An Ode to Bureaucracy

The tasks for my last ten Kyla-less days in Kenya are to finish all the company write-ups, dig around for more information, and seek out government data.

Yesterday I attempted to penetrate Kenyan government offices. Talk about red tape! I began the morning at the Ministry of Labour, what I thought would be a natural place to find information about work permits, labour statistics, and Kenyan policies that affect foreign workers. 

First point of intrigue is that after a check at the entrance gate, I was free to walk through the entire building. Not one person batted an eye at my clearly confused facial expressions as I attempted to figure out what floor the Permanent Secretary's office was on. Once in the correct office, the secretaries told me that I needed a written request to obtain any information. Zing! I'd prepared ahead and pulled out a letter addressed to the office complete with specific detail of the data I requested. As they read over my letter, they became concerned that it was not signed. I quickly rectified that issue as well. 

I was told that the Permanent Secretary was not in but they would give me a call. Right. I was not taking that as an answer. I inquired about a time I could return or a phone number that would lead me directly to them. I received a post-it note in return with a phone number. No names. No dates. They were not having my persistence. Again I explained the time sensitivity and they looked at me with non-amused eyes while saying "we will give you a call." 

On my way out, a man in the hall who clearly overheard the conversation caught up with me and mentioned that I should try a different office in a building downtown. I took note to try that office on Monday.

After my "luck" with the Ministry of Labour, I headed to the Ministry of Roads with high hopes. When you walk in the building, there are two elevators that go to every floor except the tenth. Conveniently, the Permanent Secretary's office is located on the tenth floor. A few minutes of wandering around led me to discover the special elevator that take people to the tenth floor, complete with a man in a chair, a telephone, and carpeting to take you up. Again, no one questioned me taking the special elevator. 

The secretaries for the Ministry of Roads sat at desks behind a wall of windows. I will note now that these women never moved from their chairs during our entire exchange. I began my spiel and pulled out my letter in preparation that they would want to see it. They told me they didn't accept letters in person, only though fax. I again explained that I was a student and did not have a fax machine and they repeated that they only communicate through fax. I explained the time sensitivity and they repeated, I would need to fax them a letter.  I got it: fax. As I began to ask them if there was a fax machine in their office I could use, one of the secretaries told me I'd have better luck at the Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA), because they deal with more Chinese clients. Seeing that I would get almost nowhere with this office, I asked for a phone number (no, they don't have one), thanked them and headed to the KeNHA down the road. 

Though at this point I do not have a letter specifically for the KeNHA, I try anyway as I've retained my letter from the Ministry of Roads. The Highway Authority is located in a beautiful Blue Shield Insurance building (talk about irony) and the reception staff was extremely helpful. They walked me to several offices to figure out the best place for the information. Finally, I was sent to the highest boss they could find and told a third time, that I would need to leave the letter and they would call me. The secretary was extremely nice and apologized numerous times that the boss was in a meeting, but ensured me that she would call or I could call back this afternoon to check on it. Ok, I can accept that. 

My last visit of the day was to the National Bureau of Statistics and that as really the icing on the cake. To gain access to any statistical data, everyone has to fill out a clearance form and submit it for approval. Ok, that seems easy enough. I was told I could do it online, but when I asked for the website, they clarified that I could not actually do it online because the submit button is no longer connected to their database and doesn't work. So I'd have to download a form and mail it back to them. After my confusion at the Ministry of Roads, I asked if I could possibly bring the form in person, email it, or fax it in. No, it had to be mailed through the post. Ok. I asked if they had any pre-printed copies and I was again told I needed to go to the website and print the form. 

So, I headed back home for the day and stopped in the internet cafe to print the form. Lo and behold, the link to the form is broken. There is no form. Hahaha. Of course there isn't. On the plus side, the National Bureau of Statistics website has a large disclaimer that states since the year 2000, the quality of their data has deteriorated due to lack of professionalism, poor management, and corruption. At least they're honest! 

39 and Counting

Tuesday came with a record of six interviews in one day! Here's a snapshot of our day:

8:30am: picked up by Joe, our faithful driver
9:10am: drop in on Golden Lion International--find out they are three companies in one: Golden Lion Battery Manufacturers, Phoeni Paper (toilet paper manufacturers), and Gold Rock (Management Firm)
10:12am: Wait for Joe who went to fix a flat tire. Wander to front of compound and see showroom for Shantui. Drop in to explore.
10:17am: impromptu interview with Shantui-CATIC, a heavy construction quipment company. They even provided us with a CDRom of information!
10:40am: on our way to the airport for meeting with CATIC, the Chinese state-owned firm that is constructing the airport expansion, among a myriad of other activities
11:00am: shown to Mr. Yellow's office
12:00pm: still waiting for Mr. Yellow
12:15pm: Mr. Yellow arrives and we conduct interview. Discover CATIC is engaged in almost every sector of the economy. Interesting.
12:50pm: bathroom break
12:57pm: snack on coco-puffs on our drive to Athi River
1:15pm: ask nice Maasai men on the side of the road for directions to the EPZ
1:26pm: arrive in Athi River Export Processing Zone (EPZ). wind around to find Royal Garments Factory, where we are meeting a friend of a friend who will introduce us to the Chinese firms
1:40pm: Interview with New Wide Garments/Protex, high end garment manufacturers with 100% export to the US Market.
2:05pm: Tour of the garment factory. Super interesting to see all the different parts of the process. We watched an Izod polo shirt from start (bolt of fabric) to finish (price tags on). They even let us take pictures!
2:30pm: Interview with Hui Commercial, a plastic flake manufacturing firm. They take millions of plastic bottles, cut them, and make them into fibers and filaments for polyester clothing.
2:55pm: Future Garments EPZ: another garment factory. no tour :(
3:15pm: trek back 40 minutes to Nairobi from Athi River
4:00pm: back in Nairobi
4:05pm: rice and beans for lunch/dinner!

Six interviews in one day. total count: 39. Good stuff.

Back on the Bandwagon

After two less-than stimulating days, we hit gold again today :) We began the morning with a meeting at China Fushun and had a nice interview there. Then we headed out to Jacaranda Gardens to meet with WanHo, a Chinese investment firm that is engaged with several different companies. We toured their massive facility and set up a meeting with the project manager for another day, since he was in a meeting.

Jacaranda Gardens is quite a ways out of the city and we knew that two other road construction firms were out that way. So we had our driver, Joe, ask for directions to one of them. We ended up at the site of a major road construction company (name withheld) where the guard told us it was very hard to get inside. But, we managed to get a meeting with one of the site managers who then directed us to the main headquarters. Success! Though it was not a complete interview, being cleared to the HQ is a major step as we've been attempting to contact this company since day one.

After that our driver extraordinaire attempted to find another fairly secretive construction company but we were not as lucky for that one. He is determined to find it for us, though, so perhaps we will go next week if he can do some digging of his own!

We visited a small-scale automobile garage which works very locally. It was interesting because we have not seen many Chinese companies set up in that way: catering almost exclusively to locals, no subtleties of Chinese in the name, mixed in with all the other local garages. We have focused mostly on the large corporations, as that is the original directive of our research. But the small private companies are very interesting as well, and it seems that no one really understands where they are and how many there are. A topic for further investigation (in a different project!)

Then, we hit jackpot with a meeting at Soluxe International (K) Ltd. They are a high-end hotel/restaurant/travel company that caters exclusively to wealthy Chinese clients. When we walked in Kyla exclaimed that it looked and felt like we were transported to Shanghai. The workers had Chinese-style uniforms and it was pristine. We had an interview with the managing director, who happened to be a friend of another person we interviewed at a different company. He was so engaging and interesting, our conversation lasted almost two hours! Kyla was questioned about her thoughts on how China has changed, and I was questioned about how Kenyans are reacting to foreign influences and about the change it is having on their culture. He was quite interested in Kenyan culture and is planning on spending some time in Maasai villages to gain more perspective on how development affects people here. Super interesting stuff!

Final excitement of the day, we received an email response from the Chinese Embassy (@gmail.com) with data and information about Kenya-Chinese relations. Yay!

Tomorrow we may be headed to Athi River, the EPZ zone that contains many Chinese manufacturing plants. The EPZ zones are special export zones where the land is owned by the Kenyan government. Our friend Riz from London has a cousin that works near there and has offered us a ride!

Thirty Interviews!!

Again, we have had quite a productive week. Monday and Tuesday we met with nine different companies, including several we had not heard of before. Yesterday we surpassed thirty companies officially interviewed! Woo Hoo!

Kyla has one week to go and Mollie has two, so we are hoping to wrap up interviews in the next week and focus on statistics and typing during Mollie’s last week. As we’ve reiterated before, the more we talk to people, the wider the circle becomes. I think we could spend the good part of a year continuing this research and not finding everyone.  For the purposes of this project, though, I think we have been exhaustive and extensive in identifying and contacting the major players. 

As we think about next steps, we are considering options for publishing.  Hopefully the LSE will be willing to move forward with a report, but we are also looking into additional areas as we have much more information and data than we expected to find. Thank you all for following us on our journey and we will make sure to write more as we finish up!

A Productive Week!

What a productive week we've had. Meeting after meeting, the interview gods have been with us this week! We met with ten different companies and discovered even more. So far we've handed out over fifty letters of introduction and gone through more than 300 business cards. We have completed interviews with 21 different companies plus the Chinese Embassy. Not too shabby!

Friday we hired a taxi for the day and went down to Mombasa Avenue, which is the industrial road on the way to the airport. We knew of several companies located on the road and we just stopped by them one by one. Vision Plaza is host to almost all of the logistics, clearing and forwarding companies and we made a note to visit them at the end of our study to gather data on how many containers each of them receive from China per month.

We were able to go to a clearing and forwarding firm, two car manufacturing firms, a construction equipment firm, a cement pole manufacturing company (see post below), and visited a telecommunications firm twice but were successfully thwarted by the receptionist both times. Our new plan for that one is to go there in the morning and sit until someone meets with us.

Saturday we spent much of the day meeting with Donna, the wife of the director of the SIT program. She is an anthropologist by trade and focuses on design, jewelry, and general Kenyan development. She had so many thoughts about our research and provided us several contacts. I always like talking to her because she is excited about knowledge. I hope I can be that full of life when I'm older. She encouraged us to try and publish a book with our information, so we are now trying to figure out how to aggregate the information we have collected.

Next week we have meetings set up Monday and Wednesday. We are going to try and meet with some of the Kenyan ministries as well, so that should lead to good blog stories :)

Thanks for following us on this adventure. We are learning a lot about the ins and outs of business and how convoluted everything is. Between holding companies, mergers, subsidiaries, and the like, it is a wonder anyone can disentangle the business world at all. But we are trying!

Siemen Po

At an interview this week we got the name of a man named Mr. Dang that worked for Siemen Po. We did not think the name sounded very Chinese, but we looked it up and found the name of a different company, Xiamen Po Wings Ceramic Company and decided that must be it. We called Mr. Dang and told him we got his number from Jimmy, our friend at COVEC. He seemed really confused and did not recognize the name, but we moved forward and asked if it was Siemen Po. He responded “Yes, Yes, Siemen Po, Siemen Po.” Great! We'd found the right place. We asked for an appointment and he said we could come by the office at 3pm and meet with his assistant, Mr. Kataya. After more discussion, including with Mr. Dang's driver, we figured out the office was located next to the Chinese Embassy at a black gate.

So, we drove down the street that the Chinese Embassy is located on (conveniently across from the Department of Defense) and found a black gate at the compound next door. We told the guard we were there to meet with Mr. Dang from Siemen Po and he said there were no Chinese people or companies in the compound. Confused, since there were no other gates along the entire street, we slowly drove back to see if maybe we missed it on the other side of the Embassy.

Opposite the Embassy on the other side was a narrow driveway with a multicolored gate. We asked the guard there and he said there was a Chinese company in the compound but he'd never heard of Siemen Po. Regardless he let us in. As we drove around the compound we came across Holley-Cotec, a Chinese pharmaceutical company we'd been trying to get into contact with for weeks. Score! We thought maybe Siemen Po was a random brand of pharmaceuticals this company manufactured. As we got out of the car, we met a Chinese man coming out of the office and we flagged him down. He started laughing and said Mr. Dang did not work there but was located on the other side of the wall, INSIDE the Chinese Embassy. Ok.

After scheduling a meeting with the man from Holley-Cotec, we got back in the car and went next door. The gate was black with gold trim and was clearly part of the Chinese Embassy, red wall and all. The sign on the guard house said “Economic and Commercial Counselor's Office of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China.” We knocked on the gate and told the guard we were there to see Mr. Dang or his assistant, Mr. Kataya, from Siemen Po or Xiamen Po. They looked at us like we were looney. We kept repeating Mr. Kataya, Siemen Po, and eventually another Kenyan man came out and questioned us again. We explained that we'd talked to Mr. Dang and had an appointment at 3pm with Mr. Kataya. He skeptically let us in the compound and we took a seat in the reception room.

Ten minutes later a man asks us what we are doing there and we explain yet again. He says that Mr. Dang is currently out of the country but he is Mr. Ndaya and is Mr. Dang's assistant. Ndaya, Kataya...almost the same thing. We begin to explain what we are doing and he explains that their company manufactures cement poles. Siemen Po...cement poles! No wonder people looked at us like we were crazy. We started laughing right in the middle of the interview. How could both of us have misunderstood several people to the point where where we thought the company name was Siemen Po??

Though we were halfway through the interview, we then had to ask what the company was actually called, since we'd assumed to this point that the company name was Siemen Po. For future reference, they are actually called BETT Company (K) Ltd.. Why did no one tell us this before? No one had ever said BETT! We also realized after the interview that the friend who gave us their contact in the first place was not in fact Jimmy, but a different friend. It is a wonder we even found this place AND that they let us in!

Tales from the Field, Volume I

We decided we needed a fun post! Sooo, we compiled some of our stories from our research and have provided them here for your entertainment. Enjoy.

-After weeks and numerous conversations with the same contact about their company's location and setting up a meeting, someone else answered the phone, cursed out Kyla in Chinese and hung up. I guess persistence does not always pay off :)

-In the middle of an interview, the contact sees the word “Chinese” on our interview form, entirely shuts down and tells us he needs to leave immediately. He then gets in his car, from which he emerges and returns inside the moment we leave. We'd like to know what he thought we were talking about the 30 minutes BEFORE his eye caught the word “Chinese”!

-Numerous times, we've shown up at a factory unannounced and received VIP treatment, full tours, and meals. Sweet deal!

-One of the sites had amazing coffee. Mollie doesn't drink coffee but drank three cups. We went back to the site twice just to get more :)

-We drove up to an unmarked building that the locals claimed was the right place only to see all the employees being patted down and searched while exiting the building for lunch. That's not intimidating!

-We watched a television manufacturing company put the televisions together with hot glue guns. Yes, your TV is held together by the same thing as my sixth grade Halloween costume.

-At one place, the products they were assembling were sourced from a Chinese company, made in Kenya, and had the tagline “Japan Quality” on the front.

-Chinese women all wear crazy outfits to work. Examples include big pouffy prom-like dresses with tennis shoes, neon men's t-shirts with skinny jeans and high heels with rhinestones, purple track-suit with lime green shirt, and a bedazzled Minnie Mouse T-shirt. Yes, these are your working professionals here in Kenya.

-One evening we had a lengthy discussion on infidelity with Kenyan business men. Apparently it's still ok for men to cheat. In fact, it is a surprise if someone doesn't. But women can't cheat because who would they cheat with? Though entertaining, we did not maintain a culturally sensitive composure for long in that conversation.

-Getting hung up on is a way of life. If they answer the phone in Chinese and you respond in English, click. If they answer in Swahili and you respond in English, screech and click. If they answer in English and you respond in English, often click. Kyla's patience on the phone is admirable.

-Most of the time, even if you know where something is supposed to be, you cannot find it. Maps have few street names and streets have even fewer listed. Buildings, particularly Chinese ones, have no signs or indication that they are a company at all. We spend a lot of time going in circles. No wonder we are called mzungus :) [mzungu is the term for white foreigners, but derives from the word kisunguzungu, meaning to go in circles/be dizzy.]

-Trying to get into contact with people a SECOND time, after you've talked to them once and they told you to call back, is a test of will. Nine times out of ten they get a new SIM card and their phone magically is no longer in service.

-Being misled several times about the location of company headquarters is fun. Though we feel silly when we show up and no one knows what we are talking about, we're onto you. And we will find you.

-We wear the same clothes every day. We only brought one set of formal business attire. So, in every interview, even if we meet more than once, we look exactly the same. Don't worry, we air-out our clothes in the shower at night before putting them back on in the morning!

-We are not likely targets for theft, despite carrying around a computer, because our bags are all held together by dental floss and gorilla tape. But we do look bad-ass!

-The excitement one feels when the phone suddenly picks up after weeks of ringing out or being busy or powered off is equivalent to winning the lottery. Perhaps an exaggeration, but not by much!

-A typical phone conversation follows this pattern on our side: “We are students,” “From the London School of Economics,” “We are in Nairobi,” “Yes, doing research” “No, we're not in London. We're in Nairobi,” “We go to school in London.” “No, we are American. We go to school in London.” “We are researching Chinese companies in Kenya.” “Yes, Chinese companies.” “No, this is for academic purposes only. We are students.” “Yes, we are in Nairobi and we would like to set up a meeting with someone about our research” “Yes, is there a person we could meet? Maybe in PR or marketing? Or sales? Or administration?” “We are looking at basic economic data, such as current projects, number of employees, and that sort of thing” “Would it be possible to arrange a meeting?” “Oh yes, you are very busy. We will be very fast.” “We are just students, it will not take much time.” “Yes, we can call back tomorrow when the boss is in. What time should we call?” “Ok, who should we ask for?” “Thank you XXX, we will talk to you tomorrow.”

Or with non-English speakers: “Hello? (In Chinese) Hello? Yes, do you speak English? (About 3 times out of 5 there is a hang up right here, requiring call back, sometimes a day or two later as they won't answer our number) No? No problem. We are students, from London. We are doing research, can we talk to your company? Yes, its ok, if they don't speak English. Yes, its ok if they are Kenyan. Yes, I can call tomorrow. Yes, I can email you. Yes, I can call your Kenyan staff. What is their number?” Then the conversation above ensues on the second phone call.

Or the time Kyla got someone who only spoke Swahili, panicked, hung up the phone and now won't take our calls. Mollie is going to try that number again in a few days.

-One time after telling someone on the phone we were doing research, they responded with “So you want a job?” Yes, if you are offering, I'll take a job AND my research information!

-We talk to almost every Asian person we meet on the street, 30% of which turn out to be very nice Koreans. We have more invites to Korean restaurants than we know what to do with!

-Chinese corporate email addresses are fun: coolguns@XXX, 25639573840@XXXX, kin4628465@XXX, patnditch2002@XXX, chengyesno@XXX...

-All-time favorite email address is the Chinese Embassy in Kenya: chinaembassykenya@gmail.com. Yes, the Chinese embassy uses gmail, too! Interesting since gmail is blocked in China...

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Alright, that's enough fun for one evening. I'm sure we will have more stories as the weeks progress. Hope you aren't too bored with our play-by-play of factory visits! Thanks for reading!

Another day in the life...

We began the day returning to Startimes Media to collect the form we left yesterday. Though it was partially filled out, the information was not as detailed as we'd hoped. We are going to try and get a meeting set up with the head of marketing next week once she returns from Kisumu. The office was super busy, as it was yesterday, so hopefully we will be able to connect with someone who can provide additional information. The energy within the office is very high, leading us to believe there is more under the surface.

After Startimes, we headed down into the Industrial Area in search of Sinohydro. We'd been told it was located near the Kenya Pipeline Company's (KPC) plaza so we started there. We discovered that China Petroleum Pipeline Co. (CPP) did work with KPC but Sinohydro was nowhere to be found. This company is proving to be quite elusive! Unfortunately, no one from CPP was in today, however all of the staff at KPC were extremely helpful and gave us several contacts at other Chinese firms. They even set up a meeting for us with the CPP headquarters in Westlands for tomorrow afternoon! For a moment we wished our research was on Kenyan oil because the staff was so jovial.

In the afternoon we has a meeting with Jimmy from COVEC. Again, he was very helpful in answering our questions and even put us in contact with one of his professors in China that is doing similar research. Also, he advised us that we should be asking the construction companies if they are DB, DBB, CM, BOT, or BT, referring to the type of projects they work on—design/build, design/bid/build, construction management, etc.. Since we are nerds and love acronyms, this realization sent us spiraling deeper into the websites of firms we already contacts to see if we could identify the projects :)

Today was slightly slower than yesterday but we are making progress, pole pole (slowly slowly). Tomorrow we have a meeting with China CAMCE Engineering Corp. and CPP. Yay!

Good Things Come In Threes

Another day of success for team Mollie and Kyla! We began our day with an interview at ZTE Kenya, a huge Chinese-based telecommunications company. They work mostly with the Orange network in Kenya, including installation of all 3G networks. They are also working on a government project establishing an intra-governmental communications system between all municipal offices. Our two representatives were extremely helpful and provided exactly the information we needed, including an audit report!

While we were in the neighborhood we decided to drop in to Startimes Media, a huge Chinese television provider in Kenya. They have a relationship with PanAfrica Network, another Chinese firm that just received a contract to digitize TV in Kenya. A major player! The office was beautiful and extremely busy, but we managed to speak with a marketing manager and her assistant. They took our information form and advised us to return tomorrow for the answers. Hopefully we will be able to get some good information about the company. The both seemed nice and eager to help, so I have a good feeling.

On our walk back to the matatu stage (aka bus stop), we passed by a construction site for HydroChina Huadong Engineering Co., Ltd. We knocked on the gate and were able to score an interview with one of the managers on site. Like our friends at ZTE, he provided a lot of great information about the company and their work in Kenya.

The afternoon was spent scheduling more meetings, updating the contacts spreadsheet with non-working phone numbers and bounced email addresses, and investigating the corporate structures of many Chinese firms. I am continually amazed at the number of subsidiary companies, holding companies, name changes, etc. that corporations go through in their history. Truly mind-boggling!

13 companies down, 130 to go :) As we keep interviewing and digging, the more companies we uncover. If we can get through 1/3 of the list, I'd be satisfied with our work!

Tomorrow we have meetings with COVEC and are hoping to drop by SinoHydro and the China Center. Here's to many productive days ahead!  

Mombasa Heat!

Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya and the home of the main port in East Africa, as it is situated on the Indian Ocean. See the map to the left to get your bearings on where the main cities are. Due to its trading history, the city bears influences from Portuguese, Arab (mostly Omani, Yemeni, and Saudi), Indian, English, Somali, and Kenyan cultures. See the map to the right to understand historical trade routes :) Super interesting!!

Map of Kenya--take note of distances and major cities

Historical trade routes from East Africa to the Indian Ocean

We trekked into the industrial sector of Mombasa, taking note of the different Chinese businesses listed.  Two of them were open and we interviewed the managers.

1. Hightime Trading Limited assembles and sells  TianMa and SanLG motorbikes. They were very helpful in providing information and gave us the names of a few other motorbike firms we had not heard of yet. It seems as though the motorbike assembly industry is a huge market the Chinese are entering, perhaps due to its low cost of entry and low technical needs.

2. Foshan Trading Co., Ltd. is an independent Chinese furniture company. They were eager to provide their opinion of Chinese industry across Kenya generally, but were extremely closed-mouthed about their own enterprise. This is the first furniture assembly company we are aware of in Kenya but unfortunately got little traction on their actual activities.

We then stopped by for a visit at the Kenya Port Authority. The port itself is a restricted area that we could not enter, but we were able to snag a meeting with the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA). The KMA regulates all port activities and keeps data about port activities. Unfortunately, they have never sorted information about the port of origin for shipments, so they were less than helpful for us. It does amaze me that a port would not keep track of where their imports come from but only where exports are sent to.

They did send us to a shipping company nearby that does keep track of such data and the representative we spoke with said he would see what he could pull up. We are still waiting to hear back from them, but are not keeping our fingers crossed on it.

Overall, we had an okay work-trip to Mombasa. We are going to look more into shipping companies with offices in Kenya, because we had not really explored that industry before. Overall, it seems that the more we uncover, the more there is. Though we know that that revelation is not uncommon for research, it remains quite exciting to go through it first-hand.

Thanks for reading! We have several meetings set up for next week in Nairobi and are hoping to interview at least 20-30 more companies in the next three weeks!