No one can stop us now
Over the past weeks, there has been increased rhetoric about the fate of Kenya tied to the two potential presidential candidates facing charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
Given the context of a General election fever, the gloves are off and the show has begun.
This issue is being looked at through a very narrow prism, I believe, as whatever the outcome of the result - party A wins, party B wins, the country is posed to keep growing and nothing can stop it.
All it requires is for Kenyans to vote without violence and accept whatever result thrown at us by those BVR kits.
There are two main reasons for my optimism. Reason one is that whoever comes to power cannot derail the momentum of growth. And whoever gets it, that power will come with its own challenges.
As far as we can see, all political parties will indulge in some measure of corruption. So let’s not be cheated that some larger than life demi-god will rescue us.
You will still take the same matatu to work, pay a premium of 100% when it rains and go to church every Sunday to mainly pray for electricity and water, and hope that your kid’s school bus does not fall into one of the Australia sized pot holes.
The other, more important reason, is purely economic. Look at the last 15-20 years and see the rapid growth that has happened in Brazil, India, Indonesia - all have had massive graft, coalition politics ruining cohesive decision making, dynasty politics, huge mismanagement by government on key issues, but yet these countries today have GDP’s higher than European countries.
And certainly the mood among the people and the business community is upbeat, albeit it fluctuates a bit due to data on indicators from US or China but they are becoming key indicators themselves.
Overall, most retain high investment status and the momentum cannot be turned back.
India, especially, has grown in spite of the government’s best efforts to fumble on just about every initiative – infrastructure, agriculture, education, security and many more.
Brazil has displaced South Africa as the country with the biggest gap between the rich and the poor and the slums of Rio and Sao Paolo are worse than Kibera. Yet Brazil is growing well, companies are flocking, NGO’s ‘work’ those areas and business is as usual.
Kenya does have a wide gap but that can be bridged and it is not the government that is going to be doing that. Just because we have Kibera does not mean we are not making progress. Nay, it is not evidence doom and gloom.
The future is not in some policy document called Vision 2030 but in the people who make it their business to take the country forward.
People need to stop hoping that someone (politician or political party) will come and solve all their problems or that western institutions will shun us if we don’t follow ICC down to the T. Most of these institutions will lose relevance in the next decade or so.
The economic miracle that is going to be East Africa in the next 25 years will not be wasted away by the powers that be (conglomerates, lobbies, trade bodies, enterprising individuals and sovereign investors) for the sake of some tribunal which mainly serves as a means to control policy and has lost any moral authority to deliver ‘justice’.
No more cars, white goods, power plants, dams and credit cards are being made/ sold in those western markets at the pace they should be to create growth.
Even the mighty three gorges dam project is only one third in value compared to the Inga Dam project in DRC.
Luxury Brands like LVMH and Rolex have over 50% of sales in non-western markets, which 20 years back would have been anathema for those brand managers to see a Vietnamese girl totting a USD 15,000 bottega veneta.
Nestlé’s emerging markets sales are growing at 11.2 % compared to 2.4% in developed markets. And African households hold the highest growth potentials.
Africa’s time is now. We don’t have perfect systems, we lack basic stuff and generally things seem to be chaotic, but progress is creative destruction in motion and not a well-oiled machine.
We are where perhaps the US was during the ‘wild west’ days, rogue barons and monopolies. (South Korea’s Kospi Share Index valuation is 80% held by 10 cheabols - talk about competition!)
And we have the grasshopper effect that will take up through leaps – we did not get pagers, but got cell phones, broadband is still iffy but most of us have mobile internet.
Banking went mobile for us five years back and the west is still trying to get industry consensus on basic operating guidelines.
Yes our innovations are need based but brand building is a long and arduous road. Indian conglomerate TATA has resorted to buying brands rather than building them from scratch - Tetley Tea and Jaguar but they invented the concept of CSR and valuing Human Resources in 1904, when most companies in the west were still exploiting workers - Ford et el.
The Japanese, South Koreans and now the Chinese spent over 3-4 decades before their brands became house hold names and all initially started as cost competitors and are now moving to sell on ‘their brand value’.
The action is all here so let us focus on what have to do- have violence free elections, keep our people and families safe, work hard, encourage savings and the results will be enjoyed by our children. That is our duty to the Nation. No army can stop an idea whose time has come.
