By Sandra Blessing
In Kenya’s history, the late Dalmas Otieno Anyango will be remembered for his business innovation, independent thinking, and bravery.
Dalmas, one of the country’s independent thinkers, investors, and former Cabinet Minister, died today at the age of 80.
Dalmas is credited as one of the pioneer investors in the banking sector after he founded Thabiti Finance and Thabiti Insurance Company in the 1980s.
He first formed the Thabiti Insurance Company in 1978 and later founded Thabiti Finance in 1983 with headquarters in Nairobi, and branches in Kisumu, Nairobi, Eldoret, and Kisumu.
Dalmas, who studied economics, was a shrewd investor and had a deep knowledge of the money market. Thabiti Finance became active in 1983. In 1988, he joined politics and left the management of the bank under the management of a white expatriate.
In the early 1990s, the government came up with a policy that government money could only be deposited and saved in government-run banks.
Following that policy, the government withdrew Sh 600M from Thabiti Finance, which crippled the operations of the institution.
According to Dalmas, that move was more of a witch-hunt and driven by fear that those who were in government feared that their colleagues in the government who had banks were likely to be more powerful than them.
Dalmas founded the bank with then Rift Valley PC, Hezekiah Oyugi, and he was the majority shareholder and the Managing Director of the bank.
‘Thabiti couldn’t operate. We had loaned money to our clients and they had not repaid. So the bank collapsed and we had no alternative,’ he said in a previous interview.
Dalmas was a close friend and confidant of Oyugi, who advised him to contest for the Rongo Parliamentary seat in 1988. He was elected and subsequently appointed to the Cabinet.
‘Oyugi and I were good friends and I would visit him every weekend in Nakuru. I would accompany him to State House Nakuru and various functions by the President Daniel Moi. Moi knew me and we became good friends.
Oyugi told me, he couldn’t resign from PC to contest for a parliamentary seat because that position was more powerful. So he asked me to contest and I won. After that, he ensured I was appointed to the cabinet.
When he became PS Internal Security, he could not forgo the seat to become an MP. That is how I landed in the Parliament and Cabinet,’ he said in a previous interview.
Dalmas was elected unopposed and appointed Minister for Industry and became the youngest Cabinet Minister at the age of 42, before Musalia Mudavadi was appointed to the Cabinet at the age of 29 after the death of his father.
He served six years as Minister of Transport and Communication and was elected Chair of Africa’s Ministers of Communication.
Dalmas lost the 1992 first multiparty election but was nominated and appointed to the Cabinet. In 2007, he joined Raila Odinga’s party ODM and was elected Rongo MP and appointed to the Cabinet. In 2014, he lost the seat after he unsuccessfully tried to create his own political outfit named Kalausi to rival ODM dominance in Nyanza and as a quest to emancipate the freedom of the people of Southern Nyanza.
In 2017, he unsuccessfully vied for the Rongo seat as an independent candidate but lost to the current MP Paul Abuor.
‘My challenge in politics came as a result in Luoland that you had to be a Raila person to be elected. My capacity and standard—I didn’t have these skills to be somebody’s person.
The problem was learning to be somebody’s person while I was brought up in a sphere of a visionary target to be able to bring up people together.
Following another person, the way I was required to do, became difficult. So there was a campaign that I should not be elected because I was going to advocate independence. I failed to be an Odingaist.
I didn’t know how to say yes sir, all my life I was a top student up to graduate level. I was brought up as a person to chart the way, to look at the way forward. Not to develop followers to me. I didn’t have the skills of a follower.
Between me and Raila, we had no conflict but people created the conflict,’ he previously said in an interview.
Dalmas was one of the team of negotiators who represented Raila in 2007, during the Kofi Annan-led peace negotiation that birthed the coalition government between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila.
