This is Africa for you!!!

Five Star Hotel in Abuja

I was in the five star hotel in Abuja and among the things i found in the room was a very well placed list of the following;
Dear esteemed guest, The under listed items are not to be taken away but are for your comfort and convenience while you enjoy your stay with us.
Bed sheets, blanket, curtains, bedcover, pillow/pillowcases, all towels, kettle, tea trays tea cups/spoons, tea basket, stationary stand, ashtray, glass cups, remote control, television, refrigerators, mini safe box, tables/standing lamps, waste bins or trash cans, amenity tray, wall picture frames, room service menu...
What came to my mind as i read this list was that patrons of this hotel often took away hotel property i am surprised even the TVs are mentioned. What do you think about this? Do we do it here in Uganda? I know in many hotels people steal things, i do not think this is stealing to put it mildly it is robbery of the hotel. But the whole thing goes back to our upbringing, our values, our understanding because you have paid some dollars doesn't entitle you to take away hotel property. People normally take away hand lotions they've used but the blanket and TV, you are taking away the hotel. My friends a hotel is a temporary place of aboard and the things they are for your use and use of others. Please do not take them away.

Management Organizations and Customer Service

Sometime back I talked about a restaurant in Jinja where we were mistreated at as customers who wanted to eat something in the night. However, there are times when people are good intentioned but it just doesn’t work. Arriving at Addis Ababa at about 6am in the morning, there was a challenge. I shouldn’t say I was shocked but here was a man sleeping of the transfer desk! Of course with modern technology you are always looking at the screen to see where to go. So we left the man enjoying his sleep and we proceeded to the waiting lounges. As a frequent traveller, I have accessed some private lounges and I had access to the cloud 9 Ethiopian lounge. I have been to this lounge before and other than the free meals may be you should keep away from it. The lounge is visited by very large numbers of people; there are only two computers for internet access…Whenever I am there, either one of them is off or both. Luckily there is wireless so if you have a laptop you just get connected. What continues to amaze me is management organization of the customer service. It seems nobody cares about what takes place. There is no order about seats and you are all fighting for these seats as well. It is also said when there is no competition the customer will always get a raw deal. That is what you get when you get to this lounge. I guess because of the monopoly of the Ethiopian airlines at their airport, customer service is not a priority. As we boarded the plane, again the issue of organization showed up quickly. When they announced the flight, everybody went to the desk. There was no action for some 10 mins until when some sensible person told passengers to make a line. That is organization for you. If you are in business, please pick a lesson.

Travel Experience to Abuja

Travelling to Nigeria is a 5 hour journey that takes more than 12 hours to do that. That is a problem of underdevelopment. Accessing one another in Africa is so difficult because we have no airline in Uganda (I was the last chairman of Uganda airways sometime back and recommended its closure). The Ethiopian airline we flew took us through Kigali where we stopped for about an hour before continuing to Addis. Ethiopian airways is one of Africa’s biggest airline and Addis as one of Africa’s hops. While Kenya airways flies around Africa, Ethiopian airways has the muscle. It has quietly picked up passengers around Africa distributing them to different countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and North America. Ethiopian airways has been the most resilient company in Ethiopia. Even the days of the communists rule in the 80s and 90s, the airline was strong at growing. You see huge numbers of people using this airline and you realize the company is making money. As part of its plan, Ethiopia built a terminal that now handles possibly the largest number of people after Johannesburg. While Kenya airways has 28 airplanes, Ethiopian airways has 40 of them. While at the airport 2 things struck me. 1) The Ethiopian president who passed on the other week appears to have been loved and hated at the same time but that is normal. In any society and any situation some people will love you and others will hate you. What I have found however is that those who hate you will do so because they want to be like you and they can’t. Remember that. 2) The other thing that struck me was the fact that success come through good organizations but also a bit of luck. Definitely the Addis airport in terms of managing and its facilities, it is not well organized. This is a common feature of many African organizations. I hate running

Poverty! What is the formula to get rid of this?

I recently came across a list of things a Member of Parliament had done for his people. When i looked through, i said to myself, this place must be on its way to economic emancipation unfortunately when i tried to find out about this constituency I discovered that they were in as much poverty as had always been in. I wondered that what is it that we need to do to transform our villages and indeed our country. This is so much productive capacity for a constituency. You would think people have been transformed. We must develop a new model to support transformation. Definitely, this one is not working... read below

ASSITANCE BY A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT TO HIS CONSTITUENCY

1. Transport sector

The MP has been providing fuel for grading roads in some areas to ensure completion of road works. 

2. Agricultural sector

Women have been trained in farming. So far distributed over 500 exotic cows to women with families of people living with HIV/AIDS; distributed seeds; 1000 spray pumps, set up fish ponds and secured a 10,000 liter milk cooler to the constituents.

3. Education

• Supported construction of schools, 

• In the struggle to improve the performance of students, He donated exercise books, water tanks, food and secured scholarships and bursaries for university, tertiary institutions, primary and secondary schools.

• Donated 725 sewing machines for Both Private and Government primary and secondary schools 

• Secured 367 computers for schools and youth projects 

4. Women

Secured 250 sewing machines for women groups. to help in the training of school drop outs.

5. Sports

Supported sports over 600 footballs have been distributed and also donated sports bicycles.

6. Poverty

I. Assisted 75 boda-boda to acquire motor cycles on credit. 

II. Provided over 300 iron sheets to support the construction of shades for boda-boda 

III. Some boda-boda cyclists were also given reflectors.

IV. Assisted the youth. Secured some jobs for them, cash assistance for their projects; grinding machines, sewing machines and bicycles.

V. Donated two small Chinese tractors to farmers. and also donated generators 

VI. Assisted in the improvement and promotion of business 

VII. Secured approximately 900 iron sheets for the construction.

VIII. Assisted PWDs with sewing machines, wheel chairs and microcredit through ADB.

IX. Introduced microcredit saving and credit arrangement.

X. Donated welding machines to youth groups 

7. Energy

I. Extended electricity to the rural areas and 6 schools and DMU’s have been connected - 

II. Distributed security lights in some trading centers.

III. Secured solar panels for 4 health centers; drugs, medical equipment, bed sheets, mosquito nets and mattresses were given to all the health centers.

IV. Extension of piped water to some parishes

Greatness, Fame and Money comes to those who work hard at it.

In recent months, the press has been full of two people for their wealth. One is a civil servant and the other is Kiprotich. The civil servant has acquired fame for amassing wealth through corruption. Kiprotich found his way to Olympics through hard work and he did it. Kiprotich was received by a minister on his return, dined with the president and his children were playing around the state House. That is fame. Winning the Gold that is greatness in one of the last events in the Olympics took him to the world stage that is fame. He wrote Uganda's Olympic story with a Gold that is greatness, dominated the news for the right reasons that is greatness. Compare this to two full pages story of the war between Bobi Wine and Bebe cool that is fame but for the wrong reasons. I like Bobi Wine he should not mistake me for running him down, he is a good guy (whenever you talk about salvation, your mind goes to Jesus Christ but our local papers talked about national Salvation, this was Kiprotich). The Kenyan runners know that long distance races are their birth rights, they were shocked when Kiprotich beat them, that was greatness. The President handed him a cheque of 200 million, that was wealth creation he made the money and he earned it. But most important, i quote the East African "Kiprotich stepped up to the plate and he single handedly moved Uganda out of the ' we were also there' category. In 2hours, 8 minutes and 1 second he spruced up his country's image in a way that no amount of money handed out to foreign agencies for the same purpose could achieve.

The Economics of Poverty

In Africa we are so kind, we give away what have to the rich to enable us continue be poor. This article appeared in the East Africa, August 18-24, 2012... More than one million people are this week expected to have signed an international petition demanding that Tanzania’s government stop plans to force Maasai pastoralists off their traditional land, to allow game huniting by members of the UAE royal family.

An international campaign by the pressure group Avaaz saw over 400,000 people sign up to their petition in only one day, criticizing plans to allow traditional lands to be used for hunting. Since then thousands more have signed up each day.
Although the Tanzanian government has denied the allegations saying that those who have signed the petition are being misled by an “unfounded and non-existent eviction claim,” Avaaz insisted in a statement that its information was correct.
“The Tanzanian government … plays cynical word games rather than addressing whether the government will commit to not evicting the Maasai from their land,” an Avaaz press statement said