Forget the West, Daddy is back with China cash

President Uhuru Kenyatta is the daddy. Today, he returns from China with Sh425 billion in loans to build a major railway and upgrade the Mombasa port, among other infrastructure projects.

It is more than 10 times what his predecessor squeezed from the Chinese in 10 years.

You have got to give to him: If the World Bank will not lend money to economies that need it most, such as Kenya, on flimsy excuses like stopping theft, China will.

Despite its world renown for preserving animals of all types for the viewing pleasure and enjoyment of tourists, Kenya still got the rap on human rights. Mercifully, the Chinese make no demands on us, as long as various animals of interest are fattened in anticipation of their destiny.

After years of being treated shabbily by the West - living down lectures on corruption and good governance in return for teardrops of financial aid, Kenya can now finally look in one place for a third of its annual budget.

A country somewhere loves Kenya unconditionally without the slightest hint of consequences. The infrastructure projects the Sh425 billion loan will fund should employ a whopping 30 per cent of their labour force from Kenya.

Understandably, the owner of the cow cannot eat the tail, so the Chinese bring in just 70 per cent of the labour force. After all, not many Kenyans care for work of the menial variety such as pushing handcarts, hawking small items, riding motorcycles and digging trenches.

Kenyans are about deals – buying and selling – and there is no better place like China. Everything sells in China. Considering that there are at least 1.3 billion palates that could not tell the difference between veal and dog stroganoff, or boiled kitty from rabbit stew, Kenya could make a fortune from the numerous mongrels and alley cats that threaten to become a health hazard.

The loan would be paid with interest, and anyone with questions about the balance of trade would be forced to shut up.

There is little point in insisting on manually growing rice in the paddies of Mwea when China has superior technology and surplus agriculture labour force of 230 million people. Every Kenyan could have 32.5 Chinese at their beck and call as they pursue more important national pastimes like beer tasting, talking on the mobile phone and discussing politics.

Only a fool would pass up the opportunity to sit under a tree scratching their scratch-ables as the Chinese toil and moil for them.

Anyone who thinks Kenya has an unemployment problem should be duly informed that China had 7 million new university graduates this year, and 16 per cent of them found jobs.

If, perchance, they came to Kenya, they would need translators. Learning Mandarin would make it possible for the friendship between Kenya and China to flourish. If each of the 20,000 graduates who leave university every year learnt Mandarin, they could do translation work for the Chinese who will be working in Kenya’s mining, oil exploration and railway construction.

They certainly will need to marry and have children – considering that they can only have one back home, and communication is critical.

Without Chinese kindness and humanity, Kenya would be condemned to backwardness, sitting on billions of shillings of rare earth and oil fields because jealous nations in the West do not want it to prosper.

Kenya has been the missing link in the league of fast-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and this new interest should dislodge South Africa from BRICS to a total brick as a final contribution to the English language.

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