creative commons. :) pick it up, remix, blog it, fb it... @Bankelele: please post it On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Josiah Mugambi <jmugambi@gmail.com> wrote:
Amazing :)
Now make this a blog (I'm sure Bankelele is already interested in adding it to his series on his blog).. -- Josiah Mugambi
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Laban Mwangi <lmwangi@gmail.com> wrote:
Mauritius is an African country that's:
- 0.34% of Kenya in area (less than a square that's 50kms x 50kms) - Has 2.5% the population and more than half the GDP of Kenya. - Has approx 1:1 Tourist:Citizen ratio compared to Kenya's 1:40 at best - Income tax is 15% compared to >30% in Kenya - Education, healthcare and welfare is free. (Really! If you are below a certain pay grade, you get benefits such as money to buy water tanks, some electricity units free etc) - Makes power from Bagasse that is cheaper and more reliable than KPLC & KENGEN and mind you they have a higher per capita power consumption because of air cons etc - Cooking gas goes for ~500KES for 13kg cylinder (They have no refinery. It's all imported). No one uses charcoal with the exception of Braai/choma. - Fuel costs approx the same as Kenya (No refinery... again) - Used to have aircon on for ~12 hours a day, fridge, used electric oven, etc for a bill of at most 3000 KES/month
- Imports practically all their food (guess ~80%) from za, au, nz, in - It's cheaper to buy longlife milk from South America in Mauritius than KCC.) - An avocado goes for ~80KES, same price for a Passion passion. - Meat from in,nz and za goes for >600KES/KG for low grade all the way to 2,500KES/KG
- Worker rights are enforced - Everyone has a job.. really, as a citizen, you can quit and a week later have a different job - Everyone get's a 13th month salary bonus. That's standard. 14th (and 15th in some cases) salary as a motivational bonus. Did I mention that ontop of this, some companies offer a free vacation per year for your family for a limit of say 5000USD? - Everyone's entitled to 24 working days leave per year and on top of that, you get 15 working days as sick days (fully paid) . You only need to produce a doctors note after missing 3 consecutive days. That comes to 39 paid working days as leave/year! - To get a job as an expatriate, the position must be advertised in the dailies, proof submitted to the government than no credible Mauritian applied, and the iff the expat's qualifications are good enough is one hired. See http://www.dig.co.ke/questions/19/requirements-to-work-as-an-expat-in-maurit... - To become a resident, you either need to 1) Marry a Mauritian and stay married for > 4 years. 2) Buy a house (starting at ~ 0.5 million USD for a 2 bedroom villa with no view all the way to ~ 3 million USD) under a special government scheme - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Resort_Scheme and samples http://www.labalisemarina.com/en/the-project/the-concept.aspx
Industry: - Registration of a company is a breeze (www.investmauritius.com) - A lot of major clothing labels have factories in Mauritius. - Sugar production is phenomenal. 0.6 million tonnes vs Kenya's 25 Million tonnes (7 times more sugar if scaled to Kenya's size. ). Consider the land area given above.. It has to support the population, tourism, parks, water reservoirs.... Land is farmed all year round and is heavily mechanised. That's why we have a Mauritian company setting base - http://allafrica.com/stories/201109122023.html - Make do with a lot less flora and fauna for tourism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_Mauritius - Tourism earnings for both countries are equal - http://www.africagoodnews.com/brand-africa/travel-and-tourism/2230-mauritius... http://www.tourism.go.ke/ministry.nsf/pages/facts_figures - Internet just works even though they have a single cable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cable_map18.svg - Has an IT hub that's grown from 1 building ~ (15 floors) to > 50 such buildings in a span of 5 years (www.e-cybercity.mu) - Call center industry is huge... Really, it is. For example: - In France, a lot of people get some work hours free to learn something/week. Given that the language of business is English, it so happens that a lot of people in France want to learn English... and Mauritius leapt at this opportunity since they are both French and English speaking. So you have a couple of blokes who learn flash, get some English content into flash and offer a learn at your own pace program. At the end of each module, you get to call in and practice English over the phone. - Here are some numbers: according to http://www.swi-mu.com/bpo-services.html The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in Mauritius has been growing 70 percent a year and is now worth $1.6 billion, employing 100,000 people. And as McKinsey analysts put it, BPO has to grow only 27% till 2008 to deliver $17 billion in revenue and employment of a million people. - Tax haven. http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2009/04/02/is-mauritius-a-tax-haven/ . RVR's there too - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift_Valley_Railways_Consortium#Disagreements - Financial sector is sensible: - You can get a loan for a wedding, loan for a car, loan for a trip to visit your cousins in France. - You can pay your supermarket purchases using a cheque book. - You can buy a phone on hire purchase (not from the network)
What we have is a good educated population. Really! we do. The average Kenyan is more knowledgeable (by parsecs!).
We just need better leaders and be accountable to ourselves. Stop paying that cop, stop corruption, make your leader accountable. That's it. That's all it takes.
Have an accountable day!
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