Part III Crime and cycle of poverty

Chungli’s limitations in life were partly of his own doing. He had rejected schooling even after government provided free education locking him out of any chance for formal employment.

Chungli was the son of Obo who was the son of Nachong’a; my father’s relation whose husband had helped my him set himself up in Bulanda.

Without education, Chungli has lived out all his life on odd jobs and as a dependent of his father. They lived in a small parcel of land and lent out a section of it to a telecoms company which put up a mast on the property.

With his father recently dead, Chungli will get the payout for the first time, providing him with the money he hopes would change his fortunes forever.

“I do not know what kind of business to start, but I have been sleeping on it,” he tells us. “I think I’ll build my own house first then I’ll put up rentals.

His lofty ambitions overestimate the worth of rent and what it could possibly afford. We tell him the lease could not amount to enough to put up his own house let alone build rentals.

When we suggest to him to target within range, maybe a boda boda, he stammers.

“N…ndio wanipige nyundo!”

Read Also: Part II: Laundering blood money in Bulanda

The rise in motorcycle crime is locking out potential entrants who fear for their lives. For those within the business, they have been forced to work only during daytime reducing the length of time one can earn from their unit.

“Right now, the chairman and the police said boda boda should not work past 10 pm unless it is an emergency. But theft is happening all the time, we are hearing cases at 6 am, during the day, it is becoming prevalent,”Feizal said.

Hustler embodiment

Boda boda has represented one of the biggest triumph of small business in Kenya and no other segment has seen this than the financial sector.

Its allure is mostly because it is very easy to operate even for rookies. I had never ridden a motorbike myself but had decided it was dangerous.

NyarSindo on the other hand knows the difference of motorcycle brands by their guttural grunts that announce the noisy motors of the internal combustion engine (ICE) bikes. So I told her to teach me how to ride the machine.

A motorcycle is like a manual vehicle with gears and clutch and other things we take for granted when we drive automatic cars. I had a tough time getting the gear to neutral before switching on the ignition then balancing the clutch and accelerator.

It kept jerking and killing the engine. Once when I tried to kick it to start, I hit a piece of metal that oddly jutted out of the machine and almost ruined the adventure. I was told that was lucky, the most common injuries for beginners are burn marks from the exhaust which scalds as hot as its aluminum shine.

After several failed ignition bids I finally took off and the heavy machine felt like a light effortless bicycle that could literally go in any direction.

In a few tries I got my hand coordination’s improving and could carry light luggage, meaning that in a day or two I could be literary standing on a stage in Kenya and taking people places and shouting in the wind.

The second thing that made boda boda more appealing was the mobile phone penetration and evolution of asset finance that empowered even the poorest in society to acquire them.

Kenya still has low capital formation and to get a unit many people required financing from banks which would demand collateral.

Initially boda bodas belonged to teachers who had access to bank financing and would operate the business as a side hustle using a relative at local stations.

When the renting model took shape it attracted more entrepreneurs who would have enough capital to acquire units for rents.

From rentier to owner operator

Watu asset finance changed that, it offered boda boda’s a lower target than rentiers; riders would pay a flat rate of Sh300 to Sh400 a day and they would own the unit in 12 to 18 months.

It deployed the model that leveraged trust for its customers, who instead of presenting other assets for collateral, only need to avail a guarantor who is known to Watu and has a good track record of repayments to acquire loans. This helped to ensure traceability and to address challenges when customers have repayment issues.

With easy access, a rider could get a unit, attend Watu Shule Kenya’s first pre-financed driving school that teaches riders traffic laws and processes licenses for them which also offer financial literacy lessons on loan payments.

This made the company the most popular financier especially since they are brand agnostic helping riders acquire all manner of motorcycles including taking on the clean energy revolution. Watu Credit requires riders to pay between 17 percent to 50 percent of asset price on ICE bikes as down payment, for electric, the payment is as low as 8 percent.

Watu’s Kenya Country Manager, Mr Erick Massawe explains that electric bikes are safer against issues such as theft and provide lower risk for lenders because they are easily traceable compared to ICE bikes.

“The swap model where riders do not own the battery and have to swap it when depleted makes it easier to find a bike because they have a known and determined location making it easier to track them,” he said.

Given that five out of ten motorcycles in Kenya have been financed by Watu credit, there is almost a  fifty percent chance that a stolen motorcycle was acquired through them. It is no wonder they find themselves at the center of conspiracy theories on their role in the disappearances.

The company was even dragged into a parliamentary probe in October last year where it was cleared of allegations of exploitation and suspicious loss of motorbikes sold to boda boda operators.

The company has tried to reduce the cases of theft using technology. As part of the several auxiliary support the company offers its customers includes a safety gear, comprehensive insurance for the bike and a GPRS tracker.

Feizal says that initially the GPRS trackers used to work and for a few days the stolen bikes could be located, sighting them as far as Uganda.

 “Whenever they are stolen we suspect they are taken to Uganda and those stolen from Uganda are brought to this side, there is some sort of transnational syndicate. Others are taken to Lake Victoria because they make good engines for speed boats. We used to see the trackers going there and disappearing,” he said.

But he says today the tracker disappears within hours. The boda boda’s suspect that former workers of the lending companies or insiders may be colluding in the multibillion crime syndicate.

“If you take a motorcycle on credit, the company will tell you to step out of the room when the tracker is installed, but when it is stolen, they tell us they are investigating, so what we suspect is that their technicians and mechanics are in on the theft syndicate especially those who have been fired from their jobs,” he said.

For the Watu Credit, the fraud and theft offers a great challenge in terms of losing customers midway payment and reputation.

Presently it tries to help riders follow up with insurance and replaces the motorcycle for riders who genuinely lose their bikes to thieves giving them a chance to get back on their feet.

But until authorities take motorcycle crimes seriously enough to begin with segregating data of lost units and investigating cases to full conclusion, boda boda business remains one of the most risky today, leaving a trial of blood and poverty.

Read Also: Part 1: The motorcycle boom spluttering blood