LESSONS FROM KENYA: MEDIOCRITY & LACK OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS CAN NEVER MOVE YOU TO POLITICAL, SOCIAL & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. =========================================== In 2010, Kenya sent a high-powered delegation to Malaysia with a purpose. To learn what the Malaysians were doing, copy it and bring that knowledge & experience with them back to Kenya. On that fact-finding mission to Kuala Lumpur, members of a Kenyan government delegation were surprised when their Malaysian hosts, after greeting them warmly, thanked them for their help in making Malaysias capital city such a success. They explained that, several decades earlier, Malaysia sent a similar delegation to Nairobi to find out how to create a modern capital city, recalled one of the members of Kenyan team. They told us Kenyas capital was the model for Kuala Lumpur, he added. Decades later, and with the tables unequivocally turned, Kenya is taking a very careful look at how Malaysia and the other Asian tiger economies built their tremendously successful economies from the ground up. With the lessons it is learning, Kenya aims not just to replicate their success but to exceed it. Fast forward to 2011, what has Kenya been up to since that visit. Kenya’s road to economic supremacy in the region is rooted in 3 pillars: political, social and economic. With the ratification of the new constitution, the country is gently moving towards the development of a more stable, transparent political system. They have already had a change of government through the ballot box. The aim of the social pillar is to create a just, cohesive society with universal access to education, healthcare, housing, food, water and sanitation. Kenya announced an ambitious plan to deliver 1.3m laptops to schoolchildren. The project cost more than $600m (53bn Kenyan shillings/£400m) and implementation began in 2011. The economic pillar is focused on significantly boosting growth. Kenya is leaning heavily on its corporations—large and small—and its business leaders, many of whom have been brought in to help guide and implement Vision 2030. Many of the government efforts that are being directed to the projects will focus on developing and promoting six key areas of the economy: tourism, agriculture, wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing for the regional market, business process offshoring and financial services To facilitate the growth of those sectors, the country has embarked on a substantial infrastructure investment program. The plans are ambitious, involving port construction, massive airport expansion, a massive improvement in and extension of the countrys road network, the creation or upgrading of road and rail links from Kenyas ports to central Africa and to countries north of Kenya, a threefold increase in electric power generation capacity and a new oil pipeline to the coast. So what-else has Kenya has been up to? They have new modern trains plying Nairobi, reducing traffic congestion. President Mwai Kibaki gave the people of Nairobi and all Kenyans rail transport that compete with what we have in London. He did that in only 2 terms. Mr. Museveni in 28yrs has given the people of Kampala and Uganda at large total boda boda confusion as a form of transport. That is what I call negative development. youtube/watch?v=UYtyTfbPnd8 Kenya has recently discovered resources in the South Lokichar Basin of more than 600 million barrels of oil. That is just 2 blocks out of almost 30 other blocks that are yet to be explored. All these projects won’t come cheap, however, Kenya is hoping to fund much of the work through a combination of public-private partnerships (PPPs), development grants or loans and government funding. The PPPs will provide opportunities for foreign investors to get involved in the infrastructure build-out. There is no project that is going to be wholly own or run by the private sector. In an effort to ensure the countrys infrastructure and business development plans dont get snarled up in political infighting—and that the process of reform would be as transparent as possible—the politicians behind Vision 2030 established an unusually open and inclusive planning structure. All Kenyans believes that the way the strategy is being implemented should ensure both transparency and accountability. The fruits of this Kenyas aggressive strategy can be seen today in the region. Kenyans have Nakummat, Uchumi, and manufacture all they sell in Ugandan shops and supermarkets. Kenyas businesses operating in Uganda recruit from and employ mainly from Kenya. Kenyas financial institutions are the main players in Uganda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda. Kenyas Treasury collected Sh5 billion from the railway levy only three months after its introduction, surpassing the government’s quarterly target by 61.3 per cent. mobile.nation.co.ke/business/Treasury-collects-Sh5bn-railway-tax-in-three-months/-/1950106/2085256/-/format/xhtml/-/15bkcg4/-/index.html Ugandans must learn that you cannot have a mediocre government, mediocre economy, mediocre education system, a rotten National Health service, a rotten infrastructure, a totally Ignored agricultural sector; and then live the life of lies, worshiping a tyrant and hope to be a developed country under the NRM? My answer is simple: You must be mentally disturbed and very myopic. By Sunday Geoffrey President The National Party
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 23:29:04 +0000
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