Raila Odinga has revealed that his salary as a lecturer at UoN was only KSh 2,000,he was forced to sell his German car at ksh 12000 to raise the cash to start a gas cylinders company called East Africa Spectre.
He sold his car he once owned to raise KSh 12,000, which he used to start the East Africa Spectre, the only private company in Kenya that supplies gas cylinders to oil companies.
According to Raila, he acquired machines from an Indian entrepreneur who was operating in Jinja, Uganda but had carted his machines to Kenya after being chased away by the Iddi Amin’s regime.
“I was teaching at the University of Nairobi when an Indian friend who was a technician told me that one of his friends had just been sent away from Uganda and had uprooted all his machines from Jinja to a yard at Parklands and was selling them before quickly travelling to Great Britain,” Raila started his narration.
Raila said he toured the yard where the machines had been kept and found them good for business but could not afford them.
Odinga noted that he set base in Industrial Area and started manufacturing casements, windows, steel doors and other items before later expanding into making gas cylinders.
As the business progressed, it caught the attention of a businessman from Agip Oil Company who requested Odinga to venture into the production of gas cylinders, citing a deficiency in the market.