You know, in any
situation I cross in my life, the bad and the really ugly, I always know that
there is always, ALWAYS, some-one worse off than me. It is terrible to think that I take comfort
in some-one else having a harder time than me in anything, but for me, it is
the positive spin I try to keep in the forefront of my mind, especially in this
instance of my money locked/lost/exiled as an imposed saving, in Imperial Bank. I am lucky.
I have friends I can call on if I get in dire straits, I have an income
to which I can pay for a roof over my head, pay our bills and put food on our table
each month. I may not be able to save
much, or travel like I used to, but really is that the end of the world? There are people, who have lost more than me,
or they may not have the support I have, and there are businesses, people’s livelihoods,
and then the employees relying on them, imagine THAT stress. It is a vicious circle really and a lot of
INNOCENT people are caught up in this mess, at no fault of their own. When you talk to people, or hear people
talking about the situation, they just shake their heads and ask how this could
have happened? Everyone knows some-one
who had money with Imperial Bank and whether it is 100KSH or 1 billion, it is
all that people may have had, and the loss is still the same emotionally, if
not monetary.
Since the last
press release from the Central Bank of Kenya, we have not had any further news
on the status of the bank. We are
hearing little stories here and there, and to be honest, they don’t sound that
positive, but I am keeping the faith that the bank will reopen, but it maybe
longer than the scheduled 4 weeks originally planned. Time will tell, either way, and the way I am
now looking at it, is that it is a forced savings, I can’t touch my money, a
bit like a superannuation account, but with no end in sight.
A Facebook friend
sent me a link, to another blogger's entry on her story, how the Imperial Bank closure
has affected her and her family, and her words really hit home to me. I even shed a tear. It was a heartbreaking story and a perfect
example that there really are people worse off than me in this whole STUPID
mess. I wanted to share her story, as I
am sure this will represent a lot of the account holders that trusted this
institution, and it really gives another perspective on the biggest Kenyan
financial disaster, want for a better word, EVER.
To the Shareholders and Directors of Imperial Bank,
Exactly one month ago on a cloudless morning, a message
soundlessly snuck into our family whatsapp group. It sat there nestled
underneath photos of the newest addition to our family – a floppy eared
Alsatian pup with a vicious teething problem.
Imperial Bank had been placed under receivership.
Overnight we were rendered effectively broke. Just like
that. You see every single shilling our family has is in Imperial Bank. Every
single shilling. With only a few hundred bob in the wallet, we didn’t even have
the money to pay our electricity bill. And it’s been like that for a month
now, with no idea what’s going on or whether we will ever be able to access
that money. In the last month entire families have had to beg and borrow money
to put food on their tables and pay rent. Children have had to be recalled from
University and businesses have been paralyzed. To add insult to devastating
injury, you have not deigned to issue a public statement, have not bothered to
provide an explanation, hell you have not even offered an apology. You see our
agreement was with you, the bank. So if you, putting it lightly, messed up, the
least you can do is look us in the eye, acknowledge the gravity of the
situation and recognize the enormity of the consequences. But it has been one month. And all we have
gotten in that one month is shrugged shoulders. I certainly don’t understand
the complexity of the situation. But to me, this is akin to me handing over my
money at a shoe store, and the salesman refusing to give me the pair of shoes I
bought, but just muttering ‘Aki Woyishee’. So please, help me understand how my
money has not been stolen.
You know, just under a year ago, armed men broke into our home, terrorized us and stole whatever we had
in the house. It was a traumatic experience, but somewhere deep inside me, the
violence of the encounter aside, I got that these were men were overcome with
desperation and a sense of helplessness. They may have felt trapped in a cycle
of despair, the kind which I cannot, by virtue of my privilege, understand. Our
failure as a society to take care of these people had driven them to monstrous
actions. That’s why they could do what they did in the way they did it. They
didn’t see us as human because they didn’t feel like they were being seen as
human. We had decapitated each other’s humanity. And they had to feed their
children.
So what was the motivation here?
A fancier car, a finer single malt, a more expensive pair
of shoes, a bigger house?
Greed.
And ignorance is not an excuse. Frankly, as directors and
shareholders the buck stops with you. You are ultimately responsible and should
be held accountable. I’d like to know, what are you doing about this? Of
course, the Government has a role to play, and in some way did play a role. But
our President has said we are fine, and we just need to work hard. Work hard. We know a thing about working
hard. In that Imperial Bank account is life savings of five members of our
family, three generations, amounting to over 155 years worth of working hard.
In that bank is 53,000 people’s worth of working hard. Livelihoods.
You know it is rumored that a large percentage of our
community has been affected. Let me give you some context of what that means.
My forefathers left India, carrying nothing but steely determination. They came
to Kenya and worked hard. Let me give you more context. One month after we
finally moved into our own family home, I caught my grandfather standing in his
room furiously turning his tasbih. My grandfather tears through tasbihs at a
rate that wears away the thread and sends coloured beads frantically spinning
across the floor like tiny little rain dudus that have lost their wings. He had
a smile on his face. I asked him what he was thinking about. He said that when
he was twenty years old, all he owned was a toothbrush. And now he can’t
believe he was standing in his own family home.
Everything my grandfather has accumulated is in that
account. His life’s work. What does life’s work look like? He tells me about
how he used to wake up every morning at 4:00 am to drive through the misty
winding ridges of the Ngorongoro Crater delivering bread. How he lost it all
when in the 60s President Nyerere embarked on Ujamaa and his bakery was nationalized.
How he stuffed the car with whatever belongings could fit in between the
various family members squeezed into the little Volkswagen beetle, and drove
off back to Kenya to start all over again. How he ended up in Mombasa and set
up another bakery. In a chapter of his life which I call The Haunted Boflo
Days, he would wake up in the morning to find the bread he had baked in the
previous evening had green mould laced over the perfectly risen crust. Perhaps
convinced that the djinns of Mombasa had acquired a taste for his baked goods,
he packed up. And they started all over again.
This time they tried their luck with a cafeteria in
Nairobi. My now arthritic fingered, silver haired granny would wake up before
the sky blushed orange to make samosas. Every morning she would precisely mix
the filling of spiced minced meat, dhania, chillies and onions. Carefully she
would stuff each samosa, one by one; sealing the corners with the sticky
home-made flour based glue so that they wouldn’t explode when fried. It was
tedious, finger cramping work. The money in that bank came from my grandma
making literally millions of samosas with her hands. And my grandfather would
stand all day in the cafeteria, selling these samosas, one by one. Samosas that
made them famous. Samosas that when fried had a crispy golden brown pastry that
you crunched through to get to the hearty meaty core. And they were popular.
Together they built a thriving business. Honest, humble, hard work. Until one
year on Boxing Day, they were forcefully evicted. And they had to start over
all over again.
That is just a slice of my grandparent’s story. I won’t
even go into the decades of 10 hour workdays that my working class mother and
father put in, with the hopes that now they are both retired, they could live a
comfortable life. So you see, we are used to starting over again. But as my dad
said last week, at 64 how do you start all over again?
We are fortunate to have a support network that has helped
absorb the impact so far, but we are just one of the 53,000 families who have
been affected.
It has been one month.
So tell me please, what are you going to do?
Thank-you for sharing your story.
We are connected to strangers, people we have never met
as we can relate to their stories as we are all in the same boat.
SHOCKING.
SHOCKING.
And I am sorry but TIA (this is Africa) or TIK (this is
Kenya) just does not cut the mustard on this one.
At all, at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment