Recycled thieves have been with us for too long for anyone to feign ignorance

What you need to know:

  • None of Kenya’s presidents (except, of course, the current one), had much money when they took up public office. That they became seriously rich – together with their progeny – is not because of any particular business or entrepreneurial talent.
  • Those below in the political pecking order are no different; they just have a more frenzied urgency to loot and “catch up.”
  • Any journalist who has been in the capital city for a reasonable duration knows a number of young and not-so-young upstarts who became seriously rich by brokering stolen public land.

You know a big land thief is on the prowl when you are presented with shadows. A company called Airport View, which somehow came to “own” a Langata school playground in 1989, that previously had been the property of the Prisons Department.

A Sikh family of four who “own” the company but never built the commercial centre they purportedly proposed. An obscure hustler called Patrick Osero who “owns” the adjoining Weston hotel built on a land parcel acquired “in 1998” from another company aptly named Priority.

Then a Wilson Airport operative who insists the land was “grabbed” from the Civil Aviation Authority in 2002.

Note the dates. The “deals” were being cut at a time when our country had basically degenerated into a primitive kleptocracy.

As is her fashion, Land Secretary Charity Ngilu was in no mood to be made the scapegoat. One newspaper quoted her as warning that if the President pushed her too far, she would “name the name behind the names” and tender her resignation. Uhuru Kenyatta, wake up and smell the coffee.

You know what is going on and who is behind this. If you don’t care for your regime getting sullied beyond repair by recycled thieves, it’s your choice. Never blame anybody else.

None of Kenya’s presidents (except, of course, the current one), had much money when they took up public office. That they became seriously rich – together with their progeny – is not because of any particular business or entrepreneurial talent.

There is a more accurate term for their kind of accumulation, which is best left unsaid for now.

LOOT AND CATCH UP

Those below in the political pecking order are no different; they just have a more frenzied urgency to loot and “catch up.” I remember not too many years ago when a long stretch of Mombasa Road from Plainsview junction to the JKIA turnoff was largely virgin land. Rapidly, chunks were allocated to shady individuals of the kind the press correctly refer to as “well-connected.”

These briefcase “businessmen”, not having a clue of what productive enterprises to put up, quickly sold the plots to others who put up showrooms, godowns, warehouses, whatever.

Any journalist who has been in the capital city for a reasonable duration knows a number of young and not-so-young upstarts who became seriously rich by brokering stolen public land.

When you are asked what they gainfully do for a living, you scratch your head because all they do is move from one posh hotel to another meeting other dubious characters “to cut deals”.

They will keep a downtown office, which says they are in export-import, or such activity, but these invariably are fronts. Kenya Railways used to be the biggest landowner in Nairobi after the government, with very prime real estate in posh places like Upper Hill and Parklands.

Most of that land is long gone through these wheeler-dealers. The same fate befell ADC farms. Those days, a good plot on Mombasa Road or Karura forest would get you something like Sh20 million.

Other fish who wanted jackpots of hundreds of millions set their sights on targets like NSSF and NHIF — with their piles of public billions — which they arm-twisted to spend on land and property they didn’t need.

Still other brokers opted to shun public land, whose fixation nowadays seems a leftover for small-timers with village roots. Sophisticated conmen were emerging who thought big and dreamed up monsters like Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing.

These were colossal scams with national fiscal implications and which could only be implemented with a nod from the very top.

Variations of these rip-offs were the periodic manipulation of the markets for essential commodities like maize and sugar to permit brokers to import huge shipments with spectacular mark-ups.

This country has the classic character of the typical banana republic in the sense that top public officials form a key part of the tiny elite of super-rich yet there is absolutely nothing economically productive they engage in. All they do is to use their offices to seek rent.