Opinions on new constitution are as wide as the prices of cars

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

22 November 2009

Here is a simple question: what is the average price of a car in Kenya? When you think about it, it is not that easy. The answer depends on very many factors, including, the age of the car, its condition, how desperately the owner wants the money, the make and model, etc.

Still, all those things considered, what is the average price of a car in Kenya? Is it possible to get an answer with some degree of certainty? Surprisingly, yes: all you have to do is look at the daily newspapers and work it out.

On 9th November2009, for example, the average price of the first ten cars advertised in the Daily Nation was Sh760,000. Now ten is not a good sample (it’s too small) so we may want to extend to the first twenty. The new average comes to Sh837,000.

What if we extended this to the first 50 cars listed in the paper? Would the average be significantly different? Let’s see….it comes to Sh820,000. Now that is interesting: The average price starts from Sh760,000 rises to Sh837,000 and then drops to Sh820,000 – a fluctuation of about ten per cent.

Is this a good average? Even though we have looked at the prices of 50 cars, the result is not good. It is biased by the fact that the newspaper listing is done in alphabetical order and most sellers begin their advert with the make of the car.

Actually, the first 50 cars listed go only to letter M. Clearly the most popular brands in the country (Nissan and Toyota) have not been properly represented in this sample of fifty. So, how do we correct this anomaly?

Surely, going through each and every one of the cars listed would be a tedious job…even for a guy (like me) who enjoys cracking up numbers! Secondly, as demonstrated by the illustration, the result might not be significantly different if we worked with a fair (unbiased) sample.

The newspaper in question has eight columns of motor vehicle adverts and each column has about 40 cars listed - making a total of about 300. To give all the cars equal representation and equal opportunity of being sampled, I picked out the price of every tenth car. That makes a sample of 30 out of 300.

The average price for this sample comes to Sh953,000. This is still not very far from the previous result, but it is a better answer.

Now, what’s the point of all this? Well; this week, the Committee of Experts (CoE) on the constitution published the Harmonised Draft thereby setting in motion the journey to yet another referendum in a few months time.

Remembering the political polarisation that occurred in the last such poll, wouldn’t it be advisable for the CoE to commission opinion surveys on this new draft ahead of the various stages before we go to the referendum? Just like the price of cars, opinions on the constitution depend on very factors (age, tribe, religion, education, residence etc) but a fair random sample will give a very good indication of the general mood of the nation.

I have heard some people claiming that 90 percent of Christians support the inclusion of Kadhi courts and yet others saying that 90 per cent of Muslims don’t like the idea! An opinion poll would set the record straight.

Oh; and by the way, if you are looking to buy a car, you better have Sh950,000 in the bank.