, Facebook’s fastest growing demographic  is those 35 years old and above, making it the best place to reach people who you can easily convert to customers for your business. People know that you can use Facebook for traffic generation to your website but very few people have the correct means to do that.  You have a business running online and the more people you can get to view your website the more customers you can get.

    Here are a few tips I have learned from experience and research throughout the time I have been on Facebook as just a social platform or as a place for traffic generation. There are a few ways you can advertise for free on using Facebook, here is a few ways:

    1. Status Updates on Your Profile:
    Whenever you update your status message on Facebook, your friends (in this case its the people you have added as friends on Facebook) can see it when they log in on the homepage stream. This may not have an impact as so big because you can only reach the number of friends you have and most likely only half of them will get to see your update because say for instance, I have 700 friends, if I log in, I can only see about 40 updates on my homepage. With 700 friends, there is a good chance that more than 40 of them will have an update each hour meaning unless am on Facebook the whole time, I will miss most of the updates. Again, consistent advertising on Facebook Status makes people loose interest because that is not what the Status update is meant for.

    2. Facebook Groups
    Facebook groups have been over used as a means of advertising by a lot of people although in my view, its not very effective. Groups allow administrators to send messages to uses directly into their inbox, users can reply to everyone and threads can continue endlessly. There are also discussions that are allowed on the groups page and there is a wall that user can post into.  Group advertising may not be very effective as only members interested in the groups can go to the groups homepage. A lot of people join groups that they never return to just because they were invited by a friend or the group had a catchy title.

    3. Facebook Notes
    Facebook allows you to write articles and post them on your profile, allowing you to tag friends which means your friends and their friends can view, comment and share the notes. This to me is a great way of spreading word on new things and it makes the network larger. Creatively written notes can really work to help you market your product or website.

    4. Facebook Events
    When you create a Facebook event, you can invite your friends and their friends can invite their friends. This means your event gets multi-level advertising from the list of your friends. This works but it takes a huge interest in the list of people to start spreading word about your event.

    5. Facebook Pages
    Ask me, I will tell you that this is the most effective tool on Facebook. When you create a page for your business or product, it allows members to become fans/supporters. Facebook pages allow unlimited number of fans and this means unlike friendships which are limited to 5000, you can keep close contact with your fans. The page now has a profile of its own with picture galleries, status updates, wall and almost all the features of the normal profile page. This means that if you have 30,000 fans and you update your status, the message is shown on your fan’s homepage. This gets a huge reaction and it translates to proper traffic. The fact that it allows you to stream updates into the fan’s inbox is an added advantage, you can send messages to all your fans as updates. It also allows members to post on your wall and you can discuss things just on the wall which is the most common way of communication on facebook.

    6. Facebook Paid Ads
    Facebook pay-per-click ads work more like Google Adwords although they are more specific on demographics. You can choose to target people aged 30-35 from Nairobi, specific to gender and interests. This makes it a huge value for money. Basically if you have money to spend on advertising, my advice is you spend it on Facebook.

    In conclusion, Facebook can be a great source of traffic for your website or business, if you were to take advantage of all of the above factors, you will achieve great results. My advice before you pay for a Facebook ad, create a fan page first and advertise the page instead of advertising your external website directly. Below are a few reasons why I think this is more effective than direct advertising:

    1. Facebook Pages are more like permanent advertisements because you keep your fans from the moment they join.
    2. Its cheaper to advertise.
    3. When you create a new fan, you create a connection that will allow you to be able to continuously communicate with your fans while if you advertise your website directly, one may click and if at the moment they are not interested, they will never remember the website to go back to it.
    4. When a member becomes a fan of your page, all their friends can see it as part of the wall streams and that means that they can also get into it out of curiosity or interest.

    If you would like to publish this article anywhere, please feel free to contact us for permission and endorsement.

  • Africa’s Answer to Yahoo Answers – Majibu.com Review

    Posted: October 10, 2009, 11:46 am by admin

    Screenshot of Majibu.com

    Relatively new, Majibu.com is a Question and Answer website that in my view is the perfect answer to Yahoo Answers in Africa. As the internet industry and Africa’s connectivity grows, the need for locally generated content is big. While we have lots of our services dependent on traditional western and European websites, I think its time we challenged us to create our own. While the concepts we use may be borrowed, we need to localize our websites and software. This is precisely why I find Majibu.com a necessary website in Africa.

    Majibu.com is clearly a copy of the functionality of Yahoo Answers. Majibu is Swahili for Answers. Anyone can register, ask and answer questions. It has a point system that ranks users just as Yahoo Answers. The questions are categorized broadly with main issues affecting societies in Africa and the questions and answers are not moderated (you can report abuse).

    While the domain is only 2 months old, it has an Alexa Ranking of 898,693 with main traffic coming from Kenya and South Africa. It ranks well compared to website that have been online for years and it shows that with time, it can be a centre for great content. As of now, there are no ads running on the site which I guess is due to the fact that its still new but I suppose that should be the main source of income on the site.

    The site is well built and from my guess, it runs on the Zend Framework and is Web 2.0 compliant. The registration process is simple and straight forward although users need to confirm email addresses.

    This is an independent review if you feel you have any comments on the site, you can leave them here or directly contact the administrators. If you have a website that you would like us to review, please feel free to contact us.

  • FrontlineSMS – A Great 2-Way SMS Software

    Posted: October 9, 2009, 11:47 am by admin

    FrontlineSMS Screenshot

    SMS has become among the most popular ways of communication due to the fact that mobile usage has increased over the last few years and mobile operators are present in even the most remote areas of the world. Cost is also another factor that has made SMS usage increase, its cheap, precise and personal.  It becomes even better when you can communicate to thousands of people with a single message from your computer and allow them to reply to you. I have been looking for a solution that can allow me to turn my computer into an intelligent communication centre for my messaging…I found it!

    FrontlineSMS, developed by Kiwanja.net is a great tool. For me, it has provided all I needed with my messaging. It is built for NGOs and community services but I will focus on what it can do. It has enabled me to set a messaging service, setup automated keyword based responses and its given me all the advantages I could have with a premium rate number except the short code.

    Basically, FrontlineSMS is award-winning free, open source software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones. What you communicate is up to you, making FrontlineSMS useful in many different ways.

    Frontline SMS supports a great number of phones and GSM modems, automatically detecting whatever phones you have connected to your computer and letting you configure what you want to use.

    According to the official website, here is what is different in Frontline SMS:

    • It does not require an Internet connection.
    • It works with your existing plan on all GSM phones, modems and networks.
    • Attach a phone and SIM card, and pay your local operator per SMS as usual.
    • It is laptop-based so it can be used on the road or during power outages.
    • It stores all phone numbers and records all incoming and outgoing messages.
    • All data lives on a local computer, not on servers controlled by someone else.
    • It is scalable. Messages can be sent to individuals or large groups.
    • It enables two-way communication, useful for fieldwork or during surveys.
    • It is easy to install and requires little or no training to use.
    • Developers can freely take the source code and add their own features.
    • It can be used anywhere in the world simply by switching the SIM card.

    You could request a download which is free at Frontline SMS

  • Download Free Magazine Theme for Wordpress

    Posted: October 8, 2009, 1:57 am by admin

    Searching for the right Wordpress theme among millions of themes is not an easy task. I came across the Arras Magazine Theme which I totally loved and did a few modifications on it to come up with what I have been at Since97.com. Here are the modifications I did:

    • Moved the navigation menu to the top
    • The top menu publishes categories
    • Inactive categories published too
    • Colors and CSS style a little modified
    • Used image logo instead of text

    The modified magazine theme free download

    Feel free to download a copy of the original theme from the Arras theme website or a copy of my modified version here below.
    Download File: Since97 Magazine Theme (334)

    Please note that this modification is free for distribution and all credits go to the creators of the Arras Magazine Theme.

  • Google Sandbox: Are You a Victim of the Sandbox Effect?

    Posted: October 8, 2009, 12:47 am by admin

    Being one of the SEO experts in Africa from experience gained in the last 8 years, I will share a couple of things I have learned with time and hope that I can be of help to you in this field. You must have heard of the sandbox effect (if not, do not worry, I will explain it to you). Do you have a site that you think has all the SEO standards and is still not ranking as required? Are you wondering what it is that you have done or not done? Well it might not be anything you have done, it could be the sandbox effect preventing your results from ranking well – here is a slight explanation of what it is and how to get out of it.

    First see if you have the following signs:

    • Pages do not rank for exact title matches.
    • The website is outranked for clearly navigational queries (the name of the website with exclusion of www. and .com, for example “hostkenya”).
    • Site ranks well in other search engines but not Google.

    If you have the above signs, it means either of two things:

    1. You could be banned from google results.
    2. You could be sandboxed.

    To find out which exactly it is, you search using the following command:

    site:www.hostkenya.net (replacing hostkenya.net with your website).

    If the results contain pages from your website, it means you were sandboxed. If it contains nothing, you were banned from the results. You could reverse this by contacting Google with an inclusion request after making sure you have taken care of all the issues that could have possibly gotten you banned.

    How Do You Get Out of the Google Sandbox?
    Unfortunately, there is nothing much you can do to get out of the sandbox than wait until Google decides to release you. On average, it takes about 6 months to get out. In the meantime, you can develop your site to make it better, optimize it so that when its released, you can enjoy good ranking. You could be lucky to get off quicker if you have high profile domains linking to you.

    The sandbox exists to prevent spammers from gaining high ranking on Google so as to end up giving the customer high quality results on the search engine which is the most popular tool for finding information online.

  • What is Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.)?

    Posted: October 8, 2009, 11:34 pm by admin

    References from Wikipedia.org
    Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.

    As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

    The acronym “SEO” can also refer to “search engine optimizers,” a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.

    Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

  • HostKenya has Upgraded

    Posted: October 7, 2009, 9:38 pm by admin

    We are glad to annouce that HostKenya Dot Net will from now on be offering online resources and advice on various issues on the web from the experience we have acquired within the last 5 years we have ran this website. HostKenya will still continue providing quality web hosting services and support for our existing clients.

    We shall keep you informed on new trends in technology especially in the web and mobile industry, we shall provide downloads for necessary resources, provide links to good sites that can help you as a website owner or developer become better.  We shall work hand in hand with you, please provide us with your idea on how to make this better, lets work together to grow our continent.

    David.

The Displaced African

  • Hello world!

    Posted: September 26, 2009, 1:53 pm by admin

    Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

AWF Blog

  • Leopard Sightings in the Kruger

    Posted: August 28, 2009, 12:59 am by admin

    I wanted to give you a quick update while Nakedi is away: after a long time of not finding any leopards, and getting very discouraged, I was thrilled recently to get some great data on the leopards that use the concesson. A few of the camera traps at different times captured three different leopards–two males and a female. After encountering only tracks for the longest time, and wondering whether even these were just tricks of the eye, it was a great relief to see lepoards alive and well for the purposes of the project. The elephants of Kruger, though, are not so great for the project. They recently damaged two cameras beyond repair, and now we will have to find funds to buy more. Although we have succeeded in protecting the cameras from hyenas, we just haven’t yet been able to protect them from the big guy. We’ll just have to keep experimenting.

    Nakedi is doing well at Oxford but is eager to get back to his leopards—I’ll try to see if he can give us an update soon on what it’s like to be out of the field for so long. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this photo of surely the most beautiful of the three leopards photographed recently.

    Winner -- best looking. © AWF

  • Putting Out the Fire

    Posted: August 7, 2009, 8:17 pm by admin

    Hi everybody. This is Media, the Programme Officer for IGCP Rwanda. It’s taken me a bit of time, but I wanted to write about the recent fire in Volcanoes National Park and all of the heroic efforts of people working in and living near the Park to put it out. Fortunately, the mountain gorillas IGCP works to protect were nowhere near the flames, but we are honored to have joined all the brave people who helped contain the destructive fire.

    It started on what seemed like an ordinary weekend. I got a call in the morning from a beekeeper telling me that Volcanoes National Park was on fire! At that time, however, I didn’t realize the magnitude of his words.  I immediately contacted the park authorities only to be informed that they had just received the information and started mobilizing communities. For me, I thought “well this is just a one-day matter, then we can go back to our normal life, especially during the busiest time of the year in the Park: tourism high season.”

    The fire rages on Muhabura Volcano. © IGCP

    I was very wrong. Saturday evening I got a call from the Park’s law enforcement warden rushing back to Musanze from his school in Kibungo to deal with the fire emergency.  On Sunday during lunchtime, I was anxious and decided to call him regarding the progress in putting out the fire. “Do you know what Media? I have never seen this before.  If it continues to spread at this speed it will take three weeks to get rid of it!” he exclaimed. “What? Then the whole park would be gone!” I countered. On my way to Musanze near the Park from Kigali that day I checked to see if I could see the fire from the road, but could not see a thing.

    Fire spreading in the ravines of Muhabura Volcano. © IGCP

    On Monday morning, I decided to go into the field and see for myself what was happening and what IGCP could do to help. I had been informed that some people spent the night there, led by the warden in charge of law enforcement. Thus I passed through town to buy something for the teams, such as water, juice, biscuits and chocolates. In the Cyanika area we could see smoke in the forest from the road. The village was completely emptied of young men, and women were cooking for people fighting the fire in the forest.

    On community land we met exhausted people coming back from fighting the fire. “Hi madam!  Are you coming to help us to put out fire?” I was asked by one exhausted and sooty man. “Yes we need everyone for this work and we will get rid of it today”, he added. “For us we are going to rest a bit and come back in the afternoon to replace our friends; it will end today. We will make sure!”

    I started climbing the volcano, meeting various people on the way: military, police, community members. Everyone had brought whatever they were able to find: pangas (machetes), hoes, sticks – just anything they had to fight the fire. I finally reached the Park boundary completely exhausted, and said to myself that the people who went up to fight the fire are brave. Climbing these endless steep hills and the volcano, one needs to be patriotic and a true conservationist! The terrain was extremely difficult in some areas where people had to try and extinguish the fire in ravines, climbing over big hot rocks. People were really selfless in this exercise.

    A fire fighting team treks up the mountain to battle the blaze. © IGCP

    On top I met up with the chief park warden, the executive secretary of Cyanika sector and the police commander of Northern Province. One hour later we were joined by the vice mayor of Burera District, the governor of Northern Province, and even the minister in charge of Natural resources. The Minister made the trek? What an encouragement for the teams! The fire on Muhabura Volcano was not only the local communities’/park authorities’ problem anymore, but a national and transboundary problem.  The fire had crossed the Rwanda border into Uganda, and on the other side teams from Uganda joined their Rwanda counterparts to put it out.

    In the meantime, a military helicopter flew overhead, monitoring both areas.  A minute later another one equipped with a water pump dropped water in an area where the fire was raging on the Uganda side. They continued the same exercise until late in the evening. The coordination of all the teams and helicopters was amazing.

    A fire fighting helicopter drops water on a hot spot. © IGCP

    While discussing our continued response with the park warden, we decided to call in organized groups, such as volunteers who work with park staff for different conservation activities, and buy dry rations for them so they could spend the night in the forest extinguishing the fire. Many came during the evening, and on Tuesday more people came: approximately 4,000 from the disaster management center, police, military, Tigistes from Northern Province (genocidaires who do community work in lieu of jail time), local communities and park staff.

    The teams worked intensively and laboriously in collaboration with the Uganda teams to contain the fire by Wednesday at 5:00 PM. Job well done, they met to share drinks and boiled maize at a primary school in Cyanika before the trucks dropped them off in their villages and camps.  We eventually found out the beekeeper accidentally started the fire when high winds took a flame he was carrying to keep back bees while harvesting honey near the Park, which ignited the surrounding grass, eventually spreading to the Park.

    Teams being thanked by the authorities for their selfless contribution in putting out the fire. © IGCP

    In the aftermath, authorities thanked the teams and urged local communities to communicate in a timely manner these kinds of accidents, as well as avoid activities that can harm them and/or the Park. Everyone was dead on their feet, but you could see satisfaction in their eyes for a job well done.  And luckily, the fire was in an area not known to be frequented by gorillas, with all groups reported out of harm’s way.  Gorilla and human families safe, the clean up and rehabilitation process for the affected Park areas has now begun.

  • Ch-Ch-Charge It!

    Posted: July 31, 2009, 9:44 pm by admin

    “Hi, Erin! I have an AWF credit card and I would like to know what percentage of each purchase I make actually goes towards AWF? Does my using an AWF credit card help AWF and the animals of Africa at all?”
    –Monica, Grand Rapids, MI, U.S.A.

    Monica, thank you very much for helping the wildlife of Africa and AWF by owning an AWF credit card!

    For those of you who may not be aware, a few years ago AWF developed a VISA credit card in partnership with the U.S. Bank. The cards come with an array of reward programs as well as designs featuring some of your favorite African species: elephant, lion, giraffe and mountain gorilla.

    The application of and use of an AWF credit card truly does help AWF, and here’s how:

    (1) AWF receives $3.00 for each new credit card account opened.

    (2) In addition, AWF receives $3.00 for each credit card account that has a balance greater than zero on the last business day of every 12th month after the account was opened (i.e. $3 per c/c per year); and

    (3) AWF receives 0.20% of every purchase made using the AWF U.S. Bank VISA Card.

    For more information on the AWF VISA credit card or to apply for an AWF VISA credit card, please visit us here.

    The four faces of AWF: card designs for AWF’s VISA credit card.

    Wait! Before You Go…

    With school still a few weeks away, a great activity for kids is just a mouse click away — adopt an African animal through AWF. In addition to receiving a great plush toy, our four-color newsletter, and other educational information, you’ll be helping a child learn an important lesson–that African wildlife needs all of our help if it is to survive. In the fall, you might even encourage your child’s whole class to get involved in spreading the word about the plight of Africa’s wildlife. I’ll have more ideas on that in future posts.

  • Maasai Steppe Lion

    Posted: July 23, 2009, 11:51 pm by admin

    Here's a photo of one of the lions we observed recently in the Maasai Steppe. © Rae Wynn-Grant

    Hi, this is Rae Winn again.  I wanted to quickly share a photo of one of the lions  I wrote about recently.  No news yet on the missing cubs.  We are out on field exercises for much of July, but I’ll write as soon as there is an update on the cubs or a chance to share some field notes.  I hope you enjoy the photo.

Concept Advisory Services

  • Financial Planning In Kenya: An Insight into What Works

    Posted: July 23, 2009, 6:58 pm by admin

    An Insight into Personal Financial Planning
    Meet John and Carol, a middle income couple who were recently married and are in their early thirties. John, an accountant at an insurance firm in Nairobi earns a net salary of approximately sh55,000. Mary a marketing executive also based in Nairobi and works at a pharmaceutical firm earns a net salary of sh40,000 after statutory deductions. They live in a rental house in Nairobi West. After meeting all their expenses, they have a combined net saving of sh15,000 monthly.

    Too many of us have money as an obsessive concern in our lives without really thinking what we are really living for. The pursuit of money should not be the central concern about your life but rather its management in order to reach lifetime objectives such is buying a home, planning your children’s education, planning a comfortable life in retirement etc. It’s not about whether John and Carol are able to save sh15,000 but whether that amount will enable them meet their goals of buying a home, educating their children, investing in assets that will supplement their retirement income etc; that’s what financial planning is about.

    Personal financial planning involves setting objectives and devising a road map to help you achieve those goals based on your financial position. If I were to buy a house in the next 10 years, how can I achieve that? What are my options? What should I start working on today to achieve that goal?

    A financial planner will help you identify as many alternatives as possible and also help you re-evaluate your goals and time frame; the goal of the financial plan is to make it as realistic and practical to achieve as possible.
    The general steps one should take in creating a personal financial plan are:-
    •    Identify personal and family financial goals. Goals are based on what is most important to an individual and could be further classified into:
    1.    Short-term goals (up to a year) such as buying certain house-hold appliances, taking an annual holiday trip etc.
    2.    Long-term goals identify what one wants later on in life such as purchasing a home, education for children, sufficient retirement income etc.
    •    Take the short and long-term goals and establish priorities. Then estimate the cost of each goal and set a target date to reach it.
    •    Analyze your present financial position. Your income, expenditures, savings, investments and debts if any.
    •    Based on your financial position, identify financial strategies for achieving these objectives.(you may engage a financial advisor to help with this)
    A financial plan is comprehensive document and is made up of the following general components and tackles some of the questions that follow:-
    o    Budgeting and Saving-Am I saving enough to finance my goals? Do I have an emergency fund? How can I reduce my expenditure or increase my income?
    o    Investment management- Are my investments helping me achieve my goals? Do I want a steady income from my investments? Are there investment alternatives in the market offering a higher return? Am I prepared to risk losing my investment principal?
    o    Risk Management through insurance- If I suffered a major medical hospitalization, will I be able cover the bill without being financially ruined? If I suffered disability, will I be able to provide for myself financially? If my house burnt down, what would I do? If I passed on, will my family be able to comfortably take care of themselves in my absence or will they be reduced to a life of destitution?
    o    Education and retirement planning- Have I saved enough to take my children to university? Are there any other strategies I can finance my children’s education?? Are my current pension contributions adequate to take care of me comfortably in retirement?
    o    Tax planning-Is there a way I can save on my taxes? What are the most efficient strategies to reduce my tax burden?
    The changing life cycle affects financial planning. A person’s goals must be updated as his needs and circumstances change. Generally in one’s young adult years, goals may include saving and investment objectives to set a stable base for the future, saving for a mortgage deposit etc. During a person’s middle years, the goals shift from immediate personal spending to family goals such as education for children and planning for retirement. In one’s later years after retirement, travel, charity activities etc may become a primary goal.

  • Nairobi Stock Exchange Weekly Report

    Posted: July 20, 2009, 6:09 pm by admin

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    Market News

     

    The week was quiet with no companies releasing financial results.

     

    In other market news, the country faces a power crunch as a result of the failed rains in the hydro-electric dams with either the cost of power set to rise or the re-introduction of the power rationing program last seen in the year 2000. What does this mean for listed firms?

     

    The resultant increased cost of power will increase the cost of production and further exacerbate the current inflation levels. This points to a grim picture for the country’s general economic recovery and listed firms selling consumer products are likely to see reducing revenues and profits in the coming year due to the weakening market demand for those goods and high production cost.

     

    Market Update

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    The NSE 20 share index closed the week

    at 3,296.27 points, a drop of  2.51% on a week on week comparison. The entire week has been characterized by a day by day drop in the index’ performance.

     

    The drop has been attributed to low demand for stocks as a result of the absence of local institutional investors.

     

    Equity turnover dropped by a whopping 37.91%, illustrative of the reduced investor activity this week. In Thursday’s trading, only sh69million woth of shares were traded. Based on recent trends, that figure would ideally be in the region of between sh200-300 million.

     

    The price drop should only be temporary and thus offers investors a good entry point.

    Notices And Information

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    • Kenya Re-insurance announced a dividend of sh 0.50 in April. Its books closed on the 25th June and payment of dividends will be made on 24th July 2009
    • Safaricom announced a first and final dividend of sh 0.10 in May. Its books close on the 19th August and payment of dividends will be made on 12th November 2009

     Side Note

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    Side Note: The government in the current financial year intends to spend sh140 billion on infrastructure.

     

    The question is, how much of this will translate into either direct or indirect increase in demand for cement for construction?

     

    If a high percentage, then it might be worth exploring some of the cement listed firms as possible stock picks for the medium to long term.

     

    However on the flip side, cheap imported cement, increased local competition from new entrants such as the Mehta Group and access to cheap finance to spur housing development could limit any gains for the cement listed firms

    Article: Liquidity Risk.

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    This is a follow up from last week’ article on types of investment risks. As mentioned, investing is the commitment of funds to one or more assets with the expectation of a return in future. Investment returns such as capital gains, dividends or interest compensate the investor for risks assumed in the investment.

     

    One type of risk taking in investments that many overlook is the liquidity risk. Liquidity generally refers to how easy is it for you to convert your investment into cash or terminate your investment.

    When seeking to invest, it is paramount to have certain goals with time frames. For example investing sh100,000 for a business project you want to under take in one year’s time

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    This therefore means you will need the money after a year and thus should select an investment option that can be easily liquidated after a year. Some of the relatively easily convertible investments are shares, unit trusts as compared to investments such as property, land etc.

     

    It literally takes a few days to sell your shares or unit trusts and have the funds in your account. How long will it take you to dispose a government bond or property?

    Due to the illiquidity of property for example, it would be imprudent to invest your emergency fund in a property due to the slow convertibility into cash. The degree of illiquidity therefore constitutes liquidity risk…the longer it takes an investment to be converted into cash means its liquidity risk is high

AWF Blog

  • Launching the Kinigi Cultural Center

    Posted: July 13, 2009, 6:15 pm by admin

    Wellard here again.  In my last post I wrote about my first visit back to the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in my capacity as Enterprise Officer for the IGCP Congo Program after the long civil conflict there. Today I want to share with you a more celebratory and team-oriented reflection from our Rwanda Program:

    “You did it!” we all screamed towards her, “no, WE did it.., IGCP did it” was the response from Salvatrice, IGCP’s Rwanda Program Enterprise Officer. After all the efforts, time spent, uncountable number of trips from Musanze to Kinigi, discussions with the contractors, meetings with local communities….and still, she was very humble. The day was finally here. And somehow it was her day – a day of reckoning – a day when an IGCP project becomes reality.  The day the Kinigi Cultural Center was launched.

    One of IGCP’s main pillars is to help local people develop interests in commercial enterprises, especially the rural communities who live in the areas bordering the national parks, and to find creative ways for them to reap viable economic benefits from the presence of wildlife. This is the community incentive context under which the local Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge was constructed. Similarly, the Kinigi Cultural Center and Community Walk have now been realized, and serve to diversify tourism revenues, and thus improve livelihoods, for the communities in the shadows of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.

    Here is the entrance of the King's hut--a main feature of the Cultural Center.

    The Cultural Center is a fascinating step back into Rwanda’s not-too-distant past.  Its attractions include a local king’s compound known as igikari.  At the entrance to the huge round hut constructed from locally sourced materials is the place where the King would sit on a stool and hear his people’s grievances, with the queen to this left. In between the King and Queen stands a very important pole: if anyone accused of any wrongdoing was able to touch it after evading the soldiers posted at the door, he or she would be forgiven of their crime. Further inside the hut is the meeting place, or ikiramb, where the King would sit with his guests over a fire as they drank local brews.

    A SACOLA guide talks with a guest outside the King's hut.

    Just beyond the ikirambi, is the mu mbere, a waiting room of sorts where selected girls would sit as they waited to go to the King’s bed, or uburiri.

    The queen had her own hut a little further away from the king’s hut. The compound also included a hut for the king’s main servant in charge of drinks and the main maid in charge of food. One needed permission as well to enter these huts, and they are represented in the Cultural Center complex by a small hut behind that of the King. Expert SACOLA (Sabyinyo Community Livelihoods Association) guides recount the fascinating story of the King and his charges to all visitors.

    This traditional dance troupe performed at the opening.

    A drumming contingent provided the music for the dance troupe.

    Back to the launching day: it started pretty early for the IGCP team present in Kinigi. The community and our team were busy putting final touches on the event up until the last minute. Everything had to be perfect, as we were expecting dignitaries such as the Governor of Rwanda’s Northern Province, the Mayor of Musanze and the deputy CEO of the Rwandan Development Board, as well as IGCP leadership spearheaded by Director Eugene Rutagarama himself. Our gracious donors did not miss the bus either as they were also present.

    Guests and SACOLA guides get in on the dancing action!

    Our hero, Salvatrice, joins the traditional dancers

    Wow! Quite an event, and our team ensured that perfection was the order of the day: you might be surprised to hear that we even helped out with the cleaning beforehand and afterward.

Concept Advisory Services

  • Mortgage Financing In Kenya

    Posted: July 8, 2009, 6:52 pm by admin

    One of the most important personal investments one can make in their life time is the security that comes with owning your own home. You no longer pay rent indefinitely, remain under the mercy of rogue landlords or live through the anxiety of waiting to see if your landlord will renew your recently expired lease agreement. Purchasing a home upfront is beyond the reach of the majority but that does not imply one cannot still own their own home.

    A mortgage (usually long-term) is a loan for the purchase of a real estate originated by the customer where the property serves as collateral in case of default. Ever thought of taking a mortgage? Think of if this way, instead of paying rent to your landlord for as long as you will need shelter while on Earth, you could be making payments equivalent to your rental payments the only difference is that these payments will be going towards purchasing your own home and not enriching your landlord. Once you’ve finished paying off your mortgage, the money you would have used to pay rent is a saving and can thus be used for other purposes. Easier said than done though. It is a long term goal/objective and therefore requires planning.

    There various types of mortgages some of which are for owner-occupier residential mortgages, mortgages for construction of a home, mortgages for construction of rental property etc. Generally a brief overview of what you need to take note of when looking for mortgage for home ownership:-
    •    Repayment period- In the market, firms offer a maximum range of between 20-25 years repayment period. There is no minimum repayment period but the shorter the period, the lesser interest cost you as the borrower will pay on the flip side; a long repayment period means lower repayment amounts allowing you to manage your cashflows better.
    •    Interest Rates- Currently range from 13% to 17% in the market. You can take a fixed interest rate mortgage which means you’ll pay a fixed interest throughout the duration of the mortgage while a variable interest is subject to change during the mortgage duration. Thus if market interest rates decline, then you would benefit when they review your interest rates and vice versa.
    •    Financing- Mortgage firms will finance purchase of your home to a maximum of between 75% to 100% of the value of your home depending on the mortgage institution. Therefore the borrower is required to finance the balance by making an initial deposit. If they for example finance 90% and the value of a housing property that is worth sh10 million, they will only advance sh9 million for the mortgage. You will have to pay the sh1 million first before they can advance you the mortgage. The saving for this deposit is the starting point and what most people never plan for.
    •    Employment Status- Mortgage firms now advance mortgages to both employed and self employed individuals as opposed to the past when they shied away from self employed people.
    •    Mortgage repayments- According to literature obtained from one of the mortgage providers, they consider up to 75% of your net disposable income for mortgage repayments. This means if after catering for all your monthly expenses, you are left with sh50,000 extra as savings, they can only consider a maximum of sh37,500 monthly for mortgage repayments.


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    Sample of Mortgages in the Market

     

     

     


    Mortgage Provider

    Rates

    Period

    Max. Loan to Value

    Fee

    Barclays

    13.50%

    Up to 20years

    90%

    1.00%

    S&L

    14.00%

    Up to 25years

    90%

    1.00%

    Stan Chart

    14.50%

    Up to 20years

    90%

    1.00%

    Britak

    14.50%

    Up to 15years

    75%

    1.00%

    CFC Stanbic

    13.25%-16.25%

    Up to 20years

    100%

    0.50%

    HF

    15.75%

    Up to 20years

    90%

    1.00%

    Ecobank

    16.00%

    Up to 20years

    75%

    2.00%

    I&M

    17.00%

    Up to 10years

    80%

    1.50%

    Courtesy: Money Magazine Daily ation

     

     

    One of the fundamental advantages of home ownership through mortgages is that they give you access to capital to purchase a home that you would not be able to access upfront. You also obtain complete ownership of the house once you complete payment as opposed to renting where the tenant despite making all those payments over the years remains a tenant.

    The lender is only entitled to the interest return and can only exercise the right to reposes the property that acts as collateral only if you default on payment. However even when you foresee yourself defaulting on payment, you can always re-negotiate with the lender as it is in their best interest for you to repay the loan and benefit from the interest earned. Mortgage payments schedules are pre-set making it easier to plan your cash flows.

    On the other side, the nature of the mortgage agreements requires you to put up the property as collateral which will be sold of in case of default and you are not able to re-negotiate terms with the lender. One of the biggest barriers to low access of mortgages apart from the upfront down payment is the high transactional costs required when processing a mortgage. Sample this according to one of the local mortgage firms, if you are seeking a sh5 million mortgage repayable over the next 20 years at 14% interest, you will typically have to pay a monthly mortgage repayment of sh 48,250. You will also have to pay the following in transactional costs:-

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    TRANSACTIONAL COSTS

    AMOUNT

    *Assumption that the cost of the property is sh5.5 million
    NB: The table excludes legal and valuation fees which vary according to the respective service providers

    When the transactional cost is added to the initial deposit of 10% of the property value of sh5.5 million, in total, you will have to plan to pay upfront atleast sh828,250 for a 20 year, sh5 million mortgage.

    Following gazettement of retirement benefits (mortgage loans) regulations on 11th June 2009, one can now use up to 60% of your accumulated pension savings as security for a mortgage from approved institutions. You can secure financing for paying mortgage deposits, stamp duty, valuation fees etc using your pension savings as security. The objective is to encourage lenders provide more credit to Kenyans to enable them own their own homes.

    Married couples can pool their retirement savings and thus secure more financing when buying a family property. Using your benefits as a guarantee for a mortgage doesn’t necessarily take away your right to the benefits as long s you service the loan facility as per its relevant terms.

    Sources: www.rba.go.ke, www.hf.co.ke S&L Mortgage, Money Magazine-Daily Nation (Thursday 2nd July 2009)

    Article by: Charles Andere
    Concept Advisory Services

    For any clarification or additional information about the article, don’t hesitate to contact us on the address below
    Physical Address: Mpaka Plaza, 2nd floor, Mpaka Road, Westlands.
    Postal Address: P.O Box 10090-00100 Nairobi
    Tel: 020 241449 / 211447 / 241479
    Mobile: +254 0722 495 107, +254 0721 952 151
    Fax: +254 020 241 436
    E-mail: info@conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke
    Web Address: www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • Nairobi Stock Exchange Investor Report

    Posted: July 7, 2009, 9:36 pm by admin

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    Too busy with your professional life to track and manage your stocks? Get in touch with Concept Advisory Services for highly personalized personal financial planning, investment advice and stock portfolio management that will help you manage and grow your wealth effectively.

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    MARKET NEWSThe week was quiet with no companies releasing financial results.

    In other developments, telecommunication firm Zain in the past few weeks has been subject to a lot of media speculation over another possible buyout. If confirmed, this could be the fourth change of management in its 9 year history.

    This possibility of another change in the firm (Zain) would be good news to investors of rival firm, Safaricom. This would offer Safaricom an opportunity to consolidate its 79% market share and increase its revenue streams.

    This could be one of the factors driving interest in the Safaricom stock price in the last few weeks.

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    MARKET UPDATE

    The stock market this week saw a steady rise after a marginal drop the week before. The NSE 20 share index closed the week at 3,381.20, gaining 3.51%. The market crossed 3,300 points, again pointing to steady and sustained market recovery in the second half of the year.

    The improved performance is also reflected in a 3.49% increase in share turnover with the week’s turnover amounting to sh1.198 billion. The re-entry by local investors will go a long way in ensuring the market is able to sustain its growth in spite of any pull backs by foreign investors which has been the case in the past.

    The week’s most active trades were on the EABL, Safaricom and Equity counters. The trend is expected to continue in the week ahead

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    NOTICES AND INFORMATION

    o    Jubilee Holdings pays out a final dividend of sh3.25 on the 10th of July.
    o    Kenya Re-insurance announced of  sh 0.50 in April. Its books closed on the 25th June and payment of dividends will be made on 24th July 2009

     

    Side Note: Mumias Sugar this week made a significant price jump of 18%  closing at sh6.80.

    This could possibly driven by investors factoring the high global sugar prices which should directly translate into increased revenues in the coming year and its power generation diversification strategy.

    The market will continue to see similar price jumps on stocks that show fundamental growth prospects in future.

    Inflation Risk
    Investing is the commitment of funds to one or more assets with the expectation of a return in future. The purpose of investment returns such as capital gains, dividends or interest earned is to compensate the investor for risks assumed in the investment.
    Typically among the various investment risks include inflation risk. Inflation refers to the loss of purchasing power and when this exceeds investment returns, there is a ‘negative return’. Take an example of a sh100 investment to earning sh10 in a year’s time with an annual inflation of 15%. The investment grew by 10% but as a result of inflation, it lost value of 15% making a real return of -5%.
    This technically means when you factor in inflation, your sh110 investment is really worth approximately sh95.60.

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    It has lost more value through inflation than gained from its returns. Historically, shares have been known to out perform inflation over the long run as compared to other forms of investment such as treasury bills or fixed bank deposits.
    From the graph above, the NSE-20 share index in the month of June appreciated by 15.18%. This isn’t necessarily the case always but is an indication of the kind of returns the stock market can give an investor.

    However, these kinds of returns also have high risks. The current annual returns on treasury bills which are risk free are at approximately 8%. The risk versus return is the tradeoff the investor should decide when making an investment decision.

AWF Blog

  • Member…with benefits!

    Posted: July 2, 2009, 1:03 am by admin

    “Hi, Erin! I recently donated to AWF and would like to know if there any benefits that come with my donation.” –Chris, Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.

    First, thank you Chris for your generous support of AWF. You are officially now an AWF member! Everyone who donates $15 or more automatically becomes a member.

    Your membership will last for 12 months and is chock full of great benefits. For starters, you will receive our quarterly newsletter, African Wildlife News (AWN). This beautiful, four-color newsletter informs our supporters about AWF programs (recent stories covered Dr. Bernard Kissui’s lion collaring project, Alfred Kikoti’s development of the Kilimanjaro Elephant Research Project, our partnership with Endangered Species Chocolate, and much more). At the end of every issue of AWN, there is a special section titled Wildlife Watch that spotlights a particular African species (that’s my favorite section, by the way). If you have never seen an issue of AWN, you may access past issues on our website.

    This year's AWF wall calendar celebrates the Year of the Gorilla and features many never-before-seen photos of the magnificent species. © AWF

    In addition to AWN (which mails four times a year), members receive our annual wall calendar featuring 12 magnificent African species – one per month (this year we did a special one-species issue on mountain gorillas in honor of the UN’s “Year of the Gorilla” campaign), get discounts of 10% on most merchandise in our online store, and receive notifications about AWF events in their area.  Members can opt to receive news updates regarding African wildlife by signing up at our website.

    Of course, the greatest benefit of supporting AWF is the impact you are having on conserving the wildlife and wild lands of Africa.  Thanks again for supporting us!

    To learn about other ways to help AWF, please feel free to visit us here.

    Wait!  Before You Go . . .
    As previously mentioned, 2009 is  the Year of the Gorilla.  To honor this amazing species, AWF has dedicated its 2009-2010 16-month calendar to this imperiled great ape.  To order your copy today, CLICK HERE, or call, toll-free, 1-888-494-5354.

  • Whisker Patterns, Lion Mating, and the Missing Cubs

    Posted: July 2, 2009, 5:29 pm by admin

    I’m pleased to note that the Tarangire Lion project has some additional help this summer–Rae Wynn-Grant, a master’s candidate at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Here she tells about her experiences in the field so far.

    My first two weeks of lion tracking with the Tarangire Lion Project team has been exciting beyond anything I could have imagined as well as hugely enriching to my education in wildlife ecology.  Each day after a breakfast of chai and homemade bread, we’ve left camp at sunrise to check on our first pride, spending the entire day – often past sunset – driving both within and outside of Tarangire National Park boundaries looking for these amazing creatures.

    This is a picture of main camp -- it's quite comfortable! © AWF

    Working with the team, I’ve learned how to identify a lion based on distinct marks on the ears and the pattern of dots above the whisker lines that are unique to each individual.  The team has taught me how to estimate a lion’s age from the amount of pink or black skin present on the nose, and I’ve even begun to understand the different migratory patterns of the prides.  Every encounter with one of the lion prides is new and different and is always worth the hours of driving off-road, swatting tse-tse flies, and sweating in the hot sun that undoubtedly constitutes a typical day of lion tracking.

    This particular morning, our team headed out in the AWF Land Rover with lion tracking gear in tow (large metal antenna and a radio to pick up signals of nearby prides).  At what felt like the very beginning of our hunt we picked up a faint signal of the pride Altapiano, a pride that often stays within park boundaries, especially during the dry season when water resources are scarce in other parts of the Maasai Steppe.  Tracking them through the bush, we finally found our collared female, Celestine, a mature lioness with a beautiful tan coat of fur and a dark nose, just off of one of the dirt roads that winds through the park.  Relaxing under one of Tarangire’s famous Baobab trees, she was joined by a male with a full, dark mane and matching fur on his tail.

    This is not Celestine but another collared lioness. I hope to photograph Celestine soon. © AWF

    We parked the car a safe distance from the pair and observed their behavior while also using the AWF’s collection of lion identification cards to see if Celestine’s male friend was new to the pride.

    While we watched and waited, the pair approached each other, preparing to mate.  This was surprising, as Celestine recently gave birth to two cubs within the last two months.  In the last few weeks of tracking Celestine and the Altapiano pride, the team had not acquired any visual clues to the whereabouts of the cubs, who normally wouldn’t be far from their mother.  This information along with the willingness of Celestine to mate again gave us the sense that perhaps this new male lion had killed her cubs in an act of infanticide.

    It wasn’t long before Celestine and her partner became annoyed with our intrusion. Both animals looked our way and growled.  We made note of the GPS location, drew a sketch of the whisker pattern of the new male, took some pictures for further identification and respectfully drove off to leave the pair in peace.

    Here's Bernard taking notes -- he has been a great mentor. © AWF

    The Tarangire Lion Project Team is an excellent group of Tanzanian researchers doing great work that requires diligence, patience, and lots of skill.  As a visiting American student, I am honored to be a part of this project and will return to the U.S. with a much broader and richer understanding of general Tanzanian conservation issues, and specifically lion behavior in the Maasai Steppe region of the country.  Bernard Kissui and the rest of the team have been absolutely warm and welcoming to me, and I am truly having an unforgettable experience.

Concept Advisory Services

  • Financial Advisors/Investment Consultants In Kenya

    Posted: June 30, 2009, 8:55 pm by admin

    Have you sat down of late and wondered why it is just so hard to make good money. I mean, we all want to be wealthy, but why is it that only a few seem to get that privilege.

    At CAS,We are investment consultants/ financial advisors based in Nairobi,Kenya, and we don’t promise more than we can deliver. What we promise is that, making money is as simple as making that decision to. Our clients look to us to manage their funds professionally; preserving capital and helping them achieve good growth in their portfolios. They trust us to provide security of their hard earned money, and guide them towards financial independence even in retirement days.

    Here is how we do it;

    Listening and understanding

    As an adviser, our role is to help our clients make smart, well informed decisions about their investments. Our first meeting is therefore to get to know you; where you are, your financial needs, your fears and your aspirations. From there, we pick investment vehicle(s) that will get you to that treasured goal.

    They include:
    • Unit Trusts: Choose what suits you.
    • Bonds & Treasury Bills. Get to know of these secure investments offered through CBK.
    • Shares: Learn how to have a profitable portfolio.
    • Education plans : Plan in advance for the biggest expense
    • Retirement plans: All about pension and saving for the later years.

    Setting goals and developing a plan

    What is the saying; fail to plan and you plan to fail? While all our clients expect similar results, We like to respect that every one of them is unique. Our relationship therefore starts by setting investment goals. What would you like to invest for? Things that are likely to wind up in this list are retirement, your children education or your own, a house down payment, clearing a debt, a car or money to start a business – among others. From that, we develop a comprehensive written financial plan. Investment vehicles are picked to achieve each client’s specific long-term goals.

    Management of your Portfolio

    Our clients’ relationship with us is not a one-off undertaking, but a long term one where I will get to deliver your life-time financial goals. Every client receives regular reports showing them the performance of their investments as clearly as possible. Each account is also monitored continuously to maximum on returns.

    Accessibility and client service

    It is good to remember that I said I am a normal guy. I would love to sit at your favorite café around the corner and over coffee, chat with you about your portfolio, challenges and opportunities. I have also ensured that I am accessible to clients via our cell phone; while calls and emails send to me are responded to the same day, or the next business day.

    Each client is special in the way his or her needs are addressed. One on one sessions, I have realized therefore are very effective. And you do not see our assistant, you talk to me!

    Regular education

    Perminus is a financial writer with leading online business magazine, www.smartbizafrica.com where our following engage him with various investment queries which I respond to the simplest way. I have also been extensively quoted by our local dailies i.e. Daily Nation and the Standard Newspaper.Our company website www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke also carries expert investment advisory articles that remain a great source of information to our clients.

    Finally, I believe no financial problem is too big to get a solution, or amount too small to invest. Many have been through our hands.

    Get in Touch
    Talk to me today. To arrange a get to know each other meeting, email your details to

    admin@conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

    or perminus@conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

    Let your financial independence journey begin today. You can also add me as a friend and we can get to share info online.

    Join C.a.S for superior investment consultancy and workable financial advisory services in Kenya.

AWF Blog

  • Meet Nnzumbeni Tshikalange

    Posted: June 26, 2009, 10:22 pm by admin

    I would like to introduce you to Nnzumbeni Tshikalange who is running the Limpopo Leopard Project for the next few months. Nnzumbeni hails from the Limpopo Province near Thohoyandou, the capital city of the former Venda. She obtained her bachelor degree in Zoology from the University of Limpopo.

    This is a bit dark, but here I am with Nnzumbeni.

    Prior to my departure from the field, I had the opportunity to spend three days with Nnzumbeni. The aim was to introduce her to the study site and see if she would be interested in a life in the bush. On the first day we were lucky to find numerous samples, leopard scats to be specific (three). These we collected and I was happy to see that Nnzumbeni was keen to have a go at collecting some of them. In the process we went out to check the cameras. There was a lot of walking in the sun, but it was fun at the same time.

    The following day we went out to track Gudzane male, the leopard we collared in January. The previous weeks I had tried in vain to locate the animal, mainly because it so happened that there was a buffalo cow with the same frequency collar in the study area. The interesting thing about this buffalo that I hope you will appreciate as much as I do is that it was collared about 150 km south of the leopard study site. I guess no one anticipated that she would migrate that far.

    Anyway, the first time I went out to try and locate Gudzane male and the telemetry pointed me into a herd of breeding buffalo, I was baffled because it meant that the leopard must have been surrounded by the buffalo. Was the leopard trying to get one of the calves? Did the buffaloes trample on our study animal and destroy it? These were some of the questions that ran through my head. I decided to approach them in the vehicle (my fort) and realised that perhaps the herd was too large, some of the bulls were already starting to follow the car half curious and half threatening. I decided to leave them there and try the following day instead.

    The following day I went to the same spot and there was no signal, instead the signal pointed in the direction I came from. I followed up on the signal and guess what I found after one and a half hours of searching? Buffaloes! Is this leopard a Buffalo fan, following them wherever they go like an obsessed fan following their hero? That was my day two question. I decided to stay with the herd this time. There must have been around one hundred of them. The signal pointed directly into the herd. That was an interesting thing to see.

    I was wondering how I was going to explain this kind of behaviour. “A leopard that thinks he is a buffalo,” that would make a nice piece of story to tell. Suddenly the herd sort of moved and out walked this cow sort of trying to tell me not to get my hopes high about finding a leopard among the herd. Around her neck was a collar and the signal pointed directly at her. I took her picture and disappointed I headed back to the lodge. After that it became my routine, following a buffalo cow. It turns out that the telemetry equipment responded to the buffalo collar more than it did for the leopard collar. In the end Dr. Peter Buss decided it was enough and came and removed the buffalo collar.

    Mystery solved: It turned out the leopard collar was competing with the collar on this buffalo.

    The collar removal coincided with Nnzumbeni’s arrival, hence after the buffalo collar was removed I was excited to go out and find the cat. He had been out of sight for five weeks at that point. We woke up early the following day and headed out in search of the leopard. The leopard was nowhere to be found. We searched the whole concession. We even went as far as Olifants Camp, which is to the north of our study site, but there was no success. To this day the leopard is yet to be found.

    On the third day, there was an opportunity to wash the scat that I had been collecting in the last year. Nnzumbeni enjoyed that as well ,and by the end of the day we had washed all the scats in the stockings and left them out to dry. The following day I took Nnzumbeni to the bus station. After that I went to Skukuza, where I was going to attend the annual Kruger Park Network Meeting and to present my findings in the first year of study.

    In the next post Nnzumbeni will talk about her experience in the field.

Concept Advisory Services

  • Nairobi Stock Exchange:What has fueled recent market rise?

    Posted: June 25, 2009, 8:19 pm by admin

    The Nairobi stock market has seen a marked rise in share prices this month with the market rising by approximately 14.6% in the month of June. What has possibly fuelled this rise particularly on certain counters such as EABL, Safaricom etc?

    There has been positive investor confidence on many counters and this may been driven by fundamental information regarding the particular companies. EABL investors for example will be reacting to the fact the budget failed to increase excise duty on its products and thereby increasing chances for strong revenue growth next year.

    Investors could also be anticipating favorable end year performance which comes to a close on 30th June.

    For Safaricom, the market could be factoring the fact the under sea fibre optic cable that has landed in the country will reduce the communication costs and help increase its data communication revenue stream translating into increased revenues and potentially profits. Similarly, investors in Access Kenya are also positioning themselves in anticipation of the benefits of the under sea fibre optic cable will have on the ICT industry in the country of which it is strong market player.

    Investors of such stocks as Equity, KCB and Co-op bank could be factoring their recent regional expansion plans will drive rapid growth in revenues in future and hence the rise of their share prices.

    Such positive information affecting companies will continue be factored going forward as a basis for rise in share prices on specific counters

    From Charles Andere

     

AWF Blog

  • Naming Gorillas in Rwanda

    Posted: June 24, 2009, 6:46 pm by admin

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    Jamie – the IGCP Communications Officer – here again. I am recently back from Kwita Izina – Rwanda’s mountain gorilla naming ceremony. Kwita Izina is held every year to name all the baby gorillas that were born in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda in the past twelve months. This year eighteen babies were named, and a great diversity of officials and special guests were given the honor of picking the names.

    The early 7 am start was misty and cool, with a several huge tents, a giant stage and a flock of volunteers ushering in guests and serving breakfast at the foot of the mighty Sabyinyo volcano near Volcanoes National Park headquarters. It was one of the world’s most spectacular settings for such a ceremony. The grounds filled up quickly, with a crowd of several thousand revelers. I took a seat outside with my IGCP colleagues and settled in for drumming, dancing, singing, theatre and several speeches before the main event of visiting dignitaries coming on stage and giving their chosen name to a gorilla.

    The energy of the dancers was amazing.

    Favorite performances were hard to pin down, as most of them were a totally new experience, which kept my camera, and my clumsy dancing feet, busy. I always am amazed by the energy of the traditional Intore dancers, though, with their long headdresses that look like a lion’s mane and their boundless energy. Another favorite was a singing quartet of American teenagers, who performed a note-perfect rendition of the Rwanda national anthem in Kinyarwanda! The quartet, in colorful traditional Rwandan dress, got one of the biggest applauses of the day.

    This American quartet was a favorite of the crowd's.

    As noon approached, it was finally time: the giving of names. The chosen givers represented a cross section of society from which inspiration springs, for gorilla conservation and human development, including senior Volcanoes National Park rangers, African musicians and governing body officials and special envoys, such as Ian Redmond, longtime mountain gorilla researcher and conservation professional who now serves as the UN ambassador for the 2009 Year of the Gorilla.

    The gorillas were represented by people in costume.

    Each giver had an interesting personal story to tell about the name they chose, as “gorilla families” (people in gorilla costumes) roamed the grounds playing and grunting contentedly. The names often reflected the circumstances into which the babies were born, or characteristics of the babies themselves, as carefully observed by the Park rangers. Some reflected hope for the future of the species and the people of Rwanda.

    Names included Ijeneza (“future is bright”), Shyrambere (“go forward”), Umuganda (“work together”), and even Umutesi (“Spoiled Child”). One young gorilla that immigrated from elsewhere into Rwanda – her origins are a mystery – was named Umurinzi, or Protector.

    As the clouds parted and the hot sun finally lit up Sabyinyo volcano and the crowd, Rwanda’s Prime Minister, Bernard Makuza, closed the ceremonies with a speech highlighting recent achievements, with an eye and firm pledge to continued success in the coming year. All that remained was a closing song from the Rwanda All Stars (famous Rwanda pop musicians) and a hearty lunch for hundreds, as a local reggae band sent revelers down the mountain with a skip in their step.

    A mother and her infant -- every birth is a victory for conservation. Paul Thomson took this photo while he was in Rwanda for AWF.

    With all the bad news in recent times about loss of biodiversity, climate change and environmental degradation, Kwita Izina was, for me, a rare chance to celebrate a success. In the 1980s, researchers and organizations estimated mountain gorilla numbers to be between 300 and 400. Today there are approximately 700. Kwita Izina is a chance to celebrate that fact, and Rwanda and its conservation partners, in particular, have built a strong conservation record. One that is truly successful and continues to expand and evolve as the challenges of conserving the mountain gorilla and its natural heritage expand and evolve. Exhausted and elated, I slept well that night, looking forward to getting up and going to work for the gorillas on Monday, not full of dread, but of hope…..

Concept Advisory Services

  • Kenya 2009 Budget & Your Personal Finances

    Posted: June 18, 2009, 5:24 pm by admin

    The Budget and Your Personal Finances

    Thursday 11th June came again and the annual ritual that is the budget reading by the Minister of Finance to Parliament and Kenyans at large was observed. Billions of shillings were repeatedly mentioned in his approximately two hour speech but what did the billions and the numerous policy pronouncements mean for your pocket? We look at some of the Kenya budget 2009/2010 proposals and how they may relate to your personal finance.

    Taxes
    Income Taxes
    No changes were made to income tax rates and this means you will remain paying the current tax figures. In light of this, one may want to take advantage of various tax incentives that currently exist or were reviewed in a bid to reduce ones tax burden and save on your tax payments by for example taking advantage of tax deductions on pension contributions that was increased to sh25,000.

    Value Added Tax
    Similarly, no changes were made to the current 16% rate despite the huge pressure to raise VAT in order to help reduce a whopping sh168 billion budget deficit meaning we will not see any immediate general rise in prices of goods and services.

    On the whole, the move to keep the two key taxes unchanged is commendable as this was the best case scenario for consumers in the light of prevailing budget shortfall with limited sources for additional government revenue. This gives consumers some breathing space though does not necessarily mean there will be no hurdles to face with regards to availability of cheaper goods; we still face a challenging year ahead with a slowing economy and creeping inflation affecting purchasing power.

    Cosmetics and Jewellery
    The Minister has reduced excise duty on cosmetic products from 10% to 5% and waived excise duty on jewellery items which should ideally mean their prices should go down if retailers pass that benefit to consumers. However apart from basic cosmetic items such as beauty, hair and skin care products, jewellery items primarily remain non-essential spending priority items especially in the face of a reduced consumer spending power as a result of high inflation thus such a move may not impact greatly as most Kenyans priority would be to meet other basic necessities.

    Mobile Phones
    Similarly, VAT on mobile phone handsets was waived in response strong lobbying by industry players who argued to sustain the rapid growth of the telecommunication industry, more Kenyans should have access to mobile handsets for increased communication. Again, we will have to wait to see how fast retailers on the streets adjust their prices to reflect the change. However expect the all sorts of reasons including the usual ‘we need to clear existing stock’ story to crop up among some retailers trying to delay passing the resultant benefits to consumers.
    Excise duty and VAT on mobile phone airtime however remains the same at 10% and 16% respectively despite fervent industry lobbying with sh26 of every sh100 scratch card going to the government in the form of taxes. A reduction in this rate would have seen consumers talk more for the same sh100 scratch card.

    Beverages
    Carbonated Drinks and Bottled Water
    There was a reduction in excise duty on carbonated soft drinks from 10% to 7%.  There was also a similar reduction in excise duty on bottled water from 10% to 5% which should translate in a slight reduction of both carbonated soft drinks and bottled water. This is another proposal that is meant to add some reprieve to consumers suffering under the weight of rising inflation.
    Alcoholic Beverages
    Year after year, the day following the budget reading has always been characterized by a full page advert by alcohol manufacturers indicating the new increases in prices as a result of increases in ‘sin tax’ on the alcoholic products. This year however has seen the maintenance of the current tax rates on alcoholic products though there has been a reduction in excise duty on wine and spirits which again should translate into cheaper prices for the two.

    Tobacco
    Similarly, no changes were made to taxes relating to tobacco products and thus expect their prices to remain the same. The decision to maintain the status quo on both alcoholic and tobacco products is welcome relief from a number of loyal consumers. Tobacco and alcohol manufactures have suffered slowed growth as a result of the punitive taxes imposed on them last year.

    Tax Relief on Pension Incomes
    It will now be a little easier for pensioners to save more on your taxes following the increase of the tax exempt limit on pension incomes from sh15,000 to sh25,000 a month. This is means those with a pension income will have the first sh25,000 of their income free from tax deductions. This is all in a bid to support our retirees in the midst of the tough economic times prevailing.

    Loans- Interest Rates
    With a ballooning budget expenditure of sh866 billion and a resultant budget deficit of approximately sh168 billion, the government intends to borrow sh109 billion from the local market mainly through the issuance of treasury bills and bonds. We forecast with the  increased demand of cash from the government may result in interest rates going up with the government seeking to absorb any excess cash in the local market.

    This will make it more expensive to acquire a loan and those consumers who had taken long term variable interest rate loans such as mortgages may possibly see those rates rising making it more expensive to maintain the loans.

    In the final analysis, these remain proposals, with parliament debating the budget in the weeks to come and is dependant on whether the House passes the proposals. Another variable factor is whether or how soon businesses will effect the benefits of resultant reduction in taxes on various items to consumers.

    chalres Andere: Research Officer: Concept Advisory Services

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE): Bear Run Or Slow Recovery?

    Posted: June 16, 2009, 4:51 pm by admin

    Increased investor confidence in the equity market saw the NSE 20
    share index cross the psychological 3,000 point mark during
    yesterdays trading to close at 3,010.2 points. The Index was last
    seen at this level in early February.

    The bear run in the market over the last year can be largely
    attributed to investor uncertainty brought about by increased
    political risk, uncertain global economic outlook as well as loss of
    confidence in the capital markets.

    Investor risk appetite has since increased driven by positive
    sentiment. Firstly, the market seemed to have bottomed out (NSE
    20 hitting 2,360.01 points in March 2009), presenting an entry
    opportunity for investors.

    There have also been initiatives taken to improve the integrity of
    the capital markets, which include reconstitution of the NSE and
    CMA boards, increased account accessibility for investors as well as
    corporate governance and insurance cover requirements for
    investment banks and stockbrokers.

    However a sustained bull run may not be sustainable following the
    proposal by the Finance minister to prevent new NSSF
    contributions being invested in risky assets including equities.

Intricately Me

  • Of movies and me!

    Posted: June 14, 2009, 7:26 pm by admin

    I know i havent blogged for a while, and it really isnt for lack of trying.. i just haven’t felt up to it. I have wanted to, things happen to me and i write paragraphs out in my head, i just dont go and type them out. I have a few blog entries that i wrote previously but they almost sound like they were written out for someone else… they lack personality you know, almost like they were generic journal entries so im not posting them i figured i would just come have coffee and ramble on about… well… STUFF!

    I went and watched Terminator today… [dont laugh i know im a tad bit late, i know you watched it a while back but im in Africa give me a break... Men here dont think movies are a cool date trick, they take you for drinks instead that has better results.] I think it was quite cool. I was on the edge of my seat for the most part and i kept covering my face and peeking through my fingers but it was cool. I don’t like that my hero dies but such is life right… It got me thinking though, do we like movies like terminator because they are cool action movies or because they represent an extreme view of how things could be worse?

    I went for grown and sexy last Friday and i was surprised at how many cute guy/girls there are in Nairobi. I felt like i was clubbing in the states all over again… you would too! i mean i walked in and everyone had designer clothes on… I was under dressed! different perfumes no B.O.. it didn’t feel or smell like Kenya at all! Its nice to see that things are changing the moral fiber of the country at least.

    The smell of rain makes coming back home worth it… but other than the small little things that i love this country for, im frustrated! I don’t like how Kenya runs. I mean why do i have to know someone to get a job? why do i get into places without being stopped while my friends get stopped because of my lighter skin? Why do men in this country put prices on a womans’ head? why do people here have the misconception that being serious is shown in the way you dress? Why do people lie so much?

    see!!! i knew it!

    Its raining and i am all alone, hmmm things should have changed by now! I should have a fiancee, i should have my son back, i should have a job, i should be in school, i should be well on the way to greatness by now right? nope… not for me…and since i havent blogged for a while, i wanna blog about everything all at once and im chewing mind lock… Its my best friends birthday but he is in Cali and i think that friendship is onesided…and my girl is in town but im broke… im still jobless… well i dont have my ideal job, I got a job writing articles for a magazine and they want me to write on women with interesting careers, but women here are shy! so i seem to be hitting walls with that one. Things are basically not working out for me. Someone said to me today that ‘the darkest hour comes before dawn’ really? its been dark for a while now…im not sure KPLC are gonna fix those lights… not sure God is listening… not sure at all…

    today is under construction dont mess with today...you could come back tomorrow, but wait! maybe we wont have finished constructing today so tomorrow... will never come!

Concept Advisory Services

  • Kenyan Budget 2009: Ways To Cut On Your Tax

    Posted: June 11, 2009, 11:48 am by admin

    Article By: Charles Andere

    Concept Advisory Services

     

    Want to Lower Your Tax Burden?

    Many of us receive our pay slips at the end of the month and our net salary leaves us wondering how to allocate the little left over among the various conflicting priorities after close to 30% of it has been taxed in most cases. Is there any way you can reduce your monthly tax burden?

     

    The government has certain policies that allow one to reduce their monthly taxable amount. The main ways through which you can reduce your tax load are:-

     

    • Insurance relief on Life Insurance Polices
    • Tax deductible Pension Contributions to a registered provider
    • Tax deductible  Savings for home ownership

     

    Insurance Relief: - The government made provisions that allows one to reduce their tax burden by up to 15% of premiums on life insurance annually but shall not exceed a maximum sh60,000. Claiming your life insurance relief has the effect of reducing taxable income or tax paid.

    Pension Contributions- In a bid to encourage Kenyans to better plan for their retirements, the government came up with an incentive that allows contributions to a registered pension scheme be tax deductible to a maximum of sh20,000 monthly or sh240,000 annually. This means your monthly taxable figure will be less the monthly contributions you make to the pension scheme. E.g. if you earn sh35,000 and your monthly pension contribution is sh5,000, the PAYE income tax will be calculated on sh30,000 and not sh35,000 thus lessening your tax load while at the same time allowing you to save sh5000 for your pension.

    Savings for Home ownership- in a home ownership savings plan for example the 1st Hop savings plan offered by Housing Finance allows your contributions to the home ownership savings plan to be tax deductible to a maximum of sh4,000 monthly or sh48,000 annually although industry players are lobbying to have this figure increased.

     

    Tax at Deductions work

    The benefits of such tax relief’s can be best seen if taken in the long term view. For example if you earned sh50,000 a month, you will pay approximately sh9,000 in PAYE income tax  leaving you with a sh41,000 as net salary. However if you contribute monthly sh7,000 to a registered pension scheme and another sh4,000 towards a home ownership savings program, the PAYE income tax will be calculated on sh39,000 and not sh50,000 thus only paying approximately sh5,700 in PAYE income taxes and saving sh3,300 monthly on taxes. So over 10 years assuming your salary is fixed and the tax rates remain the same, you could save sh396,000 in taxes. Below is a simplified table illustrating the same.

           
     

    Non Tax Deductible Contributions

     

    		  

    Effect of Tax Deductible Contributions

     

     

     

     


    Monthly Salary

    Sh50,000

     

    Monthly Salary

    Sh50,000

    PAYE

    (sh9,000)

     

    Contributions

    (Sh11,000)

    Net Salary

    Sh41,000

     

    Taxable Amount

    Sh39,000

    Contributions

    (Sh11,000)

     

    PAYE

    (Sh5,700)

    Net Amount after Income Tax & Contributions

    Sh30,000

     

    Net Amount after Income Tax & Contributions

    Sh33,300

    NB: Contributions refer to sh7,000 Pension Scheme and sh4,000 Home Ownership Saving

     

     

     

    Similarly, the insurance relief acts in the same way; when declaring your individual tax returns to the government, claiming your life insurance relief has the effect of either reducing taxable income or tax paid.  It is always important to provide adequate documentation to support your claims in order to avoid any complications from the authorities when claiming your tax benefits.

     

AWF Blog

  • Back to eastern DRC — a first visit since the war

    Posted: June 9, 2009, 4:59 pm by admin

    Hi, this is Wellard again –writing to tell you about the rest of our visit to DRC, a journey of mixed emotions.

    After leaving the beekeepers, we traveled another 12 kilometres of bumpy road to the T-junction to the local army base and the National Park authorities’ offices, Rumangabo Station. There we saw an amazing sight: the government army working together with former rebels. This is something that would not have been possible just a few months ago.

    We then proceeded  towards Rumangabo station to visit the women commonly known as “ba mama ya Wellard”, meaning simply Wellard’s women, or “ba mama ya champignons”: mushroom women. IGCP supports these women (who are either park rangers’ wives or the widows of rangers killed in the line of duty) in producing mushrooms for sale. During the height of the conflict Rumangabo station had been captured by rebels and  everyone had to flee. Only recently have people been able to return.

    The "ba mama ya champignons" or mushroom women

    We headed straight to the mushroom lab and found women busy working. I thought life was back to normal. But that impression soon changed when I entered the lab. To my disappointment and shock, everything was gone!  More than 200 kg of mushrooms gone… spoiled, with nothing left but the equipment. I felt like crying. All the hard work disappeared and we were back to square one.

    The woman leader then told me: “chef tulikibiyaka na ma champignons zetu zika aribika” (Chief we fled and all our mushrooms got spoiled). I was hopeful though, due to the fact that they were still very knowledgeable in the mushroom production process. It’s a pity after the amazing commitment shown by these women, and I still felt really bad. But we had to move on, and before leaving the station we had a quick chat with the Chief Park Warden and some rangers.

    Jars and equipment used for mushroom cultures

    It was way past mid-day when we headed to the Bukima ranger station via the almost non-existent road. My driver was really struggling with his steering wheel. We got stuck not in the mud, but in the jagged volcanic rocks that make up a section of the road. We had to push a Land Cruiser!  This road was not good before the war, however, and had not been used for almost two years.

    At Bukima a number of beekeepers were waiting for us, as well as some members of HUGO (Human Gorilla conflict- a team that is used to help encourage gorillas back into the forest when they leave the Park and go crop raiding). Bukima and the surrounding area is an exceedingly beautiful and open place. From the Park station you can visit three gorilla groups, in addition to enjoying the breathtaking scenic view of Mikeno and Karisimbi Volcanoes.

    While I was standing on the hill surveying the amazing Bukima view I felt like a mighty silverback gorilla looking at his bountiful bamboo kingdom. One whose life would be hopeless if this kingdom is destroyed. I tried to measure the effects of the war on people and on our activities and projects. It was tough getting my head around it: how to re-start things when you realise effort alone is not sufficient.  You need stability as well. Which is slowly coming back to this area.

    Time was quickly running out for us to go deeper into more villages, thus we had to rely only on the warm and emotional (again) brief exchanges that we had with the local people, beekeepers and HUGO members. On the way back we were shown battlegrounds, fronts and enemy lines where the most recent outbreak of war had taken place. I realized the whole IGCP operating area was affected.

    Dusk was upon us when we passed the lone volcano still active, the smoking Nyirangongo, a brooding red cloud on top reminding us,“well I am still here, the permanent threat…” .

    The smoking and always active Nyirangongo volcano

    The Land Cruiser was still dodging holes on the bumpy road near Goma when one of the partners asked me, “Wellard how do we manage to be that close to these people?” My answer was simple: “I don’t know… just be a part of them”.  Goma was just ahead….

Concept Advisory Services

  • TPS Serena & Co-operative Bank Shares On A Sprint

    Posted: May 29, 2009, 8:34 pm by admin

    During yesterdays trading, the NSE 20 index shed 9.0 points to close at 2,849.4 while the NASI and total market capitalization improved to 59.2 points(+0.12 points) and KES 693.lbn(+KES 1.3bn) respectively. Turnover in the market remained high at KES
    197.4m.

    KCB was the days most active counter with 2.7m shares being traded at at an average of KES 19.3. The counter accounted for more than 25.0% of the days activity with foreign investors on the buy side and local investors on the sell side.

    For the second day in a row, Co-operative Bank was one of the top gainers following its 1Q09 earnings announcement on Wednesday during which the bank reported a 38.5% y!y earnings growth.
    TPS Serena was also one of the top gainers with an 8.4% gain during yesterdays trading session. The share price of the hotel group had declined to a low of KES 24.75 earlier in the year following the decline in tourist arrivals due to the post election violence and global economic crisis. The share price has since gained 56.6% to close at KES 38.75. Figures released by the Central Bank of Kenya indicate that the number of tourist arrivals during 1Q09 have increased by 75.1% y!y to 228,000 indicating a steady recovery in the tourism sector.

    Report Coutesy of Our Stock Broker: African Alliance

AWF Blog

  • The Return of Bonobos

    Posted: May 21, 2009, 12:16 am by admin

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    It’s as if the spirit of Papa Bosco Ikwa is with us! After a long period of searching fruitlessly for bonobos, out with our tracking team we have located a group of 13 individuals — 4 males and 6 females carrying two juveniles and a baby.

    Bonobos are not like mountain gorillas, which live in a fairly stable group led by a dominant silverback. They live in a fission-fusion society — groups divide and new ones form on a regular basis. The females are considered dominant, with males staying with their mothers for life while females can move from group to group.

    Bonobos are peaceful, and they like to eat, especially fruit; though it is hard to see precisely through the dense forest, it looks like this group is busy eating Gambeya lacourtiana (Bofambu in the Lomongo dialect). We watch them snack until about 5:25 pm, then decide to leave them in peace so they can construct their nests. Each night, bonobos make a sleeping nest from branches and leaves, usually nesting with the group they are traveling with.

    Here I am tracking bonobos in the Lomako forest some months ago

    The following morning, we return and note that the bonobos had built their nests far up in the trees. This is not uncommon; but we hope we have not disturbed them and driven them so high. On waking they see us but show no fear, easily moving about, which is a good sign for our habituation efforts. They begin to eat the fruit of the trees where they have constructed their nests. After observing the group for some time, we gather the feces around the area so we can analyse its food composition.

    Our fecal analysis reveals that the bonobos ate not only Gambeya lacourtiana, but also Musanga cercopioides (Boonga); Ficus sp (Lokumo); Polyalthia suavolens (Bolinga); Treculia african (Boimbo) and the young stems of Haumania (Bekombe). (Another time, I will show you pictures of these local plants.) That’s quite a good variety. After having gone so long without seeing bonobos we were concerned that a lack of food had kept them from the research area.

    This bonobo was spotted during another trek

    Though there is plenty to do in the camp even if bonobos are not present or are difficult to locate, a special feeling hangs in the air after the trackers have located a group and spent time studying them. This latest sighting has visibly lifted the tracker’s spirits. The loss of Papa Bosco Ikwa just two weeks ago has taken its toll. Our work gives us the feeling of carrying on his legacy.

    We look forward to the time when others might travel here for the privilege of seeing these unique great apes in the forest. Until then I hope my notes will give you a good idea of what our work here is like. Let’s hope for more bonobo sightings soon.

Concept Advisory Services

  • Solutions and Ways to Survive During Economic Crisis

    Posted: April 21, 2009, 7:30 pm by admin

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    At any given time in your life you may find yourself in a financial situation not of your making. The recent credit crisis in America is a prime example. It is a uniquely perfect storm to be sure, the kind of economic crisis that comes along once every 20 -30 years perhaps, but that doesn’t lesson the impact on your well being.

    Economic hardships come and go, and are largely beyond our control as individuals but there are things we can do to prepare for such times. Severe economic downturns have some factors in common, and this current credit crisis is no different in this regard. Some effects we can expect include:

    Free Money?

    It will become harder to get loans and the loans you do get will likely have higher interest rates. Banks will continue to keep lending money, just not with the exuberance they have in the past decade. Lenders have been bitten by risky loans they made. As a result, lenders are more conservative in whom the lend money to and the conditions of those loans. This means your chances of qualifying for a non secured loan are slim, if they exist at all. In short, you’ll likely be charged a higher interest rate on the money you borrow. Credit card rates will likely go up.

    High unemployment rate

    When companies can’t borrow money easily, it becomes harder to continue high rates of growth. Decreased growth means layoffs. In the case of some small business, this may even me closing the doors permanently.

    Lower returns and poor performance on Investments

    Expect your unit trusts (Equity Fund) and shares… to take a hit. With the economy slowing and a general uncertainty of how bad the crisis will be there will be a lot of volatility in the stock market. Companies will likely hoard any cash they have, reducing the likelihood of dividend increases, which are a large part of stock market returns over the long haul.

    Recession

    Essentially, we’re looking at the recession the media has been trying to convince us we’ve been in for the past 12 months actually becoming a reality.

    So, what can you do? How can the little guy avoid the financial fall out? Hunker down in your financial bunker and get back to basics. Here are a few steps to build and manage your financial bunker:

    Build a strong foundation

    This economic crisis is a stark reminder that an emergency fund is a necessity. An emergency fund is the foundation of any financial bunker. If you have 3-6 months of expenses saved in a bank account or a fixed deposit then you have a much better chance of surviving any layoffs headed your way. The more in your fund, the longer you can hold out. Think of this as your stash of non-perishable food.

    Remove the dead weight

    As mentioned above, money will be harder to come by and adjustable rates are likely to rise. So, it’s a great reason to avoid debt wherever possible and eliminate as much of the debt you have now as you can. Those with the most debt will be hardest hit in economic slow downs.

    Buy only what you need

    If you’re trying to fluff up that emergency fund, or eliminate the dead weight debt, now is not the time for that new car or plasma screen T. V.. Adopt (continue) a frugal lifestyle. If you’re thinking of taking a mortage, plan on serving  it long term.

    Invest in Stocks

    Returns will likely be a lot lower in the short term, but there is no better way to out pace inflation in the long term than investing in the stock market. If you don’t have the time or inclination for investing, you can go the unit trust way but invest in the money market. I’m 25+ years away from retirement, so the recent market turmoil is an excellent buying opportunity for me. Stocks are having a big sale, and if you don’t need the money for 2 years or more it would be foolish not to take part.

    Big drops like this in the stock market really only hurt people if they take their money out while stocks are low. Retirees and soon to be retirees are hardest hit. Use this crisis as a lesson: keep an eye on your allocations. If you’re 10 years or less away from retirement you should have much more money in bonds and cash. Be properly diversified and have a year’s worth of living expenses in cash or in a fixed deposit in the run up to your retirement date. That way, you can still retire when planned even if the market tanks just as you’re about to pull the plug on your working income.

    As I said, these are really basic concepts. The trick is to keep your head, don’t lose heart and stay focused on the big picture. Keep a long term outlook, and you can ride out any economic storm.

     

  • Nairobi Stock Exchange March Performance

    Posted: April 6, 2009, 6:30 pm by admin

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    Today the market opened at a high note with some counters gaining with a maximum of the allowed 10%. It is a good feeling considering where we have been. Nevertheless, most counters are way below their September 2008 prices. But one thing to note is no one is 100% certain of the direction the market will take. The current rally is being explained through the Equity share split of last week which has seen the share gain 33% in a period of less than 7 days.

     

     So is trading in shares still profitable? Look at the numbers below and fill in the gaps.

    In the last 30 days- as of April 6, 2009 these are the stats of the gainers and losers.

     

    Gainers, (Assume you had invested  K’sh 100,000 in the market)

     

    Equity Bank- Gained by   =69.52%

    Kenya RE                         =54%

    Rea Vipingo                     =32.84%

    E.A Cables                       =31.83%

    Sasini                                =31.71%

    KCB                                 =26.13%

    KenGen                            =24.38%

    Mumias                            =23.94%

    CMC                                 =19.90%

     

    And now the losers,

     

    Car and General             = (19.58%)

    Crown Berge                   =(12.67%)

    E.A Portland                  =(11.76%)

    Pan Africa                          =(10.20%)

    CO-OP Bank                      =(9.79%)

    Express Kenya                    =(9.09%)

     

     

    Obviously, the numbers above paint a rosy picture but keep in mind that past performance is not necessary a guide to future performance. And always look at your personal circumstances before you invest at the stock market.

     

  • Planning Ahead to Finance Your Child’s Education

    Posted: March 31, 2009, 6:03 pm by admin

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    How you can save for your child’s education?   You should start planning for your child’s Educational needs as early as possible.   Plan early and be focused First, give yourself enough time to build up your child’s education fund. The earlier you start the better. Second, be focused. Draw up a special plan solely for this purpose.   Saving for your child’s education There are many ways to save for your child’s education. You can put your savings in a bank deposit; invest in unit trusts or other types of investment; or buy a child education endowment policy. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.   Bank Deposit Start by regularly saving a portion of your income either in a savings account or a fixed deposit with a bank or finance company. As a low risk option, the interest earned will generally be low. This may not allow you to hedge your savings against inflation. Bank deposits are liquid and can be withdrawn when the need arises. However, this may detract you from building up the education fund.   Investments Investments such as stocks, unit trusts and investment-linked insurance products can potentially give you higher returns. However, they carry higher risks as they are directly affected by market volatility. Unit trusts and investment-linked insurance products allow you to benefit from the expertise of professional fund managers. An investment-linked insurance product has the additional feature of a death benefit. When making investments, choose a product that matches your risk tolerance level and investment time horizon   Child education endowment policy You can buy an endowment policy, which is an insurance policy with a specific maturity date. Upon the maturity of the policy, the maturity value is paid to the surviving insured. You can choose a policy term which matures when your child is entering university. An endowment policy typically gives you a stable compounded return, which grows in value over the years. It also pays out a death benefit if the insured dies during the term of the policy.   For a regular premium endowment policy, you will enjoy the full benefit of the policy only if you pay the premiums faithfully over the term of the policy. If you terminate the policy prematurely, the surrender value payable may be less than the total premiums contributed. There are many different types of endowment policies. Before you purchase a policy, study the Benefit Illustration and the accompanying product summary carefully. Do not buy anything you do not understand or which does not meet your needs.

  • Chris Kirubi: Why I am still a confident investor

    Posted: March 20, 2009, 2:28 pm by admin

    Copy paste from the Business Daily.

    The last one year has seen share prices decline sharply at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. One of our local daily newspapers on Tuesday ran a story on the effect of the decline in share prices on four “high net-worth” individuals, including myself. The paper proceeded to list the approximate amount of money we had “lost.”

    I felt the picture painted in the article may have sent the wrong signal to other investors who may not fully understand the effects of the global economic crisis and economic cycles that we are experiencing. Most of the news reports on the matter have adopted a depressing tone and no one seems ready to imagine that the market will ever recover.

    It is no surprise that investor confidence has also taken a downturn, as the outlook for global equities has been negative as investors downgrade earnings expectations. As a result, share prices have declined all around the world.

    In Kenya, some foreign investors have sold their shares, while Kenyan shareholders have also been buffeted by other domestic factors which include tighter monetary conditions exerted on the economy in the middle of 2008; poor harvest in the same year and the negative effects of the post election violence.

    Current prices

    Despite these I as a retail investor, still have confidence in the stock market. Please, don’t think I am crazy! Instead, appreciate that in 2009 and 2010 we should see the effects of these domestic factors begin to ebb  away  as a more normal harvest comes through this year and monetary easing that began in January starts to work through the economy.

    This development in local economic conditions will be in sync with the global economic recovery that is now widely expected to commence in 2010. It is important for investors to always remember that today’s share prices should reflect all available information.

    In my view, current market prices are not underpinned by the fundamentals of the economy and current levels most investors are over estimating the downside risk for the market.

    Share prices have already fallen by 50 per cent and at current market valuations are at 2003 levels, which marked the start of the 2003- 2006 bull run. Remember that time, when you made lots of money on the NSE?

    Economic cycles come and go. Today, we are experiencing a global down swing in economic activity. It is important to note that the stock market typically starts to rally well ahead of the economy’s own recovery.

    For Kenya, I expect confidence will rebound quickly especially amongst the institutions, and high net worth investors who are probably better attuned to the state of the economy. These savvy investors will lead the market out of this bear run we are experiencing.

    -Capital News

    Mr Kirubi is a Kenyan industrialist.

  • Invest In Your Health

    Posted: March 17, 2009, 4:12 pm by admin

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    When times are tough many of us will cut on unnecessary expenditure. For men, some will cut on the number of visits to the bar or the number of bottles taken. For women it’s more to do with shopping for clothes. While doing so many of us want to tighten our belts and ensure that the shilling takes us a mile further.

     

    One area often ignored is our health. The reason that you’re able to report to your place of work is that you’re healthy. If not, then you wouldn’t be able to generate your income in whatever way you do. Therefore, we can all assume that the state of our health is important. Nevertheless, many of us though unconsciously tend to neglect our health either through bad consumption habits or through not taking enough measure to ensure our healthy status is maintained.

     

    We all know that the worst calamity that can befall an individual or family is one being taken ill and there is no money. Mostly members of your extended family will bail you out but what happens when everyone is lamenting of how broke they are. The end results would be for one to dig into their savings in order to settle the bill. When savings are consumed this way it will end up interfering with important projects or land the individual/family into endless debt.

     

    The best option for such a scenario would be to consider taking a medical cover or a personal accident policy with an insurance company. With a small monthly premium your life and that of your immediate family is covered for unexpected illness or an accident. And with occurrence of one you won’t be forced to go back to your savings.

     

    Some of the companies offering this service include AAR Kenya, Resolution Health, APA Insurance and British American Insurance Company Ltd among many. For example, a personal accident cover amounting to k’sh 5,000,000 from British American will cost less than k’sh 2,800 a month. A comprehensive cover from AAR or Resolution health for a nuclear family will cost you k’sh 90,000. Moreover, these firms will give you some leeway in paying the premiums monthly/installments. Not much considering the peace of mind in knowing that your medical burden has been shifted to the solution providers.

     

    I know from my experience that people stop taking care of themselves first when times toughen economically, or if things get too busy.  To me, that is very concerning.  To me taking care of your health is as necessary as taking out the garbage or cleaning the house—if you don’t, life stinks.  In fact, the way I recommend people to manage their health is to take care of it before the problems arises, or in some cases get worse.

     

    Most importantly, when you take care of your health, you will enjoy work, home, and life much more!

AWF Blog

  • Bonobos Are Changing Their Behaviour: Why?

    Posted: March 13, 2009, 11:44 am by admin

    We are still having difficulties locating the bonobos in our research area, but we are finding their food traces of Haumania and Palisota as well as their nests a bit further afield, approximately 7 kilometers from camp.

    The reason lying behind this lack of sightings in the area remains unknown and we are asking ourselves the following questions which we would like to share with other scientists in the hopes that they might be able to enlighten us:

    1. Has our prolonged presence here at Ndele caused the bonobos to flee to another area? To this we might answer no, other researchers who have spent extended periods here can confirm that these bonobos and others elsewhere have always come into contact with people who don’t harm them without changing their home range.
    2. Is it the lack of food, despite a constant presence of Terrestrial Herbaceous Vegetation (THV) such as Haumania and Palisota that has caused them to move elsewhere, and if so what benefit are they finding where they are as we still share the same ecosystem and climate?

    Either way we can certainly say that a phenomenon never recorded in the area is now occurring: In this part of the Lomako, the dry season runs from January to March each year, unfortunately so far this year it has not rained nearly enough everyday. As a consequence there is a problem of food availability, especially for the frugivores in the area. Since the very fruitful season in 2007, most of the tree species have given no flowers and no fruit and when they do give fruit, these are decimated before they are even ripe whilst the bonobos continue to wait for ripe fruit.

    Me and the guides in the forest looking for bonobos.

    We therefore suppose that the food availability may be a consequence of a change in the phenological cycle of the trees in the area if only the Lomako region is affected, or perhaps on a larger scale due to global climate change. If all or most of the ecosystems are affected it could be the cause for the change in the behaviour of the bonobos. They are known to vocalize a lot when feeding on the fruit of the large trees that they prefer, but they no longer do this, not only because the fruit are no longer present but also because when they are present they are in such small quantities that they are either eaten by the small monkeys first or monopolized by the first individual or individuals that reach them.

    What are your thoughts? We ask for the advice or thoughts of any researchers especially past researchers in Lomako.

    -

    En francais:

    Changement de Comportement Chez les Bonobos de Lomako : Pourquoi?

    Nous avons toujours difficile à trouver les bonobos dans notre zone d’étude mais nous retrouvons leurs restes alimentaires de Haumania et de Palisota et leurs nids un peu plus loin à environ 7 Kilomètres du camp de Ndele.

    Map of Lomako Reserve, highlighting our study area. Click to enlarge.

    Les raisons que nous n’arrivions plus à voir les bonobos dans notre zone d’étude ne sont pas encore connues et nous sommes entrain de nous poser ces quelques questions que nous souhaitons partager avec les scientifiques bien outillés en la matière pour un éclaircissement:

    1. Est-ce notre présence prolongée dans le site a fait fuir les bonobos vers d’autres endroits? Là, nous pouvons dire non à condition que les autres chercheurs qui ont fait plus du temps sur le terrain en étudiant les bonobos nous précisent car ces bonobos et même ceux d’ailleurs ont toujours été en contact avec les personnes qui ne les agressent pas sans changer le domaine vital.
    2. Est- ce le manque de nourriture, malgré la présence permanente d’une végétation terrestière herbicole (THV) à l’exemple de Haumania et Palisota qui a fait déplacer les bonobos vers ailleurs et si tel est le cas, pourquoi ce déplacement car nous sommes dans un même écosystème qui bénéficie du même climat?

    En tout cas, nous pouvons signaler qu’il se passe un phénomène jamais observé dans la région : dans cette région de la Lomako la saison sèche a toujours eu lieu de janvier en mars chaque année mais malheureusement cette année durant cette même période, il continu à pleuvoir chaque jour. Comme conséquence, il se pose un problème de  disponibilité de la nourriture surtout pour les frugivores dans la région du fait que depuis la dernière saison de 2007 qui a donné beaucoup des fruits dans la forêt, jusqu’aujourd’hui, la plupart d’espèces d’arbres ne donnent ni fleur ni fruit et les quelques qui en donnent, leurs fruits sont consommés et exterminés avant qu’ils soient mûrs alors que les bonobos ne consomment que les mûrs.

    Sur ce, nous supposons que la disponibilité de la nourriture qui peut être une conséquence soit du changement de cycle phénologique des arbres de la région au cas où cela ne concerne que la région de la Lomako seule ou soit du changement climatique et réchauffement de la planète. Si cela atteint tous ou la majorité des écosystèmes serait à la base du changement de comportement chez les bonobos surtout qu’ils (bonobos) sont reconnus faire beaucoup des vocalisations lorsqu’ils mangent les fruits des grands arbres préférés et ne les font plus non seulement par manque de ces fruits mais aussi parce que au cas où ces fruits sont là ; soit qu’ils sont consommés par les petits singes ou soit qu’ ils sont en petite quantité qui est monopolisée par l’individu ou les individus qui les découvrent le premier.

    Aux scientifiques et surtout aux anciens chercheurs des bonobos de Lomako nous demandons conseil.

Concept Advisory Services

  • An Opportunity To Invest In GoK Treasury Bond.

    Posted: March 9, 2009, 7:11 pm by admin

    The stock market continues to register losses for the third month running. And this might continue until the stockbrokers clean up their act and investor confidence is restored. Only then will we see the kind of profitable trading that was there exactly a year ago.

    As an insider, my best advice is for one to accumulate on their shareholding. The market is not going to collapse but the depression will continue. For how long no one can tell. Nevertheless, I am motivated by what happened to KQ a decade ago. The share was listed with much hype only for the share to fall below its IPO price in just weeks. This lead to panic withdraws from the market. This is similar to what has happened to Safaricom.

    However, looking back, those KQ shareholders who survived made a tidy return on their investment. At one time the share that had registered a low of k’sh 2.50 hit an all time high of k’sh 145. That’s the power of long-term investments.

    Nevertheless, I know many retailers have been hard hit and in a characteristic fashion many are opting to buy land and invest in business ventures. Not a bad idea at all. In any case you have to diversify. A case of having some eggs in another basket.

    But for those who still want to consider the capital markets but away from stocks, it’s a high time you had a look at Bonds. A safe bet for your investments. Better than bank savings account and fixed deposits. Having your money at the bank is an insult to your hard work.

    I have provided details of a bond on offer by the Government that matures in two years and interest is payable semi annually. The minimum amount is also reasonable at 50k.

    More details listed below.

    Amount: K’sh 8.5 Billions

    Purpose: For budgetary support. Even the Government has been hard hit from the runaway inflation

    Period of sale: March 6th to 18th. Payment date is 23rd March by 2 pm. Payment is through bankers cheque.

    Minimum Amount: K’sh 50,000

    Interest payment: Payable after every six months

    Listing: The bond will be listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange

    Trading: Secondary trading in multiples of ‘sh 50,000 to commence on Thursday 26th march

    Placing agents: Your stock broker/investment bank, commercial banks.

    Eligibility: You need a CDS account (opening a CDS account with CBK is free)

    This is one investment I highly recommend and you can get back to me with questions.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • What Does The Future Hold?

    Posted: March 3, 2009, 7:29 pm by admin

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    Okay, we have heard a lot about the current economic crisis and what caused it. Now let’s look to the future with the today’s Question of the Day:When do you think things will return to normal?

    By “normal,” I mean the economy starts growing again and people start putting money back into the stock market.

    I have this nasty feeling that it’s going to be a long time before we get out of this mess. Several commentators have mentioned the real threat of inflation occasioned by the food shortage and the increased cost of living. That’s not good news. So my guess is that we are looking at 2-3 years before things return to normal (and that’s being optimistic).

    My strategy now is to keep doing what I’m doing. Adding to my investment on a continuous basis and ignoring the business news on the stock market because all they do is make me sad.  And no more speculative trading, its long term trading all the way.

    So what about you? When do you think things will turn around? What have you heard or read?

Intricately Me

  • Changes

    Posted: February 25, 2009, 1:52 pm by admin

    Im back in Kenya and who would have thought that it would take me this long or perhaps even longer to readjust… I cant seem to fit back in, maybe its all in my mind but the system here is so alien to me. Some days I cant even understand how this place runs through all the chaos. I don’t know what or who to take seriously.

    There are a few things that I think this country really needs, basic general education on things like credit… Free health care, no let me rephrase that free good health care….More opportunities need to be created for the poor… Ngo’s need to shift their stance from providing aid to providing people with solutions to help themselves. People need to be educated on their rights and on taxes and on retirement options, life insurance, pensions, auto insurance… Someone needs to map out this city so that people can have individual addresses… there is just a whole lot that needs to be put in place so that people can be more efficient.

    The media could shift their sights from gossip and pay more attention to educating people on some of these things…In fact the media perhaps could help point out areas that need improving and then point some of the companies that could be instrumental in changing some of these things in that general direction… call it public police-ing.

    I love this country but it can be very frustrating… Hopefully I will find a place where I too can be useful lets cross our fingers J

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

Concept Advisory Services

  • Living Wisely When Times Are Tight

    Posted: February 17, 2009, 8:49 pm by admin

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    Currently, most publications from newspapers to magazines and online portals are carrying out features on the economic crisis.

     

    Much of the talk is centered on a national scale and the effect on companies profitability’s, there is little mention on the impact the crisis will have on individuals. Probably because each of us will be impacted differently as they are many variables. Ranging from the industry that we operate in, type of household be it married or single and on the level of our preparedness.

     

    Nevertheless, on a general scale how should you react to the unfolding scenario?

     

    The first pointer should be for one to accept the situation. Burying your head in the sand will only lead you to financial trouble.  When you accept the situation, you will cut on non-expenditure and opt for saving money on each occasion. Even doctors advice that the first step to healing a traumatized mind is accepting the situation and getting to the next step which is moving on.

     

    It also helps to know of your priorities. Thus if its that pending renewal for your golf club you might want to put it off and instead buy a medical cover  just incase things go wrong. This is the time to go for secure investments. You should at this point adhere to your budget strictly. It also helps to distinguish between needs and wants. Needs include food, shelter, clothing and education. All others might be considered as a luxury capable of being deferred to a latter time.

     

    Maybe another option to consider is a way to make an extra buck. Say you are an Accountant. This would be a good time to offer part time accounting services to small business in your location. Not only will it be an added source of income but also your entrepreneur skills will be brought to fore. Jobs cuts happen a lot and if you don’t have a place to lean the repercussions will be fatal.

     

    Consider toping up on your emergency fund. With hard economic times no one knows for sure when the economy will rebound and recover. An emergency fund helps you take care of this uncertainty. Ultimately this should be a practice ingrained on your day-to-day life since as the last one year has shown, it’s possible for the economy to take a nose dive without a warning. Don’t be caught napping.

     

    What the recession has taught us is to always stick to the fundamentals of personal finance.  This includes budgeting for expenses, saving and investing for the future.

  • Practical Steps To Safeguard Your Investment At The NSE

    Posted: February 12, 2009, 7:50 pm by admin

    Unless you have been living under a rock, you must be aware of the crisis facing the Nairobi Stock Exchange. From revelations of some stockbrokers still trading on client’s accounts and allegations of the Capital Markets Authority and the Nairobi Stock Exchange officials turning a blind eye to the mess in the market.

    All this can leave an investor worried not knowing where to turn for help. And to make matters worse many young people had embraced the stock market as an avenue to save. Now, id like it known that young people don’t make good savers and if the crisis at the NSE is not resolved soonest we might as well condemn this group to endless consumption which does not help them and neither the society.

    I have highlighted some steps you can make to protect your investment at the NSE.

    1. You can ‘flag’ or ‘freeze’ your shares. Just visit the CDSC located at Nation Center 10 floor, with a letter notify them of your intention not to trade with your CDSC account until you issue further instructions in writing. If you don’t plan to dispose your shares in the near future you can instruct the CDSC to Flag or Freeze the shares that way no transaction takes place on them until you unflag / unfreeze them. Your broker will be able to view your portfolio holding but cannot make an order be it a purchase or sale on your account.

    2. Register for the SMS update service from the CDSC. At an extra cost of k’sh 5, you will be notified every time there is activity in your account. The notifications are mainly buy or sell orders and if you didn’t issue any instructions you have ample time to remedy the situation. Investors can use the CDSC SMS service to confirm the status of their share holdings in their CDS accounts by sending the word ‘REG’ to 2372.

    3. Transfer your investment to a custodian. You need not invest in the stock market directly. At a fee, you can access custodial service from Barclays, Kenya Commercial Bank, CBA, Equity Bank etc. At the present situation, most of us have invested through the stockbrokers who act as custodian hence having easy access to our investments and we all know what this leads to.

    4. Diversify. Shares are not the only investment to do. Think of Government backed securities i.e. Treasury Bills and Bonds. Engage the services of the fund managers with their unit trusts products. If not pensionable at your place of work, engage an insurance company.

    5. Keep track of your investment. Most of us treat investing like a hobby. Something to be done occasionally. My advice: be actively engaged. Ask for mini statements now and then. Query any item you do not understand. Above all know what you’re getting yourself into. To start receiving stock holding statements in email write to helpdesk@cdsckenya.co.ke

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

  • Kenyan citizens file suit demanding scrapping of the PSC

    Posted: February 12, 2009, 2:29 pm by admin

    On Wednesday, December 10, 2008, the 17 Kenyans filed High Court Petition No. 769 of 2008, at the Nairobi Law Courts, requesting that the PSC be scrapped for violating the Constitution of the Republic of Kenya, and for flouting the republican ethics that prohibit public officials from using their offices for unjust enrichment and other forms of personal gain.

    The Parliamentary Service Commission has appointed Mr. Paul Muite (immediate former Kabete MP) and Mr. Phiroze Nowrjee to represent them.

    The case comes up again for mention on March 12, 2009, at the Nairobi High Court, Chamber 35, at 9.00 am.

    You can lend your support to the case, by signing up to be a petitioner here. You can also find out more about the case including filed affidavits at the link.

  • Parliament needs to tackle CDF abuse

    Posted: February 11, 2009, 11:59 pm by admin

    According to CDF Insight:

    CDF Insight investigations have established that out of the fourty cases presented to KACC only two were taken before the law courts for prosecution, one was dismissed while the rest seem to have either been forgotten or are being investigated at snail’s pace. Mysteriously, the Director Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko indicates that his office had not received any cases either from the CDF Board or the KACC requiring him to take over prosecution as empowered by the constitutional law.

    Read more here

fortySouth

Concept Advisory Services

  • Before you start your business this year, look out for…

    Posted: February 3, 2009, 1:24 pm by admin

    Around this time of the year, a lot of people have New Year resolutions that involve starting their own business. The idea of starting your own business is as fulfilling as it is exciting, but before you make this bold move to self employment, its important to note that Kenya  has the world’s highest entrepreneurial rate and also holds the record for the highest rate of failed businesses in any one country. In other words businesses in Kenya have no problem getting started, the biggest problem they face is staying afloat. If you are going to start a business, there are a few pointers you must have at the back of your head.

    Passion, love and details
    For one, you must be passionate about the business. The business should not just be something you are knowledgeable about or something you simply like; it should be something you are in love with. However one of the biggest problems most new businesses face is that their owners are passionate about the business, but not necessarily passionate when it comes to the details of running the business. It’s the equivalent of being passionate about food, but not necessarily passionate about the details of cooking. For the business you are about to start to succeed, your passion must extend to every boring detail of the business.

    Tough business
    As much as it might seem simple, owning a business is not child’s play – it can be tough. You need not only have the nerve for it but the psychological and emotional stability for it as well. Most business owners (though not all of them) will agree that the beginning is usually the hardest, but as time goes by, it slowly turns into a piece of cake. There is a business concept that says, “Business is war,” as you go on to start your own business you might start to realise that there is some truth in this.

    Know the Market
    Just because you know somebody who made a whole lot of good money from a particular kind of business doesn’t mean you too should go rushing to open up a similar kind of business.
    The point here is this; do not run to start a business without first understanding the kind of market you are going to be dealing with. It is very important to know who exactly buys your product or services; you need to know how your market thinks, behaves, reacts and even what it expects. It also helps a great deal if you (the business owner) is also the kind of person that consumes whatever it is that you are planning to sell – however this is not a hard and fast rule. To help you understand the market you need to ask your self, “If I were a customer, would I buy this?” For example, if you decide to start a business that sells a luxurious product or service, you should understand that your customers need to feel glamorous – then work around that.

    What skills do you have?
    As much as a business needs money to get started, it also needs skills. When starting your business you need to ask yourself, or figure out what skills are you bringing to the business. However, when considering what skills you can bring to the business don’t just consider professional skills. Your personal skills such as emotional stability are just as important to the business, so they should also be looked at as a contribution. Making a study of what skills you will bring to the business helps you understand your professional and personal significance to the business that you are planning to set up.

    What skills do you lack?
    As an entrepreneur, you don’t only stop at figuring out what material resources you don’t have, but what skills you don’t have as well. Plus you need to figure out how you are going to learn those skills, or how to get people with those skills, or simply figure out how you are going to manage without those skills – basically do without them.

    Why the business will succeed?
    With most of the above worked out, you need to ask yourself, “why will this business am going to start succeed?” Doing this involves considering all advantageous points that are in your favour, such as; what personal and professional skills you have, what material resources you have, what opportunities you are looking forward to exploiting or taking advantage of, how your understanding of the market will help your business succeed and give you an edge over the competition.
    For example if you are considering to buying stock in an oil company; when looking at why this business idea might succeed you consider the fact that oil prices seem to be going up more than they are going down. So the investment could be promising.

    Why would the business fail?
    Even though negativity is highly discouraged in business, it is important to be realistic. Even though every investment is a risk, it should not be a stupid risk. The point in asking yourself why the business might fail is not to discourage your self but to help you understand what you are up against or what is not in your favour. For example, if you are planning to sell flowers during the Valentine season, when looking at why this business idea might fail, you consider the fact that competition will be heavy at that time. Once you consider most of what you need to and you still want to go on, then go ahead and start the business. You should know that having your own business is not like having a job. As a business owner, you will be working almost 24 hours a day – constantly thinking about the business and how to move it forward.  A lot of people start businesses for different reasons, some do it for the prestige, while others do it for the experience – just to see how it feels like. Regardless of why you want to start your own business, you should know that you are in it to win and

  • Youth Enterprise Development Fund Kenya

    Posted: January 31, 2009, 2:34 pm by admin

    As earlier pointed out,the Government through the Ministry of Youth and Sports are financing youth based ventures. Banks carrying out this operation include Equity Bank , Family Bank and K-Rep Bank. Equity And K-Rep are financing groups while Family is offering loans to individual businesses. The loan is pegged to the size of your business and interest rate is 8% P.A on reducing balance.

    More details below from the Youth Ministry.

    BACKGROUND OF THE FUND

    The Youth Enterprise Development Fund was conceived in June 2006 by the government as a strategic move towards arresting unemployment which is virtually a youth problem. Seventy five percent (75%) of those unemployed are the youth. The government set aside Kenya shillings One billion (Ksh. 1 billion) in the 2006/07 budget to fast-track this noble and timely initiative.

    The Fund was gazetted on 8th December 2006 to provide the necessary legal framework to govern its use and operations. The Fund facilitates youth employment through enterprise development and structured labour export. The 11-member Advisory Board of the Fund was gazetted on 31st January 2007 and is 60% private sector dominated.

    The Youth Enterprise Development Fund was officially launched on 1st February 2007 by His Excellency President Mwai Kibaki. This launch marked the beginning of the Fund disbursement process to the youth enterprises through the Financial Intermediaries and the Constituency Youth Enterprise Scheme.

    THE OBJECTIVES OF THE FUND 

    • Provide loans to existing micro-finance institutions (MFIs), registered non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in micro financing, and savings and credit co-operative organizations (SACCOs) for on-lending to youth enterprises;
    • Attract and facilitate investment in micro, small and medium enterprises oriented commercial infrastructure such as business or industrial parks, markets or business incubators that will be beneficial to youth enterprises;
    • Support youth oriented micro, small and medium enterprises to develop linkages with large enterprises;
    • Facilitate marketing of products and services of youth enterprises in both domestic and international markets; and
    • Facilitate employment of youth in the international labour market.

    FUND ALLOCATION

    • The Kenya shillings one billion was allocated as follows:
    • Ksh. 210 million was allocated to parliamentary constituencies to finance youth groups. Each Constituency receives Ksh. 1 million.
    • Ksh. 690 million was channeled through Financial Intermediaries to finance all legally recognized forms of youth-owned enterprises
    • Ksh. 100 million was set aside to cater for the other objectives of the Fund that entail commercial infrastructure development, linkage schemes, marketing of products/services of youth enterprises, labour export scheme, and also finance some administrative expenses.

    FUND DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
    To ensure equity in the distribution the Fund, the following criteria has been used:

    • The first half of the Fund (Ksh. 345 million) has been divided equally to all districts
    • The second half of the Fund (Ksh. 345 million) has been divided as a factor of the population of young people in each district

    FUND DISBURSEMENT LEVELS

    Minimum conditions for accessing the Fund:

    • One must fall in the age bracket of 18 to 35 years and Kenyan.
    • One must have the intention of investing the Fund in a business venture.
    • The Fund is a loan and must therefore be repaid.
    • Any form of legally registered organization or firm operating in Kenya

    A) CONSTITUENCY YOUTH ENTERPRISE SCHEME (C-YES)

    This portion of the Fund is to ensure that all young people especially those living in remote areas not well served by Financial Intermediaries are not disadvantaged in accessing the Fund.

    The features and access procures are as follows

    • The loan is accessible only to youth groups operating within the parliamentary constituency
    • Maximum loan amount per group is Ksh. 50,000
    • Not accessible to individually owned youth enterprises
    • The loan attracts no interest but has an administration fee of 5% deductible upfront from the approved loan
    • Proposal Screening, recommendation and approval done by Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) committees at divisional and district levels
    • 3-month grace period; full repayment within 12 months after grace period
    • Mixed age groups must have at least 70% youth membership and 100% of their leadership in the youth bracket
    • Standard proposal format available to all potential applicants

    Loan Access Procedures/requirements:

    • Must have a registered group/company/cooperative which has been in existence for at least 3 months as of the date of application
    • The registered entity must have a bank account
    • The entity must have at least 70% youth membership and 100% of its leadership in the youth bracket
    • Prepare business proposal using the standard format provided
    • Submit the proposal form to Divisional Youth Enterprise Development Fund Committee through Youth Officers, Social Development Assistants, or the Constituency Office
    • Divisional Youth Enterprise Development Fund Committee evaluates the proposal using evaluation guide provided by the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs
    • Recommended proposals submitted to the District Youth Enterprise Development Fund Committee for validation and approval
    • The District YEDF Committee submits the approved proposals to the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) Secretariat
    • The YEDF Secretariat disburses the funds directly to the bank accounts of the approved groups
    • The Entity repays the loan in installments within 12 months after the grace period into the bank account of the YEDF

    Composition of the Divisional YEDFC

    The committee is composed of the District Officer (Chairman), the Divisional Youth Officer (Secretary), the Social Development Assistants, two youth representatives (male and female) from non-applicant groups, two representatives from the dominant faith-based organizations in the division, and local area Member of Parliament as an ex-officio.

    Composition of the District YEDFC

    The committee is comprised of the District Commissioner (Chairman), the District Youth Development Officer (Secretary), the District Youth Training Officer, the District Social Development Officer, Chairday of Maendeleo ya Wanawake, two youth representatives (male and female) not serving the divisional committees, two representatives of main religious faiths in the district, and representative of a major civil society organization operating in the area.

    (B) FLEXIBLE COLLATERAL FUND CHANNELED THROUGH FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARIES

    This channel has been created to finance all youth enterprises in the country to cater for the different financing needs.

    Features:

    • The loan targets all forms of youth owned enterprises whether owned individually, as a company, in groups, in cooperatives or any other legal forms of business ownership;
    • Loan is accessible to any youth owned enterprise operating within the district;
    • The loan is managed by selected Financial Intermediaries;
    • The loan  attracts interest rate of 8% per annum on a reducing balance;
    • Very flexible (soft), if any, collateral required;
    • The loan amount is dependent on the nature of business proposed and the lending terms of the Financial Intermediary;
    • No maximum amount. However, Financial Intermediary seeks approval for loan amount exceeding Ksh. 500,000.

    Loan Access Procedures/requirements:

    • Applicant must have identification details such as business registration certificates or personal identification papers such as National Identity Card or passport;
    • The applicant must have a bank account preferable to the preferred Financial Intermediary;
    • The applicant collects loan application form from his or her preferred Financial Intermediary;
    • Submit the loan application form or self-prepared business proposal to the preferred Financial Intermediary;
    • The preferred Financial Intermediary carries out the assessment of the proposed business to establish financial viability and other relevant technical matters;
    • Attendance of  training programme, if required;
    • Verification by the District Youth Officer  when sought for by Financial Intermediary;
    • The applicant repays the loan with interest rate of 8% to the Financial Intermediary;
    • The repayment period and amount is as agreed with the Financial Intermediary.

  • Wary About Market Volatility? Dont Be.

    Posted: January 29, 2009, 8:08 pm by admin
      NSE posted a negative return of 38% for the year 2008. But for those who invested in the western markets (offshore) the loss was great. I got this in my inbox this morning.
     
       
       
       
         
       
    		 
       

  • Senior Suntra executives, former MD wanted by police

    Posted: January 28, 2009, 10:45 am by admin

    I got this from Standard Newspaper.

    Police are looking for top managers of Suntra Investment Bank over allegations of financial impropriety.

    Only one of the wanted managers, Mr Erastus Kirongothi, has so far been arrested and charged, police confirmed yesterday.

    He took plea of charges presented by the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit last Thursday and granted bail.

    Head of the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit (BFIU) Paul Ndambuki said they wanted to question the former CEO, Mr James Murigu and other officials in connection with the disappearance of a client’s shares worth Sh6 million.

    “We have been looking for him since last month, but he has not shown up. So far we have charged one of the directors in connection with illegal trading,” he said.

    The situation

    Ndambuki said the client, a Briton, has been visiting the brokerage offices seeking to sell her shares, but could not after being informed they were not available. The affected shares belonged to East African Breweries Ltd.

    Murigu retired from the firm as managing director in December, last year. Police have asked anyone with similar complaints against any stock broker to report them to BFIU. The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) said it is investigating the firm as part of its annual audits of stockbrokerage firms.

    “Yes it is true that action has been taken as a result of ongoing investigation by the relevant investigative authorities. The Authority, therefore, cannot release too much information as the investigations are ongoing and further information may be prejudicial to the ongoing investigation,”said CMA in a statement yesterday. The saga is the latest in a string of scandals that have seen the collapse of three brokerage institutions.

  • Youth and the Enterprise Culture

    Posted: January 26, 2009, 6:28 pm by admin

    Nowadays its hard to find an inspiring story in the newspapers when all we get is politics and endless scandals.

    However, the Sunday Nation carried a feature on the new state of toilets in Nairobi.  Apparently the toilets are cleaner and secure than the ones we had in the 90’s.

    I will not bore you with the details and you get more details from the link above.

    But what amazed me was the level of profitability of  these town ventures. On your average day, one  toilet attracts over 3000 clients each paying k’sh 5. This translates to k’sh 450,000 in any given month.

    Makes me wonder why our youths are complaining of unemployment when one can add value to an existing idea or innovate for that matter.

    And don’t talk of lack of finances. Anyone between the age of 18yrs  and 35yrs can access financing courtesy of the youth fund. But then again most youths are only comfortable with ‘office jobs’ and will only seek jua kali when all fails.

    For those keen on the youth fund you can get back to me for more details.

  • Making The Financial Sacrifice To Get What You Want

    Posted: January 24, 2009, 10:38 am by admin

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    In the many articles I’ve written about financial recovery, I’ve mentioned lots of things I chose to give up - buying magazines, going out to eat, visiting coffee shops every day, buying books, and so on. Giving up these things enabled me to find the money I needed to begin my financial turnaround - and sticking with them has enabled me to save and invest hence build up some semblance of financial security in my life.

     

    At face value, it seems to be a story of sacrifice. I gave up a lot of things to start turning around my financial ship - things that did bring enjoyment into my life. It wasn’t easy giving these things up, either. My heart often longed to fall back into those old routines - it wasn’t just a matter of waking up one morning and simply choosing to do something different.

     

    The idea of such sacrifice often leaves a bitter taste in people’s mouths. They don’t want to give up some of the perks and trappings in their life. I know I certainly didn’t - but I also knew that I had to change something. I was standing at the edge of the abyss, looking down into a large chasm of financial despair, and in that moment I was far more afraid of falling into that pit than I was of trying something different.

     

    What I discovered is that giving up all of those things wasn’t a sacrifice - it was a trade. I gave up all of those bad spending habits, but in return I was able to knock down that scary pile of debt, start saving, build up a big emergency fund.

     

    It was a trade that I needed at that point in my life. I was really becoming aware of my responsibilities as an adult, and this awareness had driven me to spend a lot of time thinking about the choices I was making in life. My conclusion was, largely, that I needed to stop thinking about the short term so much and instead start looking at the long term.

     

    In truth, the trade I actually made was swapping short-term gratification for long-term benefits and security. Buying books and magazines brought me a lot of short-term joy, but really didn’t contribute much at all to the quality of my life over the long term. On the other hand, not buying these things and instead paying down the bills is incredibly boring in the short term, but provides a lot of long-term happiness - I now know that things are fairly secure financially.

     

    This isn’t a trade that some people want to make. That’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing - it’s just a difference in perspective. If I were still in college, I might very well be content to live in a servant’s quarter room and spend my time and money on more frivolous short-term pursuits and enjoyments. But such short-term pursuits simply do not reflect where I’m at right now.

     

    It’s because of my own experience that I believe that successful financial turnarounds are often tied to serious introspection about what you truly want out of life. My financial turnaround, for instance, was triggered by a lot of introspection done in the aftermath of starting a business, being my own boss. Different events may trigger such introspection in others - it could be a major event, or it could be something as simple as merely getting older.

     

    Is financial success a sacrifice? I think it’s only a sacrifice if you look at it solely in terms of what you lose without proper respect for what you gain.

  • Pessimism Pays - Why Expecting the Worst Can Save You Money

    Posted: January 22, 2009, 1:01 pm by admin

    I got this article from one of the numerous personal finance websites and i thought it makes lots of sense. Most of us only act upon threats and so long as things retain status quo we would be comfortable forever and never think of changing.

    For example, many of us will only see the need of a medical/personal accident cover when involved in an accident. you will only think of saving for you young ones education only when you get that admission letter etc etc…

    Pessimism Pays - Why Expecting the Worst Can Save You Money

    Read for yourself….

    What’s the first thing people tell you when you start feeling down in the dumps? “Don’t worry – things will get better!” But sometimes, being too positive is just a one-way street to being unprepared. Here are four common worries and why dwelling on them can help you save cash.

    “What if I lose my job?”
    You’re right to worry. The economy is on shaky ground, and you could be fired or laid off due to any number of circumstances. Take it for granted that you’re going to leave your job eventually. This is a good time to set aside money for an emergency fund and put aside at least three month’s living expenses. Update your resume, C.V. or portfolio so that they’re current and they highlight your best work. Network with acquaintances and put your feelers out for similar jobs – even if you have no intention of leaving quite yet. Being ready is the best way to bounce back.

    “What if I get into a horrible car accident?”
    No one wants to think about what would happen if they were hurt or killed in an accident – but you should. Make sure you have life and disability insurance. Write your will or establish a trust for your family and detail where all your assets should go. Establish who you’d like as your power of attorney if you ever end up in the hospital and unable to make your own decisions. Bad things happen to people of all ages. Being young is no excuse for not being prepared for an emergency.

    “What if my future spouse leaves me?”
    How about a prenuptial agreement? Oh, I know what you’re thinking. But really, wouldn’t you rather protect your best interests – and your future spouse’s – while you’re in a loving state of mind? Should you end up divorced, you don’t want to spend so much time fighting over a couch that the cost of legal fees could’ve easily bought you another one. Best case scenario, you never use the prenuptial agreement. Worst case scenario, it’s a lot less to worry about if your marriage goes down the drain.

    “What if my house burns down?”
    If you bought your house with a mortgage, you were required to purchase homeowners insurance, which covers things like damage from fire, lightening, hail and storms. But if you’re a renter, there’s a good chance you may not have insurance. When you rent, the building is insured by your landlord or property management company. If there’s a fire, your landlord is only responsible for the building, not any personal property you lose. A basic renter’s insurance plan replaces personal property and can cost you as little as $10 a month through any insurance agent, such as AAA or Geico.

     

    So tell me, what are your financial worries and how do you prepare for them?

  • Name And Shame Campaign

    Posted: January 19, 2009, 6:35 pm by admin

    According to a news update by the Business Daily, Stock brokers and investment banks have resolved to circulate names of agents and employees involved in fraudlent activities.

    The level of frauds hit an all time high during Safaricom IPO where individuals would present fake bank  deposit slips.Another  avenue exploited by the fraudsters have been transfers from one broker to another. Your portfolio is transferred without your consent and sold only for them to pocket the cash.

    No wonder  transfers have become a nightmare with CDSC introducing new rules to safeguard investors.

    Many stock brokers have been hit and some paid millions through an out of court settlement.

    For the full article, this is the link Business Daily

  • Why Selling A losing Stock Might Pay Off

    Posted: January 12, 2009, 7:57 pm by admin

    Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 When an investor puts their money on any particular stock, the expectation is for the price to appreciate.  Even when an investor lacks a basic understanding of the market, his or her intention is for one day to sell the stock at a premium. Some clients have been known to pray for the gods to influence the stock price favorably forgetting others are busy implying on their gods to lower the price so as to get in at a cheaper price!

     

     However, this is not always the case. Stock prices go down and sometimes for no apparent reason. Even when you have done a due analysis on the stock, read all the financial statement the stock ends up being a disappointment as the prices remains static or heads south.

     

    If you’re the kind that is easily disappointed it’s your chance to give up. And this is where the majority of Safaricom investors fall. Upon realizing that the price was below the IPO offer many shrugged off that fact, closed their eyes and forgot the existence of the NSE until Safaricom recovers past the offer price, or so they said. If you’re the optimistic type, you probably spend each evening watching the business bulletins hoping the stock recovered.

     

    Nevertheless, hoping and wishing have never recouped losses. You have to take action. And this is where short selling comes into play. When you realize a stock you purchased is still worth keeping but the price has shrunk, what’s the best thing to do? Your best action is not to do nothing. You can pump in money from your savings and cost average.

     

    Cost averaging helps to lower the price of a single unit. Assume you bought Mumias at k’sh 10 with a capital of k’sh 100,000 translating to 10,000 shares. A week later price moves to k’sh 8 but you’re reason for buying Mumias is still valid so you add another 10,000 shares at k’sh 8. Now in total you have 20,000 shares for a capital of k’sh 180,000. The effect? The average share price is now k’sh 9. The effect is magnified when we are talking of a huge price gap.

     

    What if you’re angry and putting more money in that stock is the worst thing you’d do. To recover the lost ground, your best bet would be to dispose the stock and buy it later at a cheaper price. Think of Safaricom. Since October, the stock has been trading with lows of k’sh 3.20 and highs of 3.90. This is the work of crafty speculators out for a quick buck.

    Instead of being in the sidelines waiting for the stock to hit k’sh 5,which I can guarantee you will not be anytime soon, my best bet would be for you to dispose the stock and follow the pro’s/speculators.

     

    What do I mean? Say you were allocated 50,000 Safaricom shares. Your capital then would have been k’sh 250,000. At current price, the valuation would be k’sh 175,000 at a price of k’sh 3.50. My advice would be for you to sell at a high of k’sh 3.90 and pocket k’sh 195,000. Don’t go for holiday with this money but let it remain in the CDS account.

     

    With the cycle touching a low of k’sh 3.20, it would be a perfect time to get in and grab 195,000/3.20, which translates to 60,137 shares. This translates to 10,000 extra shares and still using the initial capital. Do this a few other times and you will not be among those people complaining of being short changed by the Safaricom IPO. Obviously, this calls for you to be keen on price movement but is this hard? You can then dispose the extra 10,000 shares now in your portfolio and term them as your profit or wait for price to appreciate. Either way you’re better off than one who bought Safaricom at k’sh 5 and has since been grumbling.

     

    What I have described above is short selling. A tool available to an investor holding a losing stock. Do not be afraid to use it if it’s the only way to have a profitable portfolio.

     

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  • New Service From CDSC

    Posted: January 12, 2009, 10:37 am by admin

    I got this  in my inbox this morning and for me its a timely move by the CDSC to tame errant stockbrokers. Sending statements by email is far much better than post office. Saves them time and money and ours too. And for investors when was the last time you received a mail in your post office address?

    Alternatively,  CDSC does send SMS alert anytime there is activity (purchase/sale) on your account. Updates are sent after close of business at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Though sent at a premium (Cost is k’sh 10 per alert) you remain updated on your investments.

    However, the SMS alert is confined to Kenyans subscribed to local cell phone companies  and Kenyans in the diaspora have to rely on info from their stockbrokers.

    Below is the letter from CDSC

    Dear Investor, In an effort to better serve you, we are pleased to inform you that we are implementing an E-mail service for statements delivery, through which you will be receiving your CDS accounts’ statements via email. You have been selected to be part of the pilot test runs. Please find attached your November statement. Kindly confirm receipt, review this statement, and reply with any discrepancies or comments, Kind Regards, CDSC

    To get your statement from CDSC through email contact them through helpdesk@cdsckenya.com

  • NEW YEAR, NEW WAY OF INVESTING

    Posted: January 10, 2009, 12:09 pm by admin

    Apart from this blog, i do write for www.smartbizafrica.com. Below is the latest article.

    NEW YEAR, NEW WAY OF INVESTING

    Probably like many other Kenyans, you sat aside some day in December and came up with a list of your New Year’s resolutions. Things like quit smoking or drinking, go back to school for that added qualification or start a business rank very high in our psyche. And it just goes to show how the human brain is wired to look for the positive and that chance to better our lives.

    Problem is; all our resolutions fail by the first week of January. A resolution is a proclamation of how you wish to see things change but lack a defined plan to get you to your perceived destination. A resolution without a plan lacks commitment hence poised to fail from the word go. So, if you want to succeed, discard this resolution making ritual and opt to make commitments.

    Talking of commitments and investing, we agree that 2008 was a horrible year for investors. The stock market shed 40 percent of its value in just six months. The inflation rate touched 30 percent thus eroding our saving ability. Two other stockbrokers went under and the investing process proved cumbersome with some clients losing their refunds and others messing up their budgets by financing the Safaricom IPO through credit.

    However, it was the same year that the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) showed some teeth with the prosecution of former KCB CEO Terry Davidson, who was charged with insider trading of Uchumi shares. The CMA also came up with a set of new legislation meant to strength the industry and protect investor’s funds.

    Moving ahead, what new lessons should you incorporate in your investments?

    1. Learn how to invest: It’s not enough to ask your broker/adviser on the best share to buy. Invest in personal finance books which will give you guidance in better financial management and enlighten you on what each investing instrument entails. You will learn about bonds, treasury bills, stocks and debentures. An informed mind will mostly make a better decision hence better return on your investments.

    2. Save: You can only invest profitably from your savings. And for you to save you must earn. As Safaricom proved, investing through a loan may cost you dearly. When you invest through your savings, it gives you a peace of mind even when stock market is bearish. With a loan, there is a monthly installment to think of.

    3. Diversify: The years 2005 to early 2007 saw the stock market give investors good returns. And with such great returns many of us ventured in stock trading without due diligence and in the process lost. It pays to diversify and some of your investments should be in the stock market, life insurance, treasury bills and in fixed deposit account. You never know.

    4. Engage Experts: Everyday, new investments channels are being launched and investors are spoilt for choice. Unit trusts entry amount are being lowered to current Kshs7,500 for Old Mutual and Kshs100,000 for British American lumpsum investment. And even with the stock market being said to be down some people are still making money in stocks.

    All this can leave an investor confused. If you find yourself overwhelmed, it would be ideal for you to seek the services of an expert, say a portfolio manager in stocks. Due to the nature of our jobs, many of us may not have the time to follow the stock market on a daily and consistent basis hence missing on many opportunities. A portfolio manager will guide you on profitable stocks depending on your risk and the time frame and capital in question.

    5. Consistency: Investing only through IPO’s to make a killing is no longer fashionable and might not pay in the short term. What pays is to be consistent; investing that extra Kshs20,000 which you do not need in the short run. Stock prices fluctuate and the best way to build a portfolio is to be actively engaged in investing.

    Make informed decisions this year.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • How The Stock Markets Performed In 2008

    Posted: January 8, 2009, 7:40 pm by admin

    If its any consolation,Kenya was not badly hit. But why Ghana for  who 2008 was an election year? Africa never ceases to amaze.If it was Kenya conducting an election NSE index would have been at 1500 points.

  • Your Bank Statement Speaks Volumes About You

    Posted: January 5, 2009, 9:37 am by admin

    The article below is from today’s Business Daily Newspaper and makes a solid point on saving.

    Your bank statement speaks volumes about you Thousands of white envelopes marked  Private and Confidential make their way from commercial banks through the postal system to customers each month.

    The bank statements contained therein, especially for the current account holders, reflect the habits of the spendthrift as well as the miser.

    Some bank accounts run thin, with the balances hovering above the minimum required to maintain the account. Then there is the enviable statement which shows a steady and disciplined cash flow.

    For those seeking to keep tabs on their finances, the monthly bank statement is the stepping stone to getting one’s financial goals on track, analysts say.

    “Bank statements are a  visual way of understanding your financial position,” says Fina Bank group chief executive officer, Mr Robert Warlow. “Reviewing your bank statement forces you to look at each entry and think about where your money is going.”

    Consumer spending has been on the increase with the retail segment of the Kenyan economy posting robust growth, spurred by increased spending power especially among the middle and upper class.

    The recent third quarter growth statistics are a clear indication of this trend as the retail segment showed strong growth of 8.6 per cent. In contrast, the main pillars of the economy — agriculture, tourism and manufacturing — continued to falter. Credit and debit cards have increasingly become popular.

    It has also become easier for account holders  to make a quick dash for automated teller machines especially during weekends.

    As more individuals seek to enhance their financial position, players in the banking industry and financial consultancy have noted an increase by individuals in tracking their financial statements.

    Glaring evidence

    The financials services sector, with banks at the centre, has also been growing. The number of banks has increased with individuals opening multiple accounts with different banks.

    Meanwhile, banks have been falling over each other to attract customers. With this in mind, analysts say it helps to keep track of all your accounts.
    “It is good to consolidate statements from the different bank accounts to help keep track of the finances,” says  Chase Bank manager in charge of customer service, Anastacia Nduku.

    The most glaring evidence of the boom in the financial service sector has been an increase in clients and the ease with which individuals have been accessing loans from commercial banks.  Unsecured lending, where an employee can borrow on the basis of his pay slip as opposed to using traditional forms of collateral such as land, shares and vehicles, has gained currency.

    This has seen bank statements become one of the key parameters for accessing the credit worthiness of an individual. “Bankers like to see statements when assessing a loan because they are a reflection of how people look after their financial affairs,” says Mr Warlow.

    He adds that one of the things they look at is how an individual spends their salary each month and help assess their ability to pay back a loan. “If someone is borrowing they need to prove to me where their money is going now and how they will meet their loan repayment,” he says.

    However, during the second half of last year banks cut back on lending as cases of loan defaults were on the increase with prices of food and other commodities hitting an all time high.

    Month on month inflation raced to decade highs, of 31.5 per cent in May before receding to 27.7 per cent in December, as a result of high crude oil and rising food prices.

    The effects were evident on most individual’s bank accounts, especially current account holders where the amount of withdrawals is not capped.

    “You could tell that many Kenyans were struggling to make ends meet due to the high cost of living as many accounts posted increased withdraws,” says a banker who wished not to be quoted because of the sensitivity of the matter.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • Looking Forward To The Year 2009

    Posted: January 2, 2009, 5:36 pm by admin

    The new year is finally with us and soon we will be talking about 2010.

    A couple of things to note.

    1.Treasury Bills: Effective 1st Jan 2009,amount to invest has been lowered from k’sh 1M to 100K. Treasury bills interest rates roughly average between 8-14% P.A depending on the liquidity of the market. Its not the ultimate investment vehicle  but very suitable to retirees or even the young who want to diversify their portfolio (Unlike Nairobi Stock Exchange, which is subject to price swings,your capital is guaranteed by the Government)

    Please note that you need A CDS account with the Central Bank for you to transact and TB’s are trade able at the NSE.

    Why tie your cash at the banks with the low  interest rates?

    2. CMC will be announcing their results in the first week of January and this is a stock worth looking into. Along with CMC, pay closer attention to the financials whose year end is 31st December and per NSE regulation should prepare and announce their results in 90 days. My bet is on Equity Bank, Barclay’s Bank and also NIC Bank.

    3. For those keen on NSE the last two weeks have been fantastic with major counters appreciating. An example, Access trading at 17 and today closed at 21. NIC Bank closing at 47 from a low of 42  a week ago. Equity Bank from a low of 150 to a high of 185 as of today. The question is on whether this momentum is sustainable. Still, many  stocks are affordable and a chance for you to pick some blue chips at a good price.

    4 Finally, if you want to make money from the stock market be consistent and invest constantly. You don’t need millions to make it. That 10K or 20k per month will take you places.

    Have a prosperous 2009!!
    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • Xmas Break

    Posted: December 23, 2008, 8:00 pm by admin

    Mine is to wish you and your family a joyful Xmas and a great year end.

    We meet here next year for updates on the money markets in an endeavor to a make your money work hard for you.

    And for those who have entrusted their investments  with us…its been great knowing you and doing business together.

    Expect better things next year.

    Happy Holidays From Concept Advisory Services Ltd.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • State Of Safaricom

    Posted: December 19, 2008, 6:03 pm by admin

    I know the word out there is how the stock market is doing badly etc etc… And my reasoning is so long as Safaricom remains in its 3 bob prices investors not keen on the happenings of the NSE might just hold that view for a long long period.

    So, what’s with Safaricom? Safcom, as popularly known is a solid company. Posting very good profit and with a solid management. The main shortcoming is simply the high number of shares. 10 Billion Shares is not a joke. Add the cheap price and you have a disaster. Safaricom price is a subject of speculators. As someone involved with the market on a daily basis I will let you know on what is happening.

    High networth investors i.e. investors able to buy shares worth 500k at a go have realized how profitable it is to have Safaricom. Picture this, with one million shilling you have with you slightly more than 300,000 shares. With such a shareholding, all you need is the price to appreciate by fifty cents and you have made a cool k’sh 150,000. With such a scenario, many investors are not waiting for it to reach the k’sh 5 but are taking their profits at the earlier opportunity.

    Dear investor, that is why you are seeing Safaricom prices oscillating between 3.20 to highs of k’sh 3.90.

    I must add that the current investment strategy for many Kenyans has changed. The era of waiting for dividends cheques has long gone and what we have are investors looking to make money with the share appreciation.

    Next topic…..what to do with your Safaricom shares if you cant play in the big league!!

    Main site

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

  • CDF funds abused in Kathiani and Machakos

    Posted: December 18, 2008, 9:52 pm by admin

    The National Taxpayers Association has conducted it’s first audit of constituency funds in Machakos and Kathiani constituencies and has found that close to Kshs 19 million was lost to “ghost projects” under the watch of the previous MPs David Mwanzia and Peter Kaindi, both of whom did not make it back to the Tenth Parliament.

    Lets hope the National Taxpayers Association can be similarly transparent about their own work and update their website / publish the full reports online.

Concept Advisory Services

  • KCB Unveils Investment Clubs Account

    Posted: December 17, 2008, 1:30 pm by admin

    Click here to get the full details from Nation Media

    Investment clubs including unregistered ones can now access mortgage financing courtesy of a new Kenya Commercial Bank account.

    The KCB Tuungane investment account allows such clubs to invest in real estate in a move that will enable the bank tap into the huge capital resources held by hundreds of such groups countrywide.

    For a club to operate this type of account, it must have a minimum opening balance of Sh10,000 and a minimum monthly deposit of Sh5,000.

    “Account holders can access mortgage financing of up to 90 per cent for purchase of residential houses and 80 per cent financing for commercial properties through our S&L subsidiary,” said Mr Sammy Itemere the KCB regional manager for Nairobi.

    He said all customers - including chamas and other women and youth social groups - borrowing under the account will be eligible for loans of up to 90 per cent of the deposit amount at prevailing market rates.

    Account holders will also receive training and information on how to manage their finances as well as benefit from real estate advice as a group.

    “They can make payments for purchase of shares at the Nairobi Stock Exchange through these accounts,” he said on Monday.

    Mr Itemere spoke at the bank’s Kencom House headquarters in Nairobi when the East African Breweries Ltd, KCB and the Kenya Association of Investment Groups announced that the draw for the Sh10 million Tusker Milli na Marafiki grand prize will be held on December 20.

    He said the product captures the spirit of pooling resources as a group for various investment options in the market.

    “We have been reminded by financial experts that there is power in numbers and through combining forces in various financial initiatives we can realise our long-term objectives in the short-term,” said Mr Itemere.

    EABL marketing director Debra Mallowah said the beer maker has spent Sh110 million in the last two months in the promotion with 32 lucky consumers winning a total of Sh12 million.

    On another note. The fund managers shy away from scrutiny. More from Business Daily.

    Inadequate disclosures and secrecy in the collective investment scheme sector came to the fore at an awards ceremony meant to recognise capital market players.

    The segment popularly known as unit trusts failed to adequately disclose the amount of funds under management, the diversification of their portfolio, the value of investment, periodical contribution as well as terms of exit.

    As a result of the poor performance the organisers were left to hold onto the trophy.

    Only three companies running unit trusts, out of the eight in the whole industry, submitted their forms. Two investment banks, Standard and Suntra launched their unit trusts this year increasing competition in this industry.

    The findings echo those of a survey conducted of the Unit trusts commissioned by Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and conducted by Vista Capital—a financial advisory firm.

  • Spend Wisely To Save Money.

    Posted: December 16, 2008, 11:42 am by admin

    I have some friends who work in the hotel industry and as usual won’t be spending much time with their families or holidaying because as you guessed December is one of their busiest month.So, as you and I throng into hotels, entertainment centers someone will be making a tidy sum from our pockets. Don’t get me wrong, its been a nasty year for us Kenyans and we deserve a holiday and all the fun we can. I am also taking a well-deserved rest despite my stock portfolio taking a good beating from June onwards.

    Point is, celebrate in moderation. This idea of having fun for two days and being broke the first quarter of 2009 is not fun at all. Don’t be hoodwinked by the adverts and the sales offers. And above all, don’t liquidate any of your assets, be it stocks, that fixed deposit account to go and ‘have fun’

    Remember, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I remember this from my physics teacher and it still applies in personal finance.

     

    Main Website: www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

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LG's LAW

  • NTSC - Notice To Show Cause

    Posted: December 16, 2008, 9:45 am by admin

    I am just not made for litigation. Or may-perhaps I have been in it too long that I am just burnt out. Whether it be the genes in me-make up or the muck I have trudged in what is clear to me is that I just do not like litigation anymore. The more reason why I did not particularly look forward to attending court today; an attitude not in the least assisted by the fact that I just hate this particular client . I use hate because I could not find the right word to explain the negative feelings you have for one who makes you a perpetual mis-speaker to your colleagues.

    My client over indulged in some misconceived credit habits sometime back which resulted into a civil suit which in turn resulted in judgement being entered against him. Three years down the line, in a bid to neglect paying the judgement amount, he has made me to feed one story over another to the Decree Holder’s advocate who just snapped and served on him a Notice to Show Cause (NTSC). This being one of my long time and most profitable clients, he insisted on my personal attendance on his behalf.

    There are various breeds of NTSC but this particular one is the NTSC why a warrant of arrest should not be issued. Never having learnt in law school, or all that time thereafter, the origins of NTSC I shall not delve into it here. The import was that my client was to attend court or send me to court to convince the court why a warrant of arrest should not be issued against him. One way of doing that is to pay the whole judgement sum or to offer a proposal acceptable to the court its settlement.

    Failure to do that leads to a warrant of arrest being issued against you or if you were moronic enough to attend court then your being arrested on the spot.

    The idea is to keep you in jail for a maximum duration or until you settle your debts with the Decree Holder further getting into red by paying for your up keep in jail. An abuse of the legal system if you ask me - jail time should be the preserve of only some of the convicted felons.

    Some bright chap sometime back had his advocate challenge this in the Constitutional Court as he claimed it  infringed on his rights. I am not sure how this turned out but if you come across one Mr. Muite then you may ask him for my fading memories tell me that he was the advocate on record in that one.

    Fear of being disbarred deters me from narrating how my client’s matter turned out.

Concept Advisory Services

  • Happy Holidays

    Posted: December 11, 2008, 6:59 pm by admin

    Tomorrow is Jamuhuri day and the holidays are here with us.

    I want to wish you happy holidays and offer my best wishes for you and your family.  This holiday, take some time to think about what you have to be thankful for over the last year. 

    My list will certainly be shorter than last year, with all the economic turmoil and financial losses. We all know it has been a very troubled time for the economy and financial markets, so I am fervently hoping to add their recovery to my list next year.

LG's LAW

  • Hello world!

    Posted: December 11, 2008, 6:07 am by admin

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    It has been eons since LG Law was up. What could be said is that we moved hosts and getting the original content - if ever - would take some doing and some time.

    In between a lot been happening of interest to this sphere of indulgence. Of slight mention and maybe further exploration in other posts are - in no order of importance -:

    1. The power play between the Judiciary and the Legislature with the former having Justice Nyamu issuing injunction orders costumed as conservatory while the latter having Speaker Marende telling the good Justice what he should be conserving. (Courts attempting to tell Parliament what to do or not to do can only end in tears).
    2. The Media purportedly speaking for Wanjiku telling the MPs to pay taxes as the price of Unga gets into some conspiracy with the retail oil prices to give deregulators rallying points. (The problem is really not whether they pay tax or not; the problem is that they should not be allowed to determine their emolument).
    3. The Media having seemingly set the stage with the calls for the MPs to pay taxes claim that the passing of the Media Bill was a case of the vengeance dish being served cold. (Still to read it to make up my mind about it).
    4. Nation Media Group taking on Standard’s Pulse, again, and giving a detailed guideline on Screwing up for Dummies.
    5. This:

    Obama

Concept Advisory Services

  • Painful Investing Lessons Learned This Year.

    Posted: December 9, 2008, 5:57 pm by admin

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    The stock market price decline of 2008 was a wake up call for many investors at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The unprecedented sudden and steep decline in prices shocked many investors as they watched the value of their portfolios drop significantly in just a few weeks.But with this pain comes the opportunity to become a more astute investor in the future. Here’s a summary of important lessons to be learned from the recent market meltdown.

    • Stocks do not go up for ever. Stock prices fluctuate minute-by-minute as well as decade to decade. Losing money with stocks is a fact of life. Stock market is like any other investment, you might open a duka today and get many customers and tomorrow no one wants to shop from you. The key thing is to be vigilant and identify opportunities.
    • Learn how to invest. The era of buying a stock and disappearing is long gone. Today you must know the why and how of investing.
    • Price bubbles always burst, no matter what kind the asset (i.e., stocks, bonds, real estate, oil, copper, gold, silver, coins, stamps, artwork, grains).
    • If you own a stock and its price chart confirms that it’s at or near bubble prices, sell it. On a simpler matter, if you feel a stock has reached its peak…sell…sell. Ask those who had Equity when it was costing k’sh 320 and did not sell.
    • Wait until a stock stabilizes and then buy it on the price upside. You might miss buying at the lowest price, but you’ll increase you chance of making money if you buy when prices are on an uptrend.
    • Don’t base any investment decision on hearsay.
    • Eliminate emotion, particularly anger and fear, from your investment decision making. You can’t control the movement of stock prices, but you can control your reaction to extreme volatility that causes the value of your portfolio to fluctuate.
    • Be diversified. Don’t load up on one of two stocks or similar stocks from one sector. If you’re wrong, you can get killed, particularly if you own volatile stocks.
    • Keep an ample supply of cash on hand. Cash doesn’t offer great returns, but it won’t disappear overnight like some stocks. And you’ll have cash available to buy stocks at bargain prices when they head to the upside.

     

    Happy investing and remember the lessons come next year.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

Delusions of Grandeur

  • Hello world!

    Posted: December 6, 2008, 12:53 am by admin

    Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Concept Advisory Services

  • Nairobi Stock Exchange November Trades.

    Posted: December 4, 2008, 5:37 pm by admin

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    The general feeling among the public is how stocks are doing badly. Majority of investors equate the stock market performance to that one of Safaricom and am afraid to say most of the ones who’ve run away will only come back when Safaricom share price appreciates…that is if at all it does.

     

    But that might be too late as the details below show the general performance of the market in the month of November and shows some good performance on several counters.

     

    Please note that Safaricom is nowhere to be seen and note the appreciation of CFC bank.

     

     Lesson learned. As you invest, be wary of public talk and do your own analysis…The stock market is still profitable but be careful on your share selection.

     

    Below is the data.

     

     

    #

    Stock

    Start Price

    Gain

    % Gain

    End Price

    Shares traded

    1.

    CFC Stanbic Holdings 5.00

    55.50

    +14.00

    +25.23%

    69.50

    160,232

    2.

    Kenya Oil Co

    59.50

    +15.00

    +25.21%

    74.50

    118,200

    3.

    Nation Media Group

    112.00

    +25.00

    +22.32%

    137.00

    595,105

    4.

    Jubilee Insurance Co.

    104.00

    +20.00

    +19.23%

    124.00

    79,873

    5.

    Sameer Africa

    5.10

    +0.90

    +17.65%

    6.00

    385,540

    6.

    Total Kenya

    27.25

    +4.75

    +17.43%

    32.00

    560,717

    7.

    Diamond Trust Bank Kenya

    60.50

    +7.50

    +12.40%

    68.00

    501,035

    8.

    Unga Group

    12.15

    +1.25

    +10.29%

    13.40

    312,561

    9.

    TPS Eastern Africa

    50.00

    +4.00

    +8.00%

    54.00

    304,225

    10.

    National Bank of Kenya

    37.25

    +2.75

    +7.38%

    40.00

    556,086

     

    Happy Investing.

     

  • How To Invest In A Bad Economy

    Posted: December 2, 2008, 12:25 pm by admin

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    Yesterday, I read an article describing how you should invest in a bad economy. Though the market is in shambles, the authors write, it’s no time to panic:

    Enough. The stock market — and your savings — have gone down steadily, day after day, for more than a year. You’ve lost thousands this month alone. It’s time to do something. But…what? Should you shift more money into stocks? Put it all into a savings account? Pay off your mortgage? Hop freight and become a hobo?

    The authors talked to top financial advisers from around the nation. Here’s a summary of the experts’ advice.

    • If you’re in your 20s, take comfort in the fact that time is on your side. You probably haven’t lost much, and you have decades to make up the difference.

    • If you’re in your 30s, prioritize retirement savings. “Don’t let fear squander your opportunity,” says one expert. Protect yourself from unemployment by maintaining an adequate emergency fund. Be cautious about moving money out of the stock market, but be open to diversifying with new investments.

    • If you’re in your 40s, prioritize saving “even if it means cutting back on spending.” Don’t abandon the stock market. One financial planner says that “nervous investors who stash all their savings in certificates of deposit and money market funds ‘are committing financial suicide’.” Still, stay diversified, and don’t take unnecessary risks.

    • If you’re in your 50s, don’t do anything rash. Keep your investments balanced. Continue to save. In fact, the article suggests that you should look for “any way you have to boost your savings, no matter how small.”

    • If you’re 60 or older, your position is tougher. You don’t have as much time to recover from the market downturn, but you’re not without options. Put off Social Security as long as possible. Take a part-time job. Adjust your expectations.

    It seems to me that the advice to every age group (except the last one) is essentially the same: Don’t panic. Diversify. Cut spending. Boost savings.

     

    Happy investing.

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

  • Keep up the pressure - where does your MP stand on taxes?

    Posted: November 30, 2008, 12:02 am by admin

    The list of MPs volunteering to get pay their taxes keeps growing (although one wonders where they were next week). Kenyans - please keep up the pressure and let YOUR representatives know how you feel about this issue. The updated list of MPs (courtesy Standard) who are willing to pay taxes is as follows:

    -Those who have authorised deductions from their allowances:

    1. Joseph Muthama

    2. Jeremiah Kioni

    3. FT Nyammo

    Those who have expressed willingness to pay but have yet to act formally:

    1. Kalonzo Musyoka

    2. Samuel Poghisio

    3. Mutula Kilonzo

    4. Muhamad Adbi Affrey

    5. Shakilla Abdalla

    6. Charles Kilonzo

    7. Kiema Kilonzo

    8. Peter Kiilu

    9. Peter Kaloki

    10. David Musila

    11. Victor Munyaka

    12. Nur Abdi Nassir

    13 Hussein Sasura

    14. Benson Mbai

    15. Isaac Muoki

    16. Daniel Muoki

    17. Gideon Ndambuki

    18. Mwangi Kiunjiri

    19. Wavinya Ndeti

    20. Cyrus Jirongo

    21. Ababu Namwamba

    22. John Ngata Kariuki

    23. Kabanda wa Kabando

    24. Dick Wathika

Concept Advisory Services

  • How Can I Better Manage My Short-Term Cash?

    Posted: November 26, 2008, 5:37 pm by admin

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    For the vast majority of people, it is essential to keep a portion of their assets in liquid form (what we Kenyan’s call hard cash) in order to meet monthly commitments. For example, most families have to meet their rent payments, grocery, electricity, and transportation costs out of their monthly paychecks. There are a host of other expenses that arise from month to month, such as car insurance, that help keep the pressure on the family cash flow.

    If people are fortunate enough to have anything left over once all the expenses have been met, then they can worry about saving or investing for the future.

    The paycheck that you deposit in your current account, which seem to swiftly disappear as you pay monthly expenses, constitute a portion of your short-term cash. The money is no sooner in your bank account than it flows out again as payment for goods and services.

    However, because the money that we use to meet our monthly expenses is so liquid, there is a tendency to simply look at it as a method of payment. We often leave more than we need in our bank accounts, gaining little or no interest until we need it for a future expense.

    By actively managing the short-term cash that passes through your hands, you can provide a means of saving for the future. You can use this money to increase your net worth with little or no additional risk to your principal.

    Short-term investment instruments, such as Treasury bills, fixed deposits accounts, and money market unit trusts, can provide you with the liquidity needed to meet expected and unexpected expenses and to increase your short-term investment income.

    There are numerous alternatives available to enable you to get your short-term cash working for you. The key to successfully managing your short-term cash lies in understanding the alternatives and choosing the one most appropriate to your particular needs and circumstances.

    Treasury bills are backed by the full faith and credit of the Kenyan government as to the timely payment of principal and interest. Fixed deposits accounts are insured up to k’sh 100,000 by the Central Deposit Protection Fund..

    Tell a friend.

    Enjoyed reading this article. Know of a friend interested in investing matters? They too can remain updated. click below to introduce them to this mailing list.

     http://www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke/tell_a_friend.php

mzalendo :: Eye On Kenyan Parliament

  • Where does your MP stand on taxes?

    Posted: November 24, 2008, 9:15 pm by admin

    Dear Kenyan voters, it is time to do more than complain about YOUR mps and their refusal to pay taxes on their allowance…this culture of arrogance and selfishness must be put to end and they must be reminded that they are OUR representatives.

    What can you do?

    First, you can contact them directly via the contact information listed below and let them know how you feel (we are working on updating the list).

    Abdirahman, H.Ali - Wajir South - KANU - 0721-724746 / 0722-144999 ahassan@tradeandindustry.go.ke

    Chiaba, Mohamed Abu - Lamu East - PNU - 0722-410177

    Bahari, Abdul Ali - Isiolo South - KANU - 0733-289501

    Balala, Mohammed Najib - Mvita - ODM - 0733 333500 /0724 - 650000 najib@mombasa.co.ke

    Bifwoli, Wakoli Sylvester - Bumula - PNU - 0733-865323 Wakolib@yahoo.com

    Chepkitony, Lucas Kipkosgei - Keiyo North - ODM - 0733-635894 / 0722816064

    Ethuro, David - Turkana Central - PNU- 0722-526370 dethuro@yahoo.com

    Gesami, James Ondicho - West Mugirango - ODM- 0733 826090

    Gisuka, Machage Wilfred - Kuria - DP - 0733-451806/0725834575

    Kajembe, Ramathan Seif - Changamwe - ODM - 0721 609777 Langoni@swiftmombasa.com

    Kajwang’, Gerald Otieno - Mbita - ODM - 0722-882787

    Kamama, Asman Abongotum - Baringo East - PNU - 0731-583303

    Karua, Martha Wangari Gichugu - PNU - 0721 623 342 / 0733-747551

    Kenneth, Peter Gatanga - PNU - 0722 512996 andykenneth@hotmail.com

    Kenyatta, Uhuru - Gatundu South - KANU - 0722 463 891

    Keter, Charles Cheruiyot - Belgut - ODM - 0722 530555

    Khalwale Boni - Ikolomani - NEW FORD-K - 0721 318722

    Khaniri, George Munyasa - Hamisi - ODM - 0722-859341

    Kilonzo, Julias Kiema Mutito - ODM-K - 0722-513605 kilonzo@wananchi.com

    Kilonzo, Charles Mutavi - Yatta - ODM-K - 0734-621593 ckilonzo@crystalvaluers.com
    Kimunya Amos Muhinga Kipipiri PNU - 0722518801 / 520936 kipipiri@wananchi.com

    Kinyanjui, Lee Maiyani - Nakuru Town - PNU - 0722 842653

    Kiunjuri, Festus Mwangi - Laikipia East - PNU - 0721 600 305

    Kuti Mohammed Abdi - Isiolo North - NARC-K - 0733 235914

    Lesirma, Simeon Saimanga - Samburu West - ODM - 0722-719946 simeonlesrima@yahoo.com

    Magara - James Omingo - South Mugirango - ODM - 0722 911274 jomingo45@yahoo.com

    Katoo, Ole Metito J - Kajiado South - 0721-640175

    Midiwo, Washington Jakoyo - Gem - ODM - 0721 504 040 / 0733 421277/ 0722 935761

    Mohamed, A.H.M - Mandera West - ODM - 0722-779942

    Mohammed, Haji Yusuf - Ijara - KANU - 0722-709395

    Mugo, Beth Wambui - Dagoretti - PNU - 0722-205753 bmugo@kenyaweb.com

    Mungatana, Danson Buya - Garsen - NARC-K - 0722-411971 mungatana@wanainchi.com

    Munyes, John Kiyonga - Turkana North - PNU - 0721-339094 johnmunyes@yahoo.com

    Murungi, Kiraitu - South Imenti - PNU - 0721-240863 waziri@kenyaweb.com

    Musila, David - Mwingi South - ODM-K - 0722 571117 davidmusila@yahoo.com

    Musyoka, Stephen Kalonzo - Mwingi North - ODM-K - 0722 523 872 / 0735 161 588

    Mwangi, Onesmus Kigumo - PNU - 0722-778581 kiharamwangimp@yahoo.com

    Mwatela, Andrew Calist - Mwatate - ODM 0733 719 871

    Mwiria, Valerian Kilemi - Tigania West - PNU - 0733-657562 kilemimwiria@africanonline.co.ke

    Ndambuki, Gideon Musyoka - Kaiti - ODM-K - 0720-384553/0734-758567 gndambuki@wananchi.com

    Githae, Robinson Njeru - Ndia - PNU - 722514837

    Nkaisserry, Joseph Kasaine - Kajiado Central - ODM - 0721-356786 nkaisserry@wananchi.com

    Nyong’o, Peter Anyang’ - Kisumu Rural - ODM - 0733 454 133 pan@africaonline.co.ke

    Odinga, Raila Amolo - Langata - ODM - 0733 620 736 railaaodinga@yahoo.com

    Oginga, Oburu Bondo - ODM - 0733 818517/ 0724-105493 oburu_oginga@yahoo.com

    Odeke, Sospeter Ojaamongson Amagoro - ODM - 0733 967345 / 0722 813819

    Ojode, Joshua Orwa Ndhiwa - ODM - 0722- 514830 Ojode7@hotmail.com

    Okemo, Chrysanthus Nambale - ODM - 0733-608895 Chrisokemo@yahoo.com

    Olweny, Patrick Ayiecho - Muhoroni - ODM - 0722-734187/0733-784633

    Onyancha, Charles - Bonchari - ODM - 0722-248190 jonyancha2002@yahoo.com

    Oparanya, Wycliffe Ambetsa - Butere - ODM - 0722 521856

    Osebe, Walter Enock Nyambati - Kitutu Masaba - N LP - 0722 724 556

    Poghisio, Samuel Losuron Kacheliba - ODM-K - 0722-520663 / 0734-200836 poghisio@wananchi.com

    Ruto, Samoei William K. - Eldoret North - ODM - 0722 517 997 info@williamrutto.com

    Shaban Naomi Namsi Taveta KANU 0722 814 412

    Shitanda, Peter Soita - Malava - NEW FORD-K - 0721-341241 soita-shitanda@yahoo.com

    Sugow Ahmed Aden Fafi KANU 0721-596726

    Twaha, Yasin Fahim - Lamu West - NARC-K - 0722-925108

    Wekesa, Noah Muhlanganga - Kwanza - PNU - 0722-774374 noahwekesa@hotmail.com

    Were, David Aoko Matungu - ODM - 0722 707548/0733 569180 scorpionwere@yahoo.com

    Wetangula - Moses Makisa Sirisia - PNU - 0722 517 302 / 806 363 mwetangula@hotmail.com

    Second, you can express yourself on Mzalendo MP pages.

    Third, encourage the media to find out where each MP stands on the issue - they should not hide behind closed doors if they are comfortable with their decision. MPs who have gone on record to defend tax-free allowances are:

    Peter Kenneth     – Gatanga
    George Nyamweya – Nominated MP
    Boni Khalwale – Ikolomani
    Danson Mungatana – Garsen
    Soita Shitanda – Malava
    Ali Hassan Joho – Hamisi
    Charles Keter – Belgut, David Koech- Mosop
    Fred Kapondi – Mt. Elgon Charles Kilonzo –
    Sammy Mwaita – Baringo Central, MP;
    Ephraim Maina – Mathira, MP.

    Finally, congratulate Hon. Muthama for standing out in his willingness to pay taxes : +254 724 256 664 and let us know of others who should be commended for doing the right thing.

    EDIT: The following MPs have joined Hon. Muthama in declaring their support for taxation

    - Hon. Wavinya Ndeti
    - Hon. Jeremiah Kioni

Concept Advisory Services

  • The Long Term Aspect In Share Trading.

    Posted: November 24, 2008, 7:49 pm by admin

    Today i had a meeting with an investor who wanted to have a share of Safaricom. I found it a bit odd considering the negative emotions the share provokes ever since it was listed. But it is understandable. Since listing,investors wealth has gone down by more than 30%. Now, this is not a good story at all considering many had predicted double digits capital appreciation for the most profitable company in East and Central Africa.

    Back to the client, we did the analysis for the company at its current price and indeed the numbers looked good. And then the client commented that he was there for the long haul. I then asked him whether he could stomach the price fluctuations that we are experiencing at the Nairobi Stock Exchange and in his characteristic style said the money was safe and in there for the next ten years.

    Which brings me to the question. What is long term investing for you? Almost all of us invest for a reason. Maybe you want a nice comfortable retirement devoid of money struggles. Maybe you are investing for your children to ensure they have a secure future. Granted, all these are good reasons but you must be careful when defining long term investing.

    The reason i am saying this is because the majority of us confuse long term investing with passive investing. You go to your broker,put in orders,the shares purchase goes through and you forget about the stock untill some two years later  or when you hear of a major announcement from the company.

    Lets take the example of KenGen,the first successful listing  of this decade. Majority bought the share,some were notorious speculators and cashed out before the six months. Some waited,got a taste of the dividend and loved the experience. And some are still holding the stock.

    If you were a wise investor and regardless of the fact that your  investment was long term, you would have disposed the stock immediately it become clear that the stock was not going places.

    The wise investor did dispose KenGen and ventured into other promising stocks. We have had Equity,Scangroup,and even Eveready! There are times when circumstances change and you’d better be moving with the times. I’ll Give you an example,as of now East Africa Breweries is a blue chip company with good prospects and a good record for its dividend payout. However, we have a new kid by the name of Keroche Breweries. My question is, three years down the line if fortunes for East Africa Breweries dwindle due to an onslaught from Keroche would you not change your perspective of EABL and your investment?

    As an investor you should not confuse long term investing to mean investing over a given time period as if its cast on stone. The bible talks of a wise man being the one who changes their mind,how often i cant say, but it surely pays to have a look at your investment and change tack where possible.

    Happy investing.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • When To Buy Or Sell A Stock.

    Posted: November 20, 2008, 7:08 pm by admin

    Most of us are seasoned investors. We have been there through it all. We have bought shares and in a weeks time made a tidy profit. You have also bought shares and was badly burnt, you bought shares and from the following day the prices begun a downward trend  and you have now ‘lost’ over 60% of your investments. You have also bought into an IPO and made a kill.

    After buying shares, or investing in shares the next question is when  to dispose your investment. Is it after the stock gains 10%, 15% or  are  you only comfortable after the stocks gains 50%? Are you the type of investor who buys and even when the prices are really down, say by 30% and still going down, wish the stock would recover? Or are you among the experienced and profitable few who set a price target? i.e Sell if a gain or loss of 20% is realized.

    The first two methods  listed above do work but not all the time. When stocks are doing well, what analyst call a bull run you are mostly assured of a profit after a short time and the hassle of deciding when to sell is removed. But there is a great danger when the market is bearish. You might buy today and the stock you were very optimist on slides 40%.Dont worry,it happens to the best of us.

    The key thing to invest profitably is setting an entry and exit price. For example if you buy Nation Media Today at k’sh 145, you might decide to sell if you get a 15% return. In retrospect you might decide to sell if the stock goes down by 20%. This way, whether the stock gains a 100% margin is neither here or there. You have realized your goal and moved on to other equally lucrative stocks.

    However, this is easier said than done.Most of us will buy a stock, first from friends recomendation.  which is mistake number one. Second mistake is not defining the time period. Ask those who bought KenGen at k’sh 9.50 during the IPO and have not disposed to date. The price has come down to k’sh 17 levels and many great opportunities have escaped their attention. Another mistake is lack of a clear goal of the profit to expect. If you buy a stock expecting anything, then be ready to stomach even a greater loss. Stock investing is not any different from running a business. You must be very clear on the return you expect.

    Most of us would not think twice of closing a non performing business but will nevertheless hold a stock into eternity even when signs are showing a decline. And when i talk of a loss, i mean a sustained loss of either 25% in value or a downward trend in the price of the stock lasting more than six weeks.

    The worst characteristic trait in stock investment is greed. Majority of us would not mind a stock  appreciating in perpetuity but our moods are affected by a temporary loss of even 10%. Granted no one sinks money at the stock market expecting a loss but we should always remember, the greater the returns the higher the risk. Back to greed, this is one trait that prevents investors from cutting their losses or running away with the profits.

    On an  instituional level, there are some failings and regardless of how good you are at following your investments might incur a loss. if an order to your broker takes days to execute then your well thought out plan is not helpful at all. And thats why i insisted on you as an investor having a great relationship with your broker.

    The key lesson here is to identify your risk tolerance, patner with a worthwhile broker who takes all your request seriously and decide on your profit/loss margin.  This way, you’ll exploit the immense opportunity accored by the stock market.

    Happy investing.

    Visit our website.

    www.conceptadvisoryservices.co.ke

  • Breaking News: NSE CEO Quits

    Posted: November 19, 2008, 4:46 pm by admin

    From the Daily Nation

    Anxiety engulfed Nairobi Stock Exchange after its chief executive Chris Mwebesa, resigned under unclear circumstances.

    The news of his resignation comes barely four months after his contract was renewed to run until 2011.

    Information available to the Daily Nation indicates that the chief executive office “resigned a few weeks ago” but the NSE board of directors decided to hold the matter from the public as it tried to dissuade him from leaving.

    That collapsed last week with efforts to look for his replacement kicking off in earnest.

    The board decision to stay silent was to remain but was broken when “a source within the board leaked the information to the press”.

    It is understood that the effort to persuade Mr Mwebesa to stay hit a snag last week.

    His resignation comes as a big blow to the recently elected NSE chairman James Wangunyu who said he had confidence in the CEO by renewing his employment contract days after assuming the chair in July.

    At the time of the renewal, Mr Mwebesa was working on a temporary visa with his contract having expired in November 2007.

    The then NSE chairman Jimnah Mbaru delayed his renewal, only appointing a board led by Mr Edward Njoroge, the KenGen boss, to negotiate new terms with the chief executive.

    On its first seating, the new board under Mr Wangunyu confirmed Mr Mwebesa’s position as the CEO.

    Talking earlier to the Daily Nation, Mr Wangunyu had said of his choice: “Mr Mwebesa is very focused. It is only that we (NSE directors) have not empowered him. Once we do, we believe he will deliver our vision.”

    Mr Mwebesa was first appointed the bourse’s CEO in 2005 and has presided over the NSE’s highest growth period in its 53-year history, making it currently the biggest stock exchange in the region and the 5th largest in Africa in terms of market capitalisation.

    The former head of business development at AIG Global Investment Company and CEO of Stanbic Investment Management Services has overseen five initial public offerings, including that of mobile phone company Safaricom which is said to be the largest to date in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Other achievements include the installation of the Automated Trading System, Wide Area Network, and introduction of the NSE All Share Index (NASI).

    Critics have, however, pointed to the bourse’s failure to attract more new listings, with the total number of listed companies still at 55, giving an average of about one listing per annum since it was founded in 1954.

    It was also during Mr Mwebesa’s tenure that one stockbroker, Francis Thuo & Partners went under with an estimated Sh140 million of investors’ funds, while Nyaga Stockbrokers, believed to have been the biggest retail stockbroker prior to its liquidity problems, currently under statutory management.

  • So, Who Is Your StockBroker?

    Posted: November 18, 2008, 5:49 pm by admin

    Apart from knowing how much to put in shares, the other most likely concern for investors is who to trust with their money.

    And you cant blame them. In a period of less than 3 years two brokers have gone under and one is the CMA watch. For some investors its been a case of from the frying pan to the fire.

    So, how do you know whether you are in safe hands. I have come up with a list. what i consider to be the minimum degree of service to expect  from a broker and if you are currently not getting this kind of service, well you might be in the wrong hands.

    1.Order Exceution. This is what determines whether you will make a kill at the Stock Exchange or not. If the order you gave last week is still pending, you better move.

    2.Cheques.  The acceptable period for issuance of a cheque upon sale is a maximum of seven days. Any period longer than this and your broker should have a very good reason of why not!! Some brokers are doing EFT’s. where does yours stand?

    3. Queues. These were accepable two years ago due to the overwhelming intrest from the general public.Today, any serious broker should have taken measurs to make sure an investor is made comfortable in thier office. Remember, its from your commisions that a broker makes thier livelyhood.

    4. Contact person.  Do you have someone you can rely on to sort out any of those little nagging issues especially over the phone or do you have to take yourself to the brokers office? Your broker should allocate to you a contact  person who will have an intimate knowledge of your account and be able to advise and help you accordingly.

    5.Updates. I am not talking of the usual weekly updates on how the shares performed. Update is on the day to day affair of the market and any chance for you to make some money i.e when a company is announcing its dividends. Small things that matter.

    6.Portfolio Management. Having someone to advise you on when to buy, sell, or hold is the only way for busy proffesionals like you to make money from the Stock Market.

    This idea of buying stocks and going to sleep has never gotten many far.

    Some of you might wonder whether such brokers exists due to the lousy services they getting. If in doubt,please get back to me and i can recomend a few.

    Happy Investing.

  • Are Unit Trusts A Safe Bet?

    Posted: November 17, 2008, 7:34 pm by admin

    2006 was a good year for the fund managers. Most returned double digits profits for their clients. And the agents could not have asked for better results. It was now easier to convince a any client to sign up especially when you showed them that graph showing a 50% annual return.

    The major reason why unit trusts performed very well was the bullish trend at the NSE. This is more true for the Equity fund where the fund manager principally invests in the stock exchange. What the financial advisers and sales people forget to inform potential clients was that the market returned over 200 % for some investors i.e for those who had invested directly. Consider KenGen which during the IPO was going for k’sh 9.50 and on the first three months traded at highs of k’sh 35.

    Come 2007 and many investors come to see unit trusts for what they were. Initially no one had lost money in the Equity fund.  But with the market correction of March 2007, investors got a taste of things to come. The value come down and many were hurt because of the perception that their capital was secure unlike the stock market prone to swings.

    This year has seen Equity fund investors burn their fingers. Those who got in in July this year have seen their investment shed 40% of its value. Add the entry fee, annual management fees and brokerage percentage fee and you get a clear picture of the loss. Its for this reason that many investors are pulling out, some with huge losses. The myth of unit trusts being a safe haven for one’s investment has been shattered.

    For those who had put their money in an equity fund,my advice is for you to average out. Buy more units now that their cheaper instead of just wishing for the price to rise. And if you are still keen on unit trusts, avoid those that have stocks component like the Equity fund i.e untill we know that the market has bottomed out.

    However, as an investor always research and make sure you get full answers before you commit your money to any venture.

    Happy Investing.

  • Stocks To Watch: Mumias and CFC Stanbic

    Posted: November 15, 2008, 3:30 pm by admin

    The Nairobi Stock Exchange continues to shock many.  A few days of recovery followed by a bear run. Chris Mwebesa, the NSE CEO cautioned investors that we are not out of the woods yet but many decided to celebrate albeit too soon.

    One stock that countinues to confuse many is Mumia sugar. The Stock fell by a large margin of 20% this week. However if you look at its resistence level its k’sh 6.50. Does it mean its a good buy now that its at 6.50? Maybe, but the advantage with penny stocks is thier ability to recover.

    I understand the real value of Mumias will come to light after the Coast project is sorted out in finality. I personally wish the court case will not drag into the future. Even so, my analyst informs me the stock is worth  relatively k’sh 11.50.

    Nest week will be a mumias week. This is one stockto watch especially for the speculators.

    For CFC, their third quarter results are not yet out. I wonder why stocks are not going up with such announcements. NIC Bank reported close to 50% rise in profit and the share price dipped.That should tell you the average investor is getting informed and such news are no longer major.

    Back to CFC, is it possible for the stock to hit its highs of k’sh 120. My reasoning is that the stock has recovered to its maximum taking into consideration the bearish trend. December is not an active month and short term traders will want to test its value.

    And woe unto you if investors who got in at 31st October decides to dump their holdings.  In any case they have already made a 50% gain in just two weeks. And we dare say the market is bearish!!

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes

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