Developing Strategies for Making Kenya

Chapter 1
Brief Reflection on the Past - History and Beginning of the Kenyan Problem
(Where did the rain start biting us as Kenyans?)

1.1      Background

History has it that the colonial rule in Kenya was characterized by punitive economic, social and political policies. Most outstanding among these policies was racial discrimination where huge fertile land was alienated for white settlement, and harsh labor laws were enacted to force the Africans to work at low wages on settler farms and public works. In addition, African political participation was confined to local government. The colonially divided Kenya, was in effect meant to ensure that status quo of milking the African is maintained.

It was against this punitive scenario that the African protest movements began in earnest from the early 1920s with several political associations being formed over the years to help the Africans advance their causes. The sticking issues and which formed the main grievances were: forced labour, low wages, heavy taxation, continuing land alienation, non representation in government and racial discrimination. The struggles intensified culminating in the declaration of state of emergency in 1952 which saw the arrest and detention of several Kenyan nationalists.

However, the state of emergency intensified political resolve for independence, forcing the colonial government to come up with constitutional proposals and under the Lyttleton constitution of 1954, Africans were allowed to directly elect their representatives to the Legislative Council with elections being held in 1957 where eight African leaders - Ronald Ngala, Tom Mboya, Daniel arap Moi, J Mate, Muimi, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Lawrence Oguda and Masinde Muliro, were elected. These leaders stepped up agitation for widened representation and independence and after considerable discussion, it was decided that a mass organization to mobilize the people for the final assault on colonialism be formed, hence the birth of Kenya African National Union, (KANU) registered on 11 June 1960, as a mass political society.

1.2      The Ethnic Regions and Administration

However, as the success of the political freedom fight became evident, the colonialists were at it again. They told leaders from some communities that they would be dominated by the larger ethnic groups, and on June 25, 1960 these leaders formed the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) to cater for “their needs”.

The formation of the two major political parties divided the country into tribal enclaves of KANU and KADU area as the colonialists wanted, giving birth to what we now have as the eight ethnically divided provinces in Kenya today – See Map of current political boundaries. (Central) Kikuyu, (Coast) Miji Kenda, (Eastern) Meru, Embu, Kamba, (Nyanza) Luo, Kissi, Kuria, (Rift Valley) KAMATUSA, (North Eastern) Somali (Western) Luhyia.

The existing ethnic enclaves which were called provinces but now sub-divided into counties therefore, is the problem and were created by the colonialists to divide Kenyans along ethnic lines and set region against region, tribe against tribe and even brother against brother so as to allow white settlers continue to exploit Africans. If further, subdivided as proposed by our current political class, it is a real recipe for societal disintegration, with the underlying psychological “brainwashing” that ours is superior to all else.

1.3      Kenya Heading to the Ditch

It is known that Subsequent governments, opposition parties and political class after independence, have yet to come to terms with the sticky inequality in the country caused by this ethnic division simply because they benefit immensely from it. And since the Mzungu came to Kenya carrying the gun in one hand and the bible in the other and ensured that they got the best from the congregation, the amazing thing is that our religious leaders have perpetuated the ethnic division by ensuring that Bishops and Imams are posted only in the regions where they come from and are engaged in grand corruption (analyse the Bishops of the Kenyan Catholic and Anglican Church to see the trend). After retirements, these Bishops and Imams join tribal groupings as if God belongs to their tribes forgetting that they were supposed to take care of the congregation consisting of all tribes and colour.

Since the current political class become the new “colonialist/landlords”. They, together with their of-springs and friends have dominated all the major political parties today and using the same tactics employed by the colonialists of dividing the country into ethnically based administrative areas for exploitation. The so called 47 counties are just but delineation of people along ethnic lines so that a privileged few, can continue to exploit them at local level and this was planned in July 2009 when the government posted Senior Deputy PCs to take care of certain ethnic blocks in readiness for further subdivision of Provinces into smaller ethnic enclaves. However, when this plan failed, the constitution was changed to have 47 counties divided along ethnic lines to be governed by 47 tribal Governors as opposed to 8 Governors in 8 regions with each region having all members of parliament being members of the Regional Assemblies.

The historical injustices meted against the people since independence by those in positions of authority include inequitable resource distribution, skewed development pattern, employment to state jobs of those from only certain regions just because one of their own is the President, not to mention blatant looting in state corporations and departments. This is a pointer to what the so called leaders think of you Kenyan no mater what tribe you are. Whereas this is a clear recipe for total societal disintegration and is akin to attempting to put off fire using liquefied petroleum, those in positions of authority do not care and are only busy looting for the benefit of their families. But a close look at them, reveals that have no families to talk about since their children are social misfits.

Indeed the last four decades has seen Kenya headed toward a big ditch through the practice of tribalism, ineffective administrative arrangements and decreased competitiveness in many key industries which have led to weaknesses in critical sectors such as water, education, food, health, housing, communication infrastructure among others. This deficiency has increased our dependence on international sources of funding which have ended up enriching a few elite in our society. This has resulted in lowered standards of living, enormous debt, and great difficulty in feeding ourselves, let alone educating and giving health services to our children. This scenario makes Kenya as a nation fulfil the old Chinese proverb that says, “Unless you change direction, you are likely to arrive at where you are headed”.

All these are happening because the new “landlords” inherited in full, the privileges enjoyed by the whites and have ensured over the years, that no real change may be achieved, with only cosmetic ones introduced in piecemeal to appease the masses. The ordinary freedom fighters and nationalists then, and now, have therefore been dispossessed of any hope of retribution in the any dispensation save for an immediate and sustained national revolution starting with defining the vision for Kenya, then developing strategies for realising the vision including strategies of effectively defining the administrative, governance and management structures.

The next article I will attempt to define the desired Vision of Kenya and other operating principles for country.

God Bless Kenya and her people.

Osano Kute is a Strategy and Leadership Advisor based in Nairobi

kute@osanoassociates.com

The Social Dimension of ROI and why only the government should engage in provision of some services

(Osano Kute, Leadership and Strategy Advisor)

Dear Ramah Nyang, in finance, return on investment (ROI), can be defined as the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. The actual amount of money gained or lost may be referred to as interest, profit/loss, gain/loss, or net income/loss. While the actual money invested may be referred to as the asset, capital, principal, or the cost basis of the investment. In finance, ROI is usually expressed as a percentage.

In my opinion and what is not considered by many people, there is the social dimension of ROI which unfortunately may be difficult to expressed as a percentage as in the case of finance but can generally be expressed in terms of the general feeling of a people in a nation or the general state of a people in terms of their prosperity, welfare, security etc.

The social dimension of ROI may be defined as the ratio of social capital gained or lost (raise/decline in standard of living of the people through high/low level of prosperity, welfare and security/insecurity of the people) on a government’s investment (say military intervention in Somalia to bring normalcy and peace in the country so that the citizens can do business in peace, or building of one new Girls’ National School and one new Boys’ National School in every constituency in the country to ensure that there is equity in provision of education to the people or building of a dam in the middle of nowhere to conserve water or the environment) relative to the amount of money, human capital, military hardware, efforts of a people etc invested by the government. In this case, the social capital gained or lost may be referred to as social interest, social profit/loss, social gain/loss, or social net income/loss. The money invested or effort made in the intervention may be referred to as the social asset, social capital, social principal, or the social cost basis of the government social investment.

Take the following two examples to see why I say that in public management, we cannot look at everything from a financial perspective only since social capital is also a very important aspect to be considered. My two examples are on cost of national water provision for domestic consumption and irrigation for the people which the private sector would find prohibitive particularly in the context of the rural population and the cost of going to war to protect property which nobody in the private sector can dare do but the government would even if it is one inch of the country as follows:

(1)          Whereas, it would cost the government a lot of money to build dams for environmental conservation and water provision for irrigation and domestic use by the people, availability of clean water for domestic use by the people leads to reduction of waterborne diseases and other ailments associated with lack of water, availability of water in abundance also leads to increase in agricultural activities (even if it is in small scale) in the country and this further leads to the people including children being well fed and led vulnerable to disease attack which further leads to the budget/cost of health provision going down and leads to the people being able to concentrate in their work while the children are able to concentrate in class and get better education, better understanding of national needs and be more skilled and knowledgeable as a workforce which leads to better ways of working hence a developed nation.  My experience in consultancy in the water sector tells me that all the Water Service Boards are finding it difficult to provide water to the people without government financial intervention and the private sector is only willing to invest in water provision in urban areas where people are able to pay for water but the government is for everybody including those in the rural areas.

(2)          Whereas the private sector may have title deeds to signify their ownership of land/property, if the land whose title you have along the boarder is invaded by foreign forces, a simple calculation of ROI of going to war would make a good businessman in the private sector run away and not go to war but the government will even if it is the rock called Migingo (ROI?).

I therefore still insist that some projects and capital investments are better left to the government and these include but not limited to: provision of water, security, education, mass movement of people and goods, development of major infrastructure like roads etc. I personally would not trust the private sector with these services.

In fact look at what the private sector has done and continue doing with fuel pumps and fuel prices, price of sugar and other essential commodities after the Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC) was killed by corrupt people in this country. Look at the what happens to the tea farmer in Muranga or Nandi who gets KShs. 40 per Kg of their produce and when the same product, reaches Mombasa in the hands of the private sector, it fetches Kshs. 280. Look at the high prices of fertilizer in the country yet in our national books, KENREN was supposed to have been built in the seventies.

The fact that some people who are currently supper rich in Kenya, engaged in corruption to swindle the people does not mean that the government cannot be made to be effective and efficient.

Please give me a chance to run this country as it CEO and you will see what I can do to make government efficient and effective. Thanks