Is Kenya for us or them?

Away from the politics of the day, on account of our consistent inaction towards graft, tribalism and individual politics moreover our periodic amnesia as a nation to the wrongs committed against us and our insistence on keeping the crime on the down low :the gangster in all of us.

Today lemme take the opportunity to speak on a matter close to my heart. MONEY!! I know you too!

Kenya is on a precipice, we are on an upward trend, we are on a development boom! This and more have been used in varying intensity for different ends. As a result we have scours of people from all over the world come into our country to benefit from the predicted boom; this, ladies and gentlemen, is what economists call speculation, and in our case it is backed by some truths. Think of it from a cost-benefit analysis. A developer comes into Kenya and wants to beat the rest of the development projects available so s/he gets top dollar(loans/investment etc) and drops a 5 Billion building in Nairobi. After two years of construction and sorting the normal logistical messes associated with such a project. The project of course attracts huge rent commitment or buying price in the market, economy rules dictates a necessity of supply and demand,and if the two aren’t at par one gets messed up. In Kenya we seem to be seating back awaiting for whatever happens to happen as we quickly ruttle down a hill in our old jalopy of a car.

Breaking it down is that money (read wealth ) in our great Republic is in the hands of a very few in a few areas. As long as this number maintains it’s mediocrity, we are doomed to not grow, the general public will not have the much needed financial muscle to spend or participate in business. This may justifiably due to a litany of reasons but we are focusing on the foreign wealth.

Mr X brings a billion dollars into our economy, starts off a company, seeks to start an assembly plant, a manufacturing plant, a property development company or anything else. Mr X decides to bring in experts from abroad to help him fulfil his wishes, hence part of the one Billion goes out.
Also Mr X realises that in Kenya we have a culture of paying and accepting peanuts from our employers; he gladly falls into the culture qnd off the exploitation thrives.
This is the reason why there are so many billions streaming into the country bt not so much money in the common mwananchi’s pockets. Hiw can they have money that is split right at the source?
Creative Kenyans find it impossible to start off their businesses due to goodwill as a result, they quickly realize the whole system is designed to expect wealth from outside as a result of the ‘higher-ups’ enriching themselves from the new monies after a promise to ‘show foreigners how business is done in Kenya’ whuch includes but not limited to paying below market price.

With this trail of happenings if nothing is intentionally done then the economy shall crush to a halt. An example of such is Angola where the capital city is the most beautiful in Africa but there are a very few people who can meet the prices as a result they have a beautiful ghost town.

The need to build human resource capacity in our economy grows everyday, and has been growing for a long time now, if the executive doesn’t take steps we will get to a reality as painted above. Repercussions of which are a stagnation of our human resource training. Notice the dominating attitude in Universities, it has changed from:
‘lemme study hard & smart enough so that I get that awesome job’
to
‘If I get an opportunity I will accumulate as much money as possible, so that I start a business for myself’
‘I need to hunt down that guy so that I can plead my case to get that job’
‘I hear that guy likes short skits/that lady like hairy young men, lemme go seduce him/her’

One of the oldest ways to prove the existence of a problem is to see its effects around it. Here we have been having the effects glaring us directly on the face but nothing yet. So until then boda boda riders will keep earning more than most graduates, and yes one may be swayed to say they earned it or one may ask whether I would like to reduce their incomes; that’s besides the point though, if a boda boda rider earns 1000 a day NET then a graduate ought to earn more than that, otherwise why invest in the education?