By JOHN KARIUKI
A man and a son escorted a donkey to the market. Along the way, passers-by advised him to let his son ride on the animal and save him the hardships of walking. So, the boy rides on the ass.
A short distance away, they meet another pedestrian who is utterly shocked that the boy can ride on the animal while the father walks. So the boy disembarks and his father rides on the donkey. A little distance on the move, other passers-by advise the two to ride the ass together.
Yet another person they meet thinks that they are overburdening the animal and advises the pair to instead carry the ass! So the pair ties the animal’s legs and inserts a pole between its legs and carry the puzzled animal. But as they are crossing a bridge, the animal kicks wildly and they all plunged into the raging river below.
This timeless tale from our primary school days illustrates various pieces of financial advice given to different people. When people have no financial plans of their own, then any advice is just fine.
There are failed project galore started at the instigation of friends, peers and relatives. Many working people are often advised on the importance of getting married against their wish or financial plans!
Others are pressurised into buying cars which are now stalled, palatial homes on mortgage and enrolling in costly adult education programmes and so on.
Crafty folks
But misleading financial advice is not exclusively urbanite.
Some rural folks often trick their clueless urban kin to farm commercially claiming that this is the hottest money spinner.
Such crafty folks take up the supervisory roles in such ventures and factor in their children’s fees, domestic upkeep and daily drink in all remittances made in the name of these grand farming projects. And, conveniently, the weather, birds and thieves are blamed for the unexpected poor harvest!
Joshua Palla, a civil servant, had a lot of faith in his kin when he began working. His father prevailed upon him to build a house at his rural home in Kilifi. "I remitted all the monies required and they put up a structure for me," says Palla.
Family pressure
But when the house was complete, Palla was shocked by it. "Regardless of my instructions, they had made a huge verandah at its front, ostensibly for holding court. And the living room and bedrooms had been made bigger by several square feet," says Palla.
He knew it then, that his kin had a guest house for entertaining their visitors in mind when constructing this house! It was not his but their project.
A few years later, Palla was summoned by his clan for more financial advice. "This time they had hatched a bright idea of putting up a hardware shop in our rural town and, ostensibly, save the people the journey to Malindi," says Palla.
"But I sought financial help and was advised against it. It would have made more sense to invest in Malindi town," says Palla.
Years later, Palla saw the real cause of his kin’s instigation for the hardware project. A family with which they had rivalry had put up a distributor shop at the local town and his people wanted to make a point with the hardware shop for the records. "That is when I delinked all my money plans and kept a safe distance from them," he says.
Ms Cecilia Maingi, a city front office employee, says free money advice that flows at a typical ‘Chama’ meeting can derail one’s financial plans if he or she is not cynical.
Under wear
"We had a member in our Chama who was always smartly dressed, drove to work and never faltered in her payments despite her modest job," says Ms Maingi.
"I would ask her how she managed her money and life so well and she told me to invest in a little office trade," says Ms Maingi.
Ms Maingi bought beauty accessories, which she would hawk at the office but three months down the line, she realised that this trade could not give her the expected returns.
"I returned to this member for more insights and she stuck to her earlier advice of hawking little things at the office," says Ms Maingi.
"I took a loan and increased my product range to include perfumes and underwear but I had saturated the market in my office and there were no new buyers," she says.
Unless she reached out to more people in other offices, Ms Maingi knew that her business had stagnated and she would never recoup her investment.
The truth of this member’s source of cash finally came out in a most spectacular way. "She was in a love triangle with a married man and the official wife caught them and raised a fuss, embarrassing Chama members," says Ms Maingi. She rues heeding this advice and would have made a good return even by investing her loan in her Chama!
Expert opinion
And like Ms Maingi, scores of Kenyans follow money and investment advice blindly without seeking expert opinion or putting all allegedly "fabulous facts" to critical scrutiny.
Billions of shillings are lost every year in the enthusiasm of some people in making it "at the borders" where fanciful tales paint these points as the last capitalists’ frontiers.
Incredibly, some people routinely liquidate their assets to try their hands in the murky world of gemstone trade and often to their own peril. And all this is due to wavering financial plans and blind convictions.
But perhaps the most shocking of all financial plans is the emerging trend where parents send their children to foreign capitals on the false belief that "money abounds there!"
Family businesses, loans and pensions are raided to raise airfare for such hapless children who, without a road map or proven entrepreneurial skills, land in foreign countries to do menial jobs.
Often, they get into trouble with the authorities and return disillusioned and without the fabled riches. But the money for their airfare and upkeep would have started cottage industries if it were invested locally.
