THE CRYPTOCURRENCY BUBBLE!

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. A cryptocurrency is difficult to counterfeit because of this security feature. Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized systems based on blockchain technology, a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. A defining feature of a cryptocurrency, and arguably its biggest allure, is its organic nature; it is not issued by any central authority, rendering it theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.

The first blockchain-based cryptocurrency was Bitcoin, which still remains the most popular and most valuable. Today, there are thousands of alternate cryptocurrencies with various functions or specifications. Some of these are clones of Bitcoin while others are forks or new cryptocurrencies that split off from an already existing one.

BREAKING DOWN:

Cryptocurrencies are systems that allow for the secure payments of online transactions that are denominated in terms of a virtual "token," representing ledger entries internal to the system itself. 
"Crypto" refers to the fact that various encryption algorithms and cryptographic techniques, such as elliptical curve encryption, public-private key pairs, and hashing functions, are employed.

The first cryptocurrency to capture the public imagination was Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009 by an individual or group known under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. As of October 2018, there were over 17.33 million bitcoins in circulation with a total market value of around $115 billion (although the market price of bitcoin can fluctuate quite a bit). Bitcoin's success has spawned a number of competing cryptocurrencies, known as "altcoins" such as Litecoin, Namecoin and Peercoin, as well as Ethereum, EOS, and Cardano. 
Today, there are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence, with an aggregate market value of over $200 billion (Bitcoin currently represents more than 50% of the total value).

Benefits and Drawbacks:

Cryptocurrencies hold the promise of making it easier to transfer funds directly between two parties in a transaction, without the need for a trusted third party such as a bank or credit card company; these transfers are facilitated through the use of public keys and private keys for security purposes. In modern cryptocurrency systems, a user's "wallet," or account address, has a public key, and the private key is used to sign transactions. Fund transfers are done with minimal processing fees, allowing users to avoid the steep fees charged by most banks and financial institutions for wire transfers.

Central to the appeal and function of Bitcoin is the blockchain technology it uses to store an online ledger of all the transactions that have ever been conducted using bitcoins, providing a data structure for this ledger that is exposed to a limited threat from hackers and can be copied across all computers running Bitcoin software. 
Every new block generated must be verified by the ledgers of each user on the market, making it almost impossible to forge transaction histories. 
Many experts see this blockchain as having important uses in technologies such as online voting and crowdfunding, and major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase see potential in cryptocurrencies to lower transaction costs by making payment processing more efficient. 
However, because cryptocurrencies are virtual and do not have a central repository, a digital cryptocurrency balance can be wiped out by a computer crash if a backup copy of the holdings does not exist, or if somebody simply loses their private keys.

At the same time, there is no central authority, government, or corporation that has access to your funds or your personal information.

The semi-anonymous nature of cryptocurrency transactions makes them well-suited for a host of nefarious activities, such as money laundering and tax evasion. However, cryptocurrency advocates often value the anonymity highly. 
Some cryptocurrencies are more private than others. Bitcoin, for instance, is a relatively poor choice for conducting illegal business online, and forensic analysis of bitcoin transactions has led authorities to arrest and prosecute criminals. More privacy-oriented coins do exist, such as Dash, ZCash, or Monero, which are far more difficult to trace.

Since prices are based on supply and demand, the rate at which a cryptocurrency can be exchanged for another currency can fluctuate widely. However, plenty of research has been undertaken to identify the fundamental price drivers of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has indeed experienced some rapid surges and collapses in value, reaching as high as $19,000 per bitcoin in December of 2017 before returning to around $7,000 in the following months. Cryptocurrencies are thus considered by some economists to be a short-lived fad or speculative bubble. 
There is a concern especially that the currency units, such as bitcoins, are not rooted in any material goods. Some research has identified that the cost of producing a bitcoin, which takes an increasingly large amount of energy, is directly related to its market price.

Cryptocurrencies' blockchains are secure, but other aspects of a cryptocurrency ecosystem are not immune to the threat of hacking. In Bitcoin's almost 10-year history, several online exchanges have been the subject of hacking and theft, sometimes with millions of dollars’ worth of 'coins' stolen. Still, many observers look at cryptocurrencies as hope that a currency can exist that preserves value, facilitates exchange, is more transportable than hard metals, and is outside the influence of central banks and governments.

That moment when church is nuisance!

Not everyone who calls Him “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, our saviour once admonished. Apparently, a few people heard this and thought: “Well, we must make sure we call loud enough, otherwise tutahata ride ya kuenda kwa sir God!!.”

The result….
Brutal noise: Noise that charges into your windows and grabs the sleep out of your head and flings it out into the darkness, noise that then proceeds to stamp on your head for all the hours until dawn.

Local pharmacies and bars register abnormal orders for Valium and Vodka every time they hear that the local church is having an “overnight prayer” aka “Kesha”, aka “Nuisance”.

Those Days: There was a time when we would hear our local churches from our homes and think: “Oh, how sweet the songs of praise I hear as the faithful offer up worship unto the Lord. I ought to go and join them, that I may meet the Lord, too.” 

But now? Now we say: “Lord, make it stop!” When people say they are mostly taking the Lord’s name in vain, but still, they genuinely wish the Lord would make those jerks actually stop praising Him, or at least stop praising Him so loudly.

Think of it: The service only needs to be loud enough for the person in the back to hear, right? Anything else is excess. Superfluous. One might even say greedy, selfish and inconsiderate.

So, what makes a person who only needs 50 metres of sound decide to instead buy, activate, fuel and power a kilometre of sound? Is it love, charity, kindness, compassion, thinking of your neighbour before yourself as the Lord prescribed?

Not at all. They have applied flagrant conceit, callous meanness, run-away vanity and have decided that their neighbour can go screw themselves because they want to have a loud party and do not care about anybody else.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO NEMA AND THE NOISE POLLUTION LAW?

On any given night: You know that there are people in there who need to rest. People reading for exams, people who are ill... At the very least, there are babies.

If you walk into a room where a baby is asleep and shout “PRAISE GAD HALLELUJAH! CHIISAS LOVES YOU!” at the top of your voice, you will not be called pious and devout, you will be called a stupid, selfish jerk. And that is waking up one kid for a few seconds. Now, imagine waking up an entire neighbourhood of kids for a whole night? Damn! I need me a Vodka too!

So what do you suggest? I suggest we continue to suffer as victims of these Pharisees. I suggest we put up with it. Just allow. Swallow. Suffer locally. The Kenyan way. Kaa kijeshi!

Or: Or if you have the courage and are ready to be as much of an ass as they are, you could consider the exhortation from Luke 6:31: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Clearly, they want us to do unto them what they do unto us, so let us become as much of a nuisance to them as they are to us.

Perhaps begin by dumping our rubbish inside their church. That is a strategy I read about on the internet once. Worked in Nigeria. Though I would be more partial to going to the pastor’s house when he is taking his nap (to rest after his all-night service) and singing “…am dundaing” underneath his window albeit off-key… but still doing unto him as he does unto us!!

You don't have to rob a bank for Christmas!

The holiday spending frenzy is here! Pssst! Did you know that you don’t necessarily have to turn up broke in January? Here are tips on the how;

1.  Set limits for total holiday spending - be realistic about what you are willing to sacrifice by developing new-and-improved spending habits. 
2. Make your own "naughty" or "nice" lists - Santa has to buy presents for the whole world, but you don't 
3. Give your time - Mom and dad (or other far-away family and friends) might love nothing more than a visit from you. Give small gifts and large hugs. 
4. Give personalized gifts instead of expensive gifts 
5. Organize group volunteering instead of holiday parties - You'll get to spend quality time together – plus, you'll come out of the day feeling proud of your efforts rather than suffering from buyer's remorse, and anyone can benefit from volunteering

The Bottom Line

Don't let your debt become the Scrooge that robs the fun from your holiday season. Spend time with your friends and family, base your gift buying on sentiment rather than currency value, and avoid giving yourself a year-round debt headache. If you can follow these tips, when your holiday bank statements arrive in the New Year, you'll find yourself singing "Joy to the World" all over again.

UCHUMI: The walking dead.

The Kenyan Government always does a poor job at rescuing financially-distressed companies. Currently, on the deathbed is #Uchumi, a national brand that used to be a selling outlet for more than 80 per cent of locally manufactured goods.

A few years ago, we witnessed the mess that became of management of the insolvency that hit Webuye-based Pan African Paper Mills! You all remember the case of Nakumatt: The elephant on its knees?

In a period of hardly one year, the National Treasury has pumped a whopping Sh 1.2 billion into Uchumi in the name of supporting a turnaround plan. All indications are that the experiment is not working. The home of value is now a true case of the walking dead.

The much-touted turnaround plans have turned out to be exercises of closing branches and disposing of assets. All indications are that the billions of taxpayer shillings that the government has pumped into rescuing Uchumi Supermarkets will go down the drain.

The messy manner in which the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the National Treasury have handled the Uchumi Supermarkets came to light the other day when the State-owned Kenya National Trading Company (KNTC) closed the headquarters of Uchumi Supermarkets in Nairobi’s Industrial Area over rent arrears.

For a whole week, Uchumi was not able to operate because of the action by KNTC which it owes some Sh43 million in rent arrears.

A CASE OF GOVERNMENT HARRASSING ITSELF;

Yet as we all know, KNTC and Uchumi Supermarkets are both State-owned. And, they are both parastatals under the Ministry of Trade and Industry under the charge of Trade Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya and principal secretary Chris Kiptoo. It was a perfect example of the right hand not knowing- or even caring about- what the left hand is doing.

Are we still to believe that the administration of President Uhuru Kenyatta is committed to rescuing Uchumi Supermarkets? Is it still important for us to recover billions in shareholder loans that the government pumped into the company last year?

I found myself reflecting about the history of government investment in commercial undertakings especially in the wholesale and trading business in general, but more particularly in KNTC itself.

THE KNTC HISTORY;

There was a time in the history of this country when KNTC was king, the biggest importer and distributor of consumer goods, and owning a network of depots and godowns in most of the big towns in the republic.

These were the times when we were deep in the period of the ancient regime of price controls, powerful commodity marketing boards, import licensing controls, and an exchange control regime that required you to queue at a window at the Central Bank of Kenya for an allocation to allow you to purchase an air ticket.

The tiff at Uchumi over rent arrears made me come to terms with the fact that some of these old parastatals of the command –and- control regime did not die even after we transited to a liberalised economy. So, I read from KNTC’s website that it is still involved in the distribution of a variety of goods the most absurd of which include-, barbed wire, wheelbarrows(Is Bungoma listening), chicken wire, chain links and pipe fittings.

The corporation also leases godowns and canteens to the private sector. To which I ask: why should the government be involved in distributing wheelbarrows? KNTC should have been privatised and its assets sold to the private sector many years ago

The impending implosion of activities around Uchumi and its revival is bound to inflict widespread financial distress to many other companies especially within the SME sector.

THE SOLUTION;

If the government is, indeed, serious about saving Uchumi, it must go by the well-known playbook applied by other governments in a similar situation and that runs as follows:

First, kick in equity to allow you to acquire majority control. Throw out the management and board and bring in an international chain to run the firm under a management contract.

To ease liquidity for the company, do a bond that you can then on-lend to the supermarket chain and make it possible for the company to borrow at a risk-free rate.

The disaster in comfort!

There is stagnation in comfort!

We stopped developing ourselves the minute we got jobs. We naively assumed that life stopped for us as well. We did the expected, the accepted and remained on the tried and tested paths.

We conformed, fitted into the teams we joined and became bonafide members. In a nutshell, we remained aspired to and remained average. It means that we sailed smoothly... and that is wonderful on many fronts.

The issue is that we fitted in too well to disrupt the status quo, didn't ruffle any feathers or rock any boats by attempting to journey on roads less-travelled. It means we did nothing outstanding, however, high up the ladder we got.

The other people chose to engage in taxing, time-consuming, seemingly thankless and endless endeavours. Why would we put ourselves through what they did? They must have been looking to suck up to their managers.

We are the smart confident people who wouldn’t need to take on such arduous self-punishment when we could get by fulfilling the duties outlined in our job descriptions. At the end of our days, we met up with our friends and did the usual comfortable normal things that working people do.

THE STAGNATION;

Tick tock tick tock... three years later, those seemingly crazy emerge as leaders within or outside our organisations. They, unlike us, were prepared without necessarily being called upon to embrace the dynamic environment and showcase their strengths.

They understood early on in their careers that to fully appreciate and align themselves with an organisation's goals, they had to raise their own self-awareness and establish personal ideals and direction. They understood the value of personal discipline and raised their value in personal, professional and social interactions.

The power of their productive habits propelled the effective, consistent, relevant and timely execution of their aspirations. They take it upon themselves to raise the bar of organisational mindsets and overall culture by personifying desirable leadership traits. These people weren’t the best academic performers but their success is no wonder.

THE BIG QUESTION;

Why did we get passed by? We are brilliant people! How could this have happened? Well, unlike them, we secretly entertained what these people now have but we weren’t ready to roll up our sleeves to do the required work. We now seemingly suddenly find that we are stuck in the same place we were three years ago. We can no longer speak of careers. We just have jobs that progressively feel more of daily grinds.

There is no promise of advancement. We are 'demotivated' and our employers must surely be to blame for it. We struggle to manage ourselves. The teams we manage become more and more of burdens. We can hardly carry out projects without pulling our hair out. We grow older and more set in our ways. The companies we work for begin to feel less like the exciting opportunities we sought a while back and more like mazes of unending bureaucratic systems that serve more to handcuff our creativity than empower us to give our best output. How stifling can life be! We slide into frustration. Lethargy sets in and before we know it, we are no longer the star performers we once were. We are no longer the energetic, driven professionals that our employers signed the dotted line for.

Our employers, on the other hand, have their own goals. They are busy people with little or no time to babysit us, especially because there is no shortage of younger, cheaper, eager and energetic entrants into the workplace to pick from. Opportunities inevitably start to skip us more than we can bear. We dream of transitioning into new roles or take the plunge into entrepreneurship for years but do nothing. We convince ourselves that we are being realistic; we are tied up in loans, school fees and mortgages, you know. So we stay put feeding our minds on the unfortunate notion that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Most of those around us subscribe to the same school of thought. This is what life is, right? All the while, the clock’s hands tick away diligently. Soon, our employer restructures and we find ourselves out in the cold. The question is: are we willing to put in the work to make that happen before hitting the rock?

TRADITIONAL AUDIT APPROACH IS A SCREW-UP!

There is need to depart from the traditional audit philosophy that is reactive, detective and over relies on end year reviews and embrace tailored control concept that will enhance real time operational efficiency, proactive and one that will focus on prevention, detection and correction of errors and irregularities, embraces information technology and produces accurate, complete and actionable audit reports.

The system boasts of advanced medicine yet the populace is on their sick beds! Case of traditional audit therapy to changing auditee needs and technology! It is not surprising that still the so called "Big Four" still have these defects in their approach! especially when dealing with government entities.

KENYAN POSTMORTEM AUDITS!

The Public Audit Act 2007 of Kenya gives the Controller of Budget and the Auditor-General the mandate to audit all public entities and provide a professional opinion to Parliament at least once every financial calendar year on matters arising from their audit work. Lately, mainstream media has been awash with accounts of financial impropriety in a number of public entities running into millions of shillings as highlighted by the Auditor-General.

A number of inquests emanating from audit reports are ongoing in Parliament. However, the frequency by which embezzlement of public resources get reported across the governance structures leaves one wondering whether compliance audit approach is effective. To start with, revealed acts of fraud have over 50 percent chance of recurring thus revealing weaknesses and ineffectiveness of the postmortem audit approach in examining compliance to financial regulations and procedures in conduct of public affairs.

Incidentally, as a matter of procedure, much as financial audit is designed to uncover faults in the public expenditure trail, audit reports generated are expected to highlight weak points that abet compliance and advice on probable remedies. That being the case, it is high time relevant authorities reflects and evaluate on today’s audit trail, systems and procedures

THE SOLUTION;

Following the establishment of devolved units in 2013, financial audit became more complex, time consuming and taxing. For this reason, and without pre-emptying the importance of compliance audit to financial management, the country had better consider employing financial risk management framework instead. This approach, assesses risk exposures beforehand capture them for control and put in place necessary administrative control measures to avert shortfalls.

Again, the approach deliberately explores appropriateness of applied controls and systems effectiveness. Actually, risk management involves gaps identification, evaluation and prioritization followed by coordinated and economical resource application to monitor and control risk occurrence and or minimize its impact in case of an occurrence.

Under this approach, strong internal control systems are advanced in managing exposure to operational risks through prevention or and early detection and correction of errors and irregularities. Where established, control systems are critical in addressing loss of public resources, malpractices and corruption in public realm.

Additionally, they lay a foundation of discipline and structures made functional in conduct of public affairs thus safeguarding integrity, ethical behavior, competence, participation and responsiveness. Still, it is easier to monitor quality of formulated controls through regular performance tests and design interrogation.

BOTTOM-LINE;

Basically, automated audit trail unlike paper based one will reduce use of hard copy documents, records duplication and avoidance to laid down procedures and rather make financial operations more effective, financial reporting more reliable and complete thus guaranteeing compliance to established laws, rules, regulations and policies.

Only then, will governance objectives and processes be adhered to.

Why you should invest in Naivasha

When Uganda announced that it had dropped plans for an SGR (Standard Gauge Railway) and that they will rehabilitate the old narrow Metre Gauge Railway (MGR), it became evident that Kenya had to scale down its SGR ambitions, at least in the near term!

Kenya plans to complete its SGR from Mombasa to Naivasha by mid-2019, after which the focus should shift to maximizing value for the SGR.

How to increase and maintain Mombasa Port attractiveness to Uganda, Congo, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi etc, using a combination of SGR, MGR and road haulage, is now the immediate guiding questions for Kenya.

Developing a major ICD at Suswa (Naivasha) and linking it with the MGR (say at Longonot), will create an ideal and effective convergence of the three modes of transport at Naivasha.

If indeed Uganda will upgrade its MGR network, Kenya will likewise modernise its MGR section from Naivasha to Malaba. This will increase service assurance and safety. A redesigned road access from the Naivasha ICD to the main highway will also be necessary.

The final product will be a Naivasha logistics hub of choice handling transit imports and exports, and also exports/imports for western parts of Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Uganda, South Sudan etc.

Travel distances by importers/exporters will be shortened, and specifically the Nairobi ICD clutter and city congestion will be avoided.

Next is Kisumu for the waterway connection with Tanzania and Uganda!

My Opinion: Go for it. Invest huge and capitalize on current low property prices in Naivasha. It’s the next big thing