They’ve been turning out in droves to see the Stephen

They’ve been turning out in droves to see the Stephen Jennings show.Kenyans young and old have been packing Nairobi venues to hear the Kiwi rich lister denounce private sector corruption, which he says is one of the biggest threats to the east African country’s economic future.From Jennings, there have been none of the sycophantic platitudes foreign investors so often deliver in their target markets.The Waitara born businessman who made a fortune as an investment banker amid the financial anarchy of post Soviet Russia and is now spearheading huge urban development projects in Africa is telling it like he sees it.And the cheap football jerseys 55 year old’s outspoken stance appears to be striking a chord with Kenyans fed up with rampant corruption. So many people turned up to his talk at Nairobi’s cheap hockey jerseys Sankara Hotel in June that it was standing room only for many attendees.Speaking to another capacity crowd at the city’s Louis Leakey Auditorium on September 17, Jennings said it was easy to point the finger at the Kenyan Government over deteriorating corruption.”But what we’ve found in Kenya is that a huge amount of corruption originates in the private sector,” he said.”You’ve wholesale nfl jersyes got incredibly skilled businesspeople who are forced to co exist with total crooks and thugs.”The catalyst for these comments was the scandal that has embroiled Tatu City, a 1000ha, multibillion dollar development on Nairobi’s northern outskirts in which Jennings’ firm, Rendeavour, is the lead investor.READ MORE:Homeowner fighting to have millionaire’s trees cut downRich lister launches defamation proceedings against FairfaxIn a recent development, Kenyan police are investigating an alleged illegal transfer by Nyagah of a large parcel of land, owned by the Tatu City investors, to members of his family.At last month’s event Jennings made a scathing attack on Shah and Nyagah despite a court gagging order issued two days earlier that, according to local media reports, was meant to stop him making details about Tatu City public.He said “certain members” of the Kenyan police were hampering the investigation into the land transfer, while he and other Rendeavour staff had been summoned to the Immigration cheap jerseys Department “without any proper justification” and interrogated over work permits this year.”In 25 years of working in around 35 emerging markets, this was my first experience of this form of cheap harassment.”Speaking to the Herald from Nairobi this week, in his first New Zealand media interview since 2009, Jennings said it was crucial to “front foot” the Tatu City problems and expose them publicly.”The standard modus operandi here is that people shake you down, try to intimidate you and tell you to keep your mouth shut and that works with a lot of foreign investors in Kenya,” he titanium pot said.”And obviously, if you go down that road, you will be extorted, you will lose value and your reputation will suffer.”Jennings said he was not normally so vocal about public policy and corruption issues.”We normally prefer to work behind the scenes. But normally we would get more support from government and more traction within the system.”It’s when we weren’t getting that traction and we weren’t getting that kind of support that we went more public with these issues.”Jennings is up against some powerful forces in Kenya’s political and business landscape.Asked whether he faces any danger, he said: “We made the decision and I think it was the right decision that it would have been more dangerous not to speak out.”Rendeavour owns more than 12,000ha of African land and is also building large scale satellite cities in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.