There’s so much monkey businesses that goes on behind these corporate doors that will have you perplexed. Most oof leading business magazines from Forbes to Business Daily in Kenya have special recognition slots everyday awarding people in the business world perceived to be excelling in their different industry.
These awards comes with its own set of prestige that most people in the corporate would brake their backs to have their names listed either as nominees or winners in the different categories they announce.
We’ve also had numerous cases where reputable magazines endorsed people who later come to use the acquired titles to con the public but that’s a story for another day. Most of these magazines don’t even bother to dig deep on ones background before giving the awards, there’s always more under the surface.
KenGen Chief Executive Rebecca Miano were among the other African leaders declared winners in the 17 categories of the African Business Leadership Award for this year. She was the winner of African Inspirational Business Leadership award.
This story ignites the debate as to how these awards, categories are made. The magazine will give you all the long talks of how selection process is, how vigorous the vetting of nominees is, voting and board decisions are.
However, what they won’t tell you is the business model behind these awards.
We’re going to talk about the case in hand, African Leadership Magazines Awards. With a good PR firm on your back and a fat wallet, you’re likely to bag an award. This year they had compiled a long list of categories, this is to simply attract as many people as possible. It means more money.
So how do people buy these awards? Simple, as said earlier, get a good PR firm, they have the networks to initiate the process. ALM has sneaky ways of selling the awards, before corona, Magazine showcase requires nominees including to pay USD 8,000 for a 2 page magazine cover for their profile. Beside that, one has travel with their managerial team to the venue whether it’s in South Africa or London where most of these awards are given.
The team is then given VIP table reservation which comes at a very high cost. If you factor in the Air tickets and the hotel bookings the figure grows huge.
Last year, the then embattled Kenya Ports Authority boss Daniel Manduku was busted as he negotiated a deal with the magazine to be featured on their awards. African Leadership Magazine had agreed to induct KPA MD Manduku into the African Leadership CEO Hall Of Fame for the year 2019 and they intended to feature him on their magazine cover as well.
Ridden with corruption scandals, he wanted to clean his filth with the prestigious award. The deal was about Sh10M according to reports.
Manduku’s case is a classic loophole as to how shallowly the background check by this magazine is, infact it can be concluded they don’t check at all, as long as you can pay, you can get it.
We’re not saying KenGen’s Miano paid for her award but from existing models, it’s most likely millions have been thrown in to have that title. If Manduku who has since left office after being charged of corruption was set to be awarded until the lid was lift then anything and anyone can get it. Having the award doesn’t necessarily to do with what one has done to the society.
Anyone who’s obsessed with their image and ready to kiss the ground to have a good name at whatever cost like Miano and rest of the fascists will not hesitate to go deep in their pockets for a title to add to their biography and hang it in their walls.
People are obsessed with titles and that’s why these magazines are making a big deal. You’ve also seen how fake universities abroad are awarding honorary degrees to anyone with big wallet.
Nakuru Governor Lee Kinyanjui was also named the Business-Friendly Governor of the Year by the same magazine. You can bet other governors were approached to and either they didn’t have the money for it or just didn’t see the need. Locally, there’s nothing much or any award that has recognized Kinyanjui and you find it normal that some funny magazine named him?
These people even recognized tyrants like Museveni as inspirational leaders what a bluff.
And because the owners knows their targets are people obsessed to be seen as small gods, they’ll continue ripping.
Fraudulent companies are also coming up with these awards to strike egoes, lately a Avance media runny some Nigerian crooks is also dishing the self glorifying awards.
‘Wining’ these awards is often a larger part of PR drives. You can do your own survey and find out how many articles and media space has been given to the winners of the latest awards in the last week.
So let’s wait and see how many pages these Kenyan winners will have when the magazine’s edition of winners is out and we will do the math on how much they paid for the awards. Just remember the cruel truth that it’s not all about work but cash.
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