gathara Profile picture
14 Apr, 9 tweets, 4 min read
Question: When a bank declares your current account "inactive" and blocks it (meaning you no longer have access to it), why do they keep charging you to maintain it? What service are you paying for on an account they've blocked you from accessing? @KenyaBankers
Let's put this another way. I pay rent for a house but don't live there for, say, 6 months. Landlord declares the premises inactive, boards it up and says I can no longer use it unless I go to him to get new keys. Then keeps charging me rent. What would I be paying for?
Does @CBKKenya regulate bank charges? Or are banks pretty much free to levy whatever charges they wish? Does the CBK have a desk where one can complain if one feels their bank is dealing unfairly with them? If not CBK, then who? @wgkantai @KenyaBankers
If a fifth of all accounts are inactive and most Kenyans remain unaware that they may be accruing charges and penalties (despite being blocked by the bank itself), isn't this just banks deliberately extorting rents for services they are not providing?
sokodirectory.com/2020/02/it-wil…
A bank can block your account, prevent you from accessing the money still in it while continuing to charge you fees for "maintaining" the account, and require you to pay a fee in order to "activate" it again. How is this not theft? businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/sur…
Appears even @KenyaBankers are puzzled by this (at least until the tweet was pulled down).
In 2011, @CBKKenya declared that “failure to close a bank account does not in itself amount to defaulting on a loan" when saying banks should not blacklist folks over dormant accounts. Yet banks today are still threatening to do exactly that! @wgkantai
businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/cbk…
The problem of dormant accounts and the charges that accrue even after the banks have blocked them must have gotten exponentially worse in the last year following the disruptions caused by covid lockdowns. How many Kenyans are banks reporting to CRBs for blacklisting for this?
My bank manager claims it is a @CBKKenya regulation that requires banks to block inactive accounts (is that true @wgkantai?) although even she admitted that it would be "tricky" to justify the bank policy of continuing to impose ledger charges on blocked accounts.

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More from @gathara

4 Apr
Looking at this and responses to it, seems clear Kenyans need an education on ukoloni, the tactics and aims of the KLFA (including its charter) as well as those of other anti-colonial movements in the country, and the bait-and-switch that got us "independence" instead of freedom.
British characterization of the KLFA as atavistic "Mau Mau" (a term rejected by JM Kariuki as "a title of abuse and ridicule"), violent savages without political thoughts, was propaganda to justify the horrible abuses and legitimize their chosen custodians of the colonial state.
Thus, 70 years later, we ignorantly speak of "Mau Mau" as only interested in land but not wider questions of political governance and equality. Few Kenyans today know of the Riigi and the Kenya Parliament they set up in the forest, or their hopes, visions, debates and writings.
Read 5 tweets
2 Apr
Today is the 6th anniversary of the Garissa University College massacre. Remember, like after Westgate, we were promised an inquiry into the response. And, again like after Westgate, and El Adde, and Kulbiyow, and Madera and Mpeketoni, GoK went silent once the spotlight passed.
A few more thoughts on how GoK has waged its "war on terror".
Read 5 tweets
1 Apr
It is a despicable betrayal for KE media to perpetuate the GoK lie that people are going hungry because there is no rain. The truth is Kenyans are being starved because GoK's owners profiteer from their suffering and have consequently little incentive to fix it.
Remember the 2008 maize scam which revealed the MO that we have seen employed across subsequent food crisis and in the covid response? Here are the highlights.

gathara.blogspot.com/2010/03/let-th…
The regular crises Kenya enjoys, from debt, to power and water shortages, to famine and unsafe food, to lack of drugs and personnel in hospitals, to extortionate rents, are all deliberately engineered by owners of the colonial state to extract as much as possible from Kenyans.
Read 11 tweets
29 Mar
Fantastic analysis on the conflict in Ethiopia! Well worth listening.
Join us tomorrow as we discuss the prospects of holding elections in Ethiopia in June and the lessons and impacts of other elections in the region with @AdamAbebe, @fatma_karume, @OmarSMahmood and @NativeLandgrab.
To register: ow.ly/8Qec30rCbhQ
#EasternAfricaElections Image
Here's a great look at recent elections in Uganda and Tanzanian from @NativeLandgrab for @theelephantinfo.
#EasternAfricaElections
theelephant.info/features/2021/…
Read 5 tweets
28 Mar
"Finally a zoom meeting we can all get excited about"!!! #BahrainGP #ForzaFerrari #F1
Read 19 tweets
28 Mar
This is hardly the first time radio shows and even print media are saying derogatory things about women. Last week, @StandardKenya suggested Kenyan women's "hearts melt and knees become weak seconds after a man introduces himself to them as a foreigner". Any action against them?
While what the DJs said was undoubtedly stupid and offensive, I think we must be careful about having state bureaucrats decide what speech is allowed. What rules is @CA_Kenya applying? How can we avoid such power being abused in the name of defending morality ala @EzekielMutua?
Audiences have more power in the digital age as gate keepers. It was online outrage that led to suspension and firing of the DJs and withdrawal of advertisers. That should be considered when gauging necessity and scale of GoK involvement. We have more tools in the toolbox.
Read 8 tweets

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