I wonder if it is more cost effective for government to invest money in sourcing for foreign investors (so-called jubilee FDI) or put some effort in creating an environment that allows easy copying of technology…say a Probox (the most versatile motor vehicle ever), for example.
Creating the environment that makes copying technology easier is the best approach. Why bother reinventing the wheel when you can replicate it? China is going places. I believe that if you can produce a cheaper item that does the same job, you should be rewarded accordingly
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PATENTS.
That is why.
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No joke on this unafikiria a small African country can manoeuvre around such shit…and worse they can just let you build the factory just yo sabotage it and bleed you out more…cooperations when it comes to safeagurding their affairs huwa in masniper.And we haven’t even attached the fact we unlike China don’t even have a single veto or mechanism to assist international trade relations so kuchapwa ma sanctions itakuwa highway ya kukamuliwa settings…
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Fuck patents
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Its not just patents. You can get a blueprint for anything on google. However you quickly run into problems when you start to build it enmass. First, the cost will be astronomical because you are starting from the ground up. Then the process. Just because you have a formula to make coca-cola doesn’t mean you can make it. You will need hundreds of trials and specialized scientific runs . And you probably wont make a real coca-cola. A lot of process design over several decades had gone into it. You will also need specialized labor ( not just university graduates)- people who have actually built such having worked on similar projects. Even if you try to beat patents, you end up producing at a cost a lot higher than the real owner. Now, who will buy your product?
You see why Chinese produce cheap goods. They copy, but to beat price, they have to use cheap raw materials, inferior engineering and quality control. Because these come with an added cost.
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In the last 10 years, how many patents have come out of .ke ? Siku hizi in the west, intellectuals don’t dwell much on academic papers, that for losers they say.
Ni mambo na patents. On the other hand, why cant G.o.K give Toyota tax incentives, and get them to assemble this cars (probox and matutus) locally, that way we end up with newer cars on our roads, and cut fuel consumption by almost half.
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If they could assemble these locally and make a profit , they would already be doing it. They simply cant do it economically because of the poor infrastructure and cost of doing business.
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That’s why i brought up the issue of Government giving them incentives. Why they won’t do it, is simple, they don’t want to take jobs away and revenues from their countries.
If not, let’s starts making spare parts.
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The incentives will not cover the added costs. Unless the government gives them black check books. And doing so forces the government to generate extra income from somewhere, higher taxation.
The facilities that manufacture these cars are highly sophisticated and efficient. A power outage and water shortage everyday will put them out of business in the first 2 months.
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There is a local company called Mobius. The engine is the only imported part in their cars, all other parts are sourced locally. The price is affordable (less than a mil, brand new) lakini we still import cars.
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Mobius…wamejaribu sana. But that car should be tested properly saa hii wakati wa kucampaign…if i was running i would have bought a couple to run errands
Japan once sent a delegation to Britain to watch and get taught how to build cars.
Upon returning one Japanese engineer wrote a note of gratitude saying that he hopes that Japan would one day build cars as good as the ones from Great Britain.
I bet the guys at Austin read the letter out loud and posted in on the notice board like the high school love letters for everyone to have a laugh.
To build a car from the ground up is not a joke.
There are two many specialized items that where we are right now must be outsourced.
Our best shot was The Nyayo Pioneer at the NMC. In my opinion it was ill-timed.
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The Nyayo pioneer consumed a good deal of capital, which of which i believe , if such was in private hands, the pioneer would be somewhere. Corruption did us in yet again.
What do you think would happen if our government increased taxes on importing cars or reduced the importing age to two years or prohibited importing secondhand cars altogether?
Would the big corporations ‘send democracy?’
I (still) believe we can build our cars from scratch corruption notwithstanding.
What makes those that manufacture these cars better than us? Who says we cant do it? As said above, mobius are doing it. I have driven one before na ziko tu sawa. The design may not be as sophisticated but it’s a moving car. Ghana also started manufacturing vehicles na their 4×4 was quite remarkable. With the right deals, making Kenya a manufacturing country is not so far into the future. We can do it.
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Alafu unataka Japan wapeleke gari zao mzee wapi?Africa is their junk yard!
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Regional integration and trade blocs, however promising they seem, are a major hinderance through patents.
For instance, you cannot copy then build ‘your’ engine without the patent owner’s permission. That means our engineers (if we have any) have to invent new technologies and patent them.
For us to become a manufacturing country we would require massive investments and changes in our education system.We just don’t have the required skills set to do large scale manufacturing at the moment.
Ongeza second hand clothes hapo. The Kenyan economy is Agrarian based, and a huge part of it is hoe based farming, courtesy of small scale farming.
We so rhis the hard way, and once we export our produce (after hardwork), what comes back home are used products. That’s why we ask WTF ?
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