•I remember during my days when we would order food in hotels, eat and escape quietly without paying.
• The choice of hotel was always important and we targeted busy and packed establishments where an escape would not be noticeable.
Image: HANDOUT
I was agitated last week. My anger arose from a stream of disappointments that I suffered as my favourite teams in the World Cup were eliminated one by one.
I was devasted when Cameroon and Ghana were sent packing. When Germany, Ecuador and Iran followed suit, I stopped watching the matches for three days.
I have since accepted the World Cup reality and resumed my evening visits to Gachuiri Beer Garden at Uthiru. Nothing much had happened in my absence.
Apart from Cameroon’s star footballer Vincent Aboubakar scoring against Brazil in a world cup match, the other biggest news was the launch of the Hustler fund.
After a volunteer had suppressed my two underlying conditions of tonsillitis and laryngitis to a manageable level with a quarter bottle of spirit, I reminded everybody that I am a learned man.
This is because I have read the New School Atlas and the Arabian Nights (Hekaya Za Abunuwas). I am currently reading the illustrated Karma Sutra.
I told fellow revellers that I only fear God, hot porridge and the American Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS). These smart bombs are so precise that they can blow up my house in Uthiru without disturbing the neghbourhood.
Naturally, I chose to talk about the Hustler Fund. I was impressed that the fund is a digital financial solution designed to improve credit access to many people to run Micro, Small, And Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs).
I told my listeners that this was a good risk that the government was taking. The target group are mainly people whom mainstream banks and Saccos cannot do business with because they have no collateral.
My listeners did not seem to understand what is collateral but my buddy Gachoroge offered help.
Gachoroge attempted a Certified Public Accountants course, found the mathematics too hard and abandoned the training. Further, he traded in herbal medicine, scrap metal and finally skins and hides.
All the same, Gachoroge told us that collateral are things like shoes, jackets, mobile phones and motorcycles that can be pledged as security for repayment of a loan and can be forfeited in the event of default.
I philosophised that with the Hustler Fund exclusively accessed via a digital platform, the trust of the lender about the borrower is key. I saw it as a bold move by the government that will establish personal responsibility and duty in the DNA of Kenyans.
However, it poses a challenge in how to track defaulters because all that is known of them is their registered mobile phone numbers.
Defaulting is not new. I remember the days when we would order food in hotels, eat and escape quietly without paying.
The choice of hotel was always important and we targeted busy and packed establishments where an escape would not be noticeable.
The fine, when caught, was public embarrassment by being made to peel potatoes or wash the dishes.
“However, you will notice that hotels have stopped forcing people to peel potatoes when they are unable to pay for meals,” I told my keen listeners.
“Similarly, incidents of matatu crews throwing out passengers who fail to raise fare are few and far apart.”
I attributed this to stiff competition in all sectors and greater public relations sense by local entrepreneurs.
Matatus, hotels and other hustles often use the occasional non-paying client as a testimony of their benevolence.
Often, a chap let off the hook does more advertising of the business by word of mouth than a paid-up TV commercial.
I looked at my listeners and morosely said: Coro Maii (The side-blown horn needs to be sprinkled with water to continue producing sound).
After a clever listener ordered a fresh round of liquor to suppress my laryngitis and tonsillitis, I tied up all this talk.
Since it would be a logistical nightmare to hunt Hustler Fund defaulters and turn them around into goodwill ambassadors of the fund, an electronic credit scoring system can work wonders.
As a philosopher, I floated several parameters that we can use to socially reward people who will honour their Hustler Fund obligations in time.
We can start a scale from the best payers pegged at grade A (plus) down to the worst defaulters at grade E.
Other institutions such as hotels, bus companies, schools, supermarket chains, police stations, Medicare insurance and so on would access this grading and offer premium services, bonuses, bargains and waivers based on this grading.
That is, we should integrate this goodwill in our entire money transfer and social services matrix with inbuilt rewards as per one’s grading at any time.
The best points where we can get the most stubborn defaulters of the Hustler Fund would be when they visit chiefs and their clergymen seeking services.
Logging onto the mobile devices of these authority figures would instantly give them an appraisal of the people seeking arbitration in domestic issues and blessings to hold weddings.
If such digital convergence is integrated into the Hustler Fund, and other loans, non-payment would reduce to zero and become a thing of the past.
Is there any MP wishing to take this up?