Rewriting the Queen's language

When one has a tendency to mis-spelling or mis-pronouncing a few english words due to mother tongue / vernacular interference, we accuse them of 'murdering' the language of the queen.

 We might laugh at the person and ridicule them a great deal. I think seriously though that we have a tendency to give new meaning to certain words.

As per the Meriam Webster dictionary a technocrat is a technical expert; especially one exercising managerial authority. Here are 3 real-life, walking examples of how we have given new meaning to the word technocrat:

Anne Waiguru, Former Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary: She'll teach you a thing or two about shifting $15 Million through frivolity such as overpriced sex toys and condom dispensers for her office.

 Then she will turn you from a hair dresser into a wheeler dealer shifting billions of cash in sacks into a labyrinth of bedrooms in leafy suburbs. Then she'll have the folks who are supposed to investigate you for money laundering become your personal chauffeurs and bodyguards.

When the lid is blown off, she'll deny that she ever met you. But don't blame her, some other technocrat convinced Uhuru to increase the NYS budget from KES 5 billion to KES 25 billion overnight.

 If you increase my salary 5-fold today without giving me any additional responsibilities, I am bound to start doing a few naughty things around the office or gain some notoriety in the city.

Titus Naikuni, Former MD of Kenya Airways and now Chairman of Athi River Mining: He outlasted Moi, Kibaki and part of uhuru's reigns while presiding over the Pride of Africa (Kenya Airways).

It was all hunky dory while he held the reins at the national carrier and we were regaled with tales of how Kenya Airways was beating the headlights out of South African Airways and British Airways, how the heavily subsidised Middle East bats were no match for the phoenix.

When he left to chair Athi River Mining, we found out that he had in fact left us the carcass of an albatross that was $250 Million in debt.

Evans Kidero, Former MD of Mumias Sugar and current Governor of Nairobi County: This Pharmacist turned sugar daddy turned Mumias Sugar into a giant that kept rivals' sugar off the shelf for sustained periods.

Having dispensed with the likes of Nzoia and Sony Sugar, Mumias Sugar then shifted her attention to such lofty and lucrative ventures as power generation, ethanol production, mineral water (oh the irony of a sugar company that could only supply bottled water in the end) and fortified sugar (how you retain vitamin A & C after boiling them at 100 degrees is beyond me, but am no technocrat so stop laughing at me).

A couple of years after he left, we found out that Mumias sugar was in fact $ 60 Million in debt. The company had all but lost any iota of capacity to carry out its core/basic business - making sugar. Payments had been made for fictitious deliveries to warehouses in Nairobi, transport companies associated with Kidder's cronies were paid for fictitious trips.

 Mumias Sugar was 're-importing' what it had produced in Kenya, an unnecessary perimeter wall was built around the expansive Mumias Sugar Estate...etc.

The last we heard is how the pharmacist-turned-sugar daddy delivered $2 Million cash in a brown briefcase to a judge (the jury is still out on whether it was $$$ or popcorn, but don't hold your breath).

Haven't we Kenyans given new meaning to the word 'technocrat' such that the only breed of technocrat we know is the greedy, incompetent type?