The GDP of Kenya and Singapore
were the same 50 years ago and now Singapore is doing x times better than Kenya
and the only difference between the two is management.
This is something I have heard my whole life.
This is something I will probably hear for the rest of it. This is a statement
that will be made by most people with solid business management credentials
trying to win a political seat in Kenya. It’s also a statement that people
reach for whenever they want to indict the political leadership of our country.
It is also one of the most
misleading statements there is.
Or so I believe (that degree in
economics I have only stretches as far as knowing the difference between macro
and micro economics.) the reason I think it is misleading is that it is such an
oversimplification that it cannot hope to be true. A similar statement would
take two children who got the same marks in KCPE find them years later (let’s
assume they were in the same school and went to different ones) read out their
KCSE grades and attribute the difference in grades to one thing. Any one thing,
the secondary school they went to for example and saying the difference in
grades is caused by this and just this. This approach of course leaves out a
thousand thousand other things that happened in the interim. It leaves out
their work ethic once they proceeded, it does not consider what subjects they
took in high school, it doesn’t ask the situations at their various homes, it
doesn’t recognise that while KCPE is a multi-choice paper KCSE is not, it acts like
it doesn’t matter that one of them was sick or one of them got leakage or one
of them fluked in the earlier paper or, or, or….
With such a world of difference
between two boys who could imagine that there could only be one difference
between two countries. No one mentions the history of the countries and the
effect this has on them , no one talks about the proximity of China to
Singapore a fact that has as huge an effect as a magnet on a TV screen, no one
talks about the difference in postcolonial policies as regards nations in
Africa and Asia, we don’t mention that the problems with unity they had
extended to four ethnic groups while we are struggling with close to forty, the
destabilising effects that having countries at war nearby brings isn’t brought
up in conversation, the difference in what we produce just as a result of
climate and natural resource distribution is all but forgotten, the work ethic
of the people being managed, the huge difference in cultural norms and
practices the, the, the….
We had hopelessly inept
leadership of course but there is not only one difference between Kenya and Singapore
that can be blamed for why we are lagging so far behind them in economic terms.
The most recent time I heard this
being mentioned was during the gubernatorial debates for Nairobi.. I remember
hearing all through the weekend the weeps that accompanied Jimna Mbaru losing
the nomination. People loved him and his legendary cv. It’s not a CV I have
taken a look at and I don’t intend to since this isn’t an interview this is an
election(here I engage in simplification
too) and to be honest I never expected him to win. Maybe he should have but as
I told everyone last week this isn’t a meritocracy it’s a democracy. It matters
more to be charismatic than to be capable. All your achievements in business
only matter as much as you can convert them to votes. Of course a lot of the
same things that allow you to succeed in business will let you succeed in
politics iron will and determination, the ability to inspire and motivate,
resource allocation and deployment but they don’t completely translate. It’s
like Chinese to Swahili you need an ear for both and how to speak in both languages
before an honest to god unbelievable CV will get you a political seat. Best
thing about his candidacy though a lot of people in Nairobi will get off their armchairs
come March fourth and go vote. But for who?
President, governor, senator, Member
of Parliament, councillor. I think I got it all but there’s a chance I missed
one of them. This is going to be the most marking of multiple answers people
did since they were in primary school. At least for governor it’s a choice
between two people and it’s good that we got a chance to see both of them speak
on the same stage.
What I like about both of them is
that they have an ability to laugh and make laugh, who wasn’t giggling at the
end of the debate when Waititu was like I will accept any position you appoint
me to and I will appoint you to one myself who didn’t find it funny that Kidero
kept up the whole Clifford or Ferdinand all through. And whose parents give one
child such equally unlikely names as Clifford and Ferdinand. If you can’t laugh
in politics I worry for you. I worry for what will happen to you as it gets
worse and worse as it will inevitably will. I worry that you don’t even like
people and if that part of the job isn’t one you enjoy soon you become bitter
and I don’t want bitter politicians. I was also impressed by the fact that they
both grew up in slums in Nairobi. We as a city need politicians who understand
our problems who know what’s going on in the city, who know what it means to be
a resident of it. Waititu talked about the need to invest in the infrastructure
of Kibera. He talked about the flying toilets still whistling through the air
up there and how important this is to the city’s development(not the flying
toilets but doing something about them). He said about 80% of Nairobi’s people
live in slums. Assuming this statistic is true and it is definitely almost true
then a lot needs to be done about helping people there. I read an article about Kibera last week. It was an exploration of the slum as a hub of entrepreneurial
activity. Businesses spring up all over the place as people struggle to get by
and reading this gives you a healthy respect for the people there and even for
the place but a place(even one as remarkable) still needs the intervention of a
government. It’s the government’s job to build schools and hospitals and
provide security and I am glad that he at least sees those people and recognises
them as his primary constituents should he win.
Speaking of security Kidero
touched on the need for it.the
thing I liked more about him in this
debate is that he backed up his facts with figures, he talked about the ratios
needed of police officers to citizens in the country and suggested creating a
metropolitan police force from a cadre of city askaris. I have very strong feelings about security. This city feels unsafe most of the time. It’s not a
place you can walk in at all hours of the night, even the day is tinged with
just a whiff of danger and it’s not something I like. In addition he talked
about the need to attract foreign investment to Nairobi, Nairobi is 5 hours away
from any African capital and just 8 hours away from most of the major world
capitals. This is not something I knew before I listened to Kidero but I know
it now and I sit and wonder with him why we don’t have more foreign investment.
This is perfect isn’t it? Here is a country with amazing human resources. There
are engineers and CPAs and CFAs, university graduates, former college students,
people good with their hands and no chance of a communication breakdown because
everyone speaks English plus the wages aren’t high compared to most places in
the world. He talked about the need for more action, though I am not sure what
the action was.
The thing most people don’t like
about Waititu is his activism as it would be called if he wasn’t a politician.
You see him throwing stones and engaged in activities usually reserved for ruffians
but he gave this passionate explanation for it. If land is grabbed from a
school serving 3,000 poor students he would do anything to right that
injustice. What did we expect him to do? An MP has no executive power he cannot
physically stop a land deal, he has no judiciary power to get the police to
stop it and legislative power is useless in such cases. The laws are already in
place and just being hopelessly circumvented. What else is a leader to do but
show his people that he feels their pain that this matters so much to him that
he’s willing to do this… to put himself in harm’s way to tarnish himself? I
can’t fault him for that. What we can however is that video:
As for Kidero the charge laid
against him most often is that he is elitist and cannot understand what is
happening to the people. I personally do not think that poverty is a necessary
qualification for politics but the fact that he grew up in a slum says more
against that charge than anything. While
poverty is not a qualification having someone experience it makes him more
empathetic and more capable of doing a job that seeks so often to replace the
trees with the forest and on this score they are both even. Though he is a tad elitist and a
condescending man. I didn’t like the way he talked to someone who was his equal
correcting him in a way that said I am smarter than you rather than you
shouldn’t make such mistakes. As for the land scandal that was brought up. Something…something
this is the point where I lost the train of thought anyway I figure he didn’t
get any personal gain from it and the sugar company is the one embroiled in it.
Otherwise this man’s past seems to be blank. He worked in Nigeria, he ran a
sugar company, he grew up in the slums and he’s a doctor. This is all I heard
about him in those forty minutes. I have no idea what he achieved in his tenure
as any of those things. Also he seems to think that the only difference between
Kenya and Singapore is management.
Well those were my thoughts on that debate.
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