After 10 weeks of boring messages, the famed Safaricom kochokocho promotion came to an end on Monday. The company has apparently awarded 47 millionaires across all counties, but not most of them are known.
Someone like this writer had close to 5000 points but won nothing. I know of friends who had more points and won 1 bob airtime.
Safaricom claims that all winners are randomly selected. So it doesn’t matter how many points you have. You need some luck. In other words it is just a lottery.
Which brings us back to the controversial housing levy tax. The government has insisted that all employees must paid the tax but you will still require some luck to get a house.
Just like Safaricom, you may contribute more funds to the levy, but still not get a house. Your grandchildren and your entire lineage may not win a house either.
So how does someone who has never won airtime on the annoying Safaricom promotions expect to win a house? I mean, it is easier to deal with a corporate company than the government.
Let us talk about the government and how things are done hapo. It is impossible to get a government job in Kenya without having a god father.
One of my relatives has been looking for a job as a cleaner in a leading parastatal. He had to seek the help of a PS who comes from home. Using his connections, the PS told him to wait because all the vacancies had been awarded to the who is who in government.
So if politicians are scrambling for cleaning jobs, what would prevent them from awarding themselves the houses built from taxing Kenyans?
I was surprised over the weekend when Francis Atwoli, changed tune and told Kenyans that the housing levy is actually a good thing. This is the Atwoli, who went to court in September last year protesting the levy.
The truth is that we don’t need the government to construct houses for us. We know it won’t construct anyway. But at the end, we will be taxed, a few people will win the houses but many will be left poorer, just like Safaricom’s kochokocho