LORDS of Exploitation

Property Management Firms In Kenya

This is the name given to lazy firms making money for doing nothing but collecting their payment fee, especially those managing middle income estates. Apparently the mandate of these organizations is to manage residential premises in the sense of ensuring the supply of basic amenities, carry out routine repairs and ensuring the safety and comfort of tenants in addition to collecting rents on behalf of the landlord. On the contrary, these organizations fast mushrooming in Nairobi and other cities in Kenya either are ignorant of the roles of property management firms or are just deliberately negligent of duty and parochial in their operation.

The first striking characteristic of these organizations is their poorly educated staff. You wonder whether poor grade is one of the criterion for recruitment - Massively uneducated and at times with little fluency in both English and Kiswahili. But that is tolerable until you are at their service then you get flabbergasted by the less than kind less than candid support given. Often times you are the one prodding for information that they should yield freely. This is you seeking their guidance when you have gotten a house and all their help is a turnoff.

You get an excellent house but then there are minor repairs that needed quick fix. Probably paint work and a bit of replacement in the metal fixtures here and there but what do they tell you? Pay for the unrepaired house first to express commitment then they will repair the house. You question the logic and then you remember your service lady or man has less than minimum education and does not understand logic or law. Need then presses you to comply to a fault, but then your expression of commitment yields no results either and these people will take you round and round till you end up making the repairs on your own.

At some point you get dissatisfied with this less than perfect service dispensed perpetually year after year. And their thirst for your monthly rent is reinforced with a punitive penalty and clause that presses you to keep paying and do so as bid by the binding unfairly drawn contract. And then you opt to terminate it within the stipulated frameworks but before you are done, you meet the rude shock, that your rent deposit in its whopping amount will be utilized entirely in carrying out the repairs in the house. What repairs? then the list is faithfully drawn with items too foreign for any resident of planet earth. You have been duped my friend.

Estate Agents are the most philistine con – artists. They exploit and extort money from tenants in the most unkind of ways and the Rent Restriction Act cannot help since the Kenyan public is ignorant and the rent tribunal barely knows its mandate. These Estate Agencies should be subject to state scrutiny and checks and balances put in place to cushion the Kenyan Public. Otherwise these uneducated, undeserving and arrogant businesses that know better to circumvent the chain and cut a piece of the pie without adding an inch of value will continue hurting innocent Kenyans.

THE DECREPIT SITUATION AT THE COUNTRY BUS STATION

Filthy, rough, with little humanity almost a zombie, a terrible drug addict who ventures from one hard drug to the next, somebody whose life has ceased to have purpose and whose only gratification is in inflicting pain and distress in the hearts of other citizens, a psychopathic criminal. Forgive me for having to describe a human in this manner.

If you have ever been to the country bus station, then probably you have fallen into the hands of hooligans who profess a bodyguard role with the aim of extorting financial favors from innocent hard working Kenyan citizens. It bits my person to imagine such kind of hooliganism can still exist in this day and age. It clearly says something is terribly wrong with the system. I agree life cannot be perfect and that the war against criminals is a lifelong project with no permanent solution however the blatant triumph of evil in broad daylight is a sign of the discredit leadership of a Nation.

I have been to the Country bus station, I have been a victim of this frustration and worse I have witnessed fellow citizen beaten senseless and snatched their possession by thugs who have infested the station. The question that probably comes to your mind is whether there exists a police station at the country bus station, the answer to which is affirmative. But the effectiveness of this police post is next to zero owing to the fact that it has not succeeded in keeping off the criminals from the precinct of the station. And, the reports of criminal cases almost always go unsolved because the thug normally mingles with the masses and remain at large

Now, this means you and I, average Kenyans who have to use the country bus to access our native villages have a perpetual fear due to the almost guaranteed encounter with these hooligans every day we travel. It means one time or two you will be roughed up and pushed between buses and ravished of every worthy possession, and this is not ignoring the many blows and kicks that will garnish the assault. I am afraid and disappointed as a Kenyan; I am tired of leadership that gives credit and recognition to the financially muscled.

I believe if Country bus was the preserve of the wealthy, something would have been done about it, I want the station biffed up with several police officers and county council officials; I want the place combed out and all the criminal elements churned out. A sought of mucking out of the Augean stables.

I am a socialist. I believe the solution to men’s problems will always come from within them.  If you thought that it comes from within tribe, you are wrong, if you thought it comes from the government, you could never be further from the truth, We need to unite and seek solutions to our own problems, travelers need to travel in band wagons, groups moving together to the station for self-defense because if we have a perpetual problem then we better craft a solution.

Do You Believe Like I do?

Childhood comes with a belief that simply qualifies to be the strongest faith ever known. And the beauty about this faith is that it comes with stolid optimism which of course may be blind, but you and I agree it is stolid. And that is why most of us promised our mums red cars or red shoes, or red tables to be delivered when we grow up. However life has taught us otherwise, that indeed all that you believe in could be shadows and as we grow we have been ardent students of Nature to the point of sacrificing belief, faith and even hope itself at the altar of contentment with the way things are. You give me a hundred adults who believe things will improve to be marvelous and I will show you a nation that will feed every citizen in its borders. That faith, that belief and that hope simply went in our twenties after data overwhelmed our minds and inductive process repeatedly corroborated facts
They say facts never lie, however, most times before facts speak we have always acted, which is to say, facts come after action or behavior and not the other way round. To this end, the death of belief and faith in the state of things ever improving has led to a certain form of indifference and apathy. With that death has gone that initiative of trying to improve ourselves, our families, our society, our nation, our continent.
The struggle to make things better should not be premised on the facts but belief and hope. If i could believe in myself and my small capacity and meet another who does the same in his/her small capacity, then we would build great society.
Saying politics is a dirty game and leaving leadership to only those who can play in the muck in itself is loss of faith. Saying to yourself that its okay to drop that dirt on the road because you are just one person is in itself a loss of faith, Passing a beggar and looking away because they will always be there is loss of faith. I could go on and on. Induced laxity and indifference to the state of affairs is killing the opportunity for a better tomorrow
You and I are the greatest organization that ever existed. Not the UN, Not the World Bank, Forget About IMF. There is nothing that can surpass the power of a united Humanity. United in habit, culture, character, purpose. This unity comes with belief in greater possibilities. Africans look at Europe and USA with aspirations because of the way they believe in their Nations, we admire their language because of the way they believe and pride in it, their food, and their attire. If you don't believe in yourself, nobody will, you don't believe in your country, no Nation will, you don't believe in your continent, nobody will
I am on a journey of belief and I believe me and my crew will get there.