#OPINION AS A COUNTY, WE SHOULD BE GETTING OUR PRIORITIES RIGHT By Akeno Julius We are living in a time when resources are seemingly becoming scarcer and our job creation pace does not match with the rate at which graduates are being churn out of our institutions of higher learning. Due to the open and parallel programs in our institutions, we are witnessing a blend of super achievers, achievers, low achievers, parents and grandparents in lecture halls. Consequently, there is pushing and shoving in the job market. The hustle and bustle of life seems to be having a thorough beating on the educated as oppose to the less educated and the illiterate populace. Presently, every job, ranging from babysitting to politics has been tied with a minimum level of education; though attaining it is not a guarantee for getting one. The condition is perhaps the reason for increased trooping back of our parents and grandparents to classes. While others do it for promotion, others do it to enhance their pension schemes while others do it to increase their employ-ability and relevance. A few will do so to raise their status and profiles, yet others just follow the mob. While the reasons are varied, one thing is clear; the money. Though our education system is mainly exam oriented and has turned many learners into mechanical and copy cats, as oppose to exploratory and creative beings, it tend to prepare and oriented the learners psychologically to be employed and earn wages. To survive in a world characterized by strive, scarcity and adversity, one must develop a high level of creativity and innovation that transcends formal education borders. I mean, formal education alone will not guarantee you the much needed creativity and innovation. Being illiterate is not an equivalent of being uneducated. In fact, majority of people with money in this world are the semi and illiterates. We need to have a critical examination of ourselves and environment so as to unravel the paradox of having a lot of resources yet too many problems and abject poverty. We seem to be struggling to pick high laying fruits while our low laying, succulent and most ripen fruits are left on our backyard trees. We must start thinking of ways of creating wealth in our County. Most of us professionals are not in the business of creating wealth; rather, we are in the business of earning through exchanging our skills, time, commitments and energy for money. Creating wealth involves coming up with novel ideas and products that the market need in exchange for money. Listening to talks from various world forums such as the just concluded African – America and the previous ones; Sino – Africa and France –Africa, one hears discussions of creating wealth through strengthening trade ties. Usually the people accompanying the heads of states are the top business people regardless of their education status and the technocrats in various fields. As a county, we need to keep abreast to what is going on around the world since we are living in a global village. We need to work closely with our professionals and business people to explore new ways of creating wealth and employment for our young men and women. I am both challenged and encouraged by what some young fellows are doing in putting Baringo on the world map. While some of us crisscross cities in search of greener pastures, back at home, they are busy creating and growing wealth. Consider the work of the savvy young brains behind the invention of Bunifu Sniper Antivirus; Seguton Wilberforce, Keith Korir and peers. Consider the work of our young and talented upcoming artists and designers. These guys are creating wealth in our County. Look at what Komen Es-Key is doing; marketing freely our tourism potential and diversity. Look at what Eng. Pepee Symon is doing; single handedly wooing Chinese and New Zealanders investors to Baringo to undertake Mining and energy investments. These guys are both job creators and wealth growers. Look at what our business men/women, farmers, herders, bee keepers and craftsmen are doing; they are tirelessly creating and growing wealth in our County. All these groups are working hard to make Baringo prosperous and a proud County. None of us should be a spectator in developing our County; we must join hands with them and move forward in order to realize our vision. These are the people we would like to see our County Government working more closely with, for they will provide new ideas that will benefit the County. We want them to head County’s dream teams to solve our myriad problems. They should also form part of the County delegation teams to foreign countries for them to learn, identify opportunities and pick new ideas to be improve to fit the local needs, as well as their skills of marketing and wooing investors. For the county to developed, we need to; identify, nurture and make use of talents within our people. We need to create forums, institutions and techno parks where our young people can nurture, exchange ideas and interact with technocrats and experienced entrepreneurs as well as creating an enabling environment for investments. We need to reduce the number of wage earners and increase the number of wealth creators. We need to stop looters of public coffers, stop cattle rustlers and pundits and inculcate in our young people the virtue of wealth creation.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 05:00:12 +0000
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