Banning legitimate economic activities will give rise to crime

Kenya is crying out for leadership that espouses inspiration and support for entrepreneurship.

What we are seeing are decisions that negatively affect business, taking us back to the 14th century, instead of forward to achieve Vision 2030.

I am not anti-police. However, they seem to have forgotten their core mandate of securing this country, issuing policy directives that catalyze the death of entrepreneurship giving birth to more sophisticated crime every day.

They look for reactive solutions that seem to offer short term solutions to crime but create lasting, deep-rooted crime that they cannot solve or handle.

The typical role of a police officer is to keep peace and order, enforce the law, protect persons and property, and investigate crimes. Some police forces may be trained for special duties like counter-terrorism.

As a country with a population of more than 44 million, a 24 hour economy is the surest way to create a balance in using the limited resources we have. Our economic prospects get worse when policymakers who are supposed to come up with policy that should see the advancement of the entrepreneurial realm simply keep quiet as the police make policy that wreaks havoc on us without any regard for the ripple effects that will come with it.

First was the night travel ban. Why would one be proud to reduce accidents at night by stopping night travel completely instead of fixing the real problem which is lack of road signage? Fix this, and you reduce death both at night and during the day and you also support business.

ALCOBLOW FOR PSVs

Then came Alcoblow which, was implemented without due regard to the natural sequence of events. Why concentrate on private cars and not the PSVs driven at night? It’s like the police always put the cart before the horse when addressing issues that affect the public.

The most vexing point is that the police seem deaf to the issues raised by the public concerning their decisions. What they forget is that the middle class and upper/political class will somehow mind their own business and when it comes to movement, many have private cars.

On the other hand, the lower class depends on public means, which unfortunately the police seem to be controlling as if they were their private kiosks. Look at how they deal with hawkers, as if they were not human, but concrete to be tear-gassed. It is the same way they are dealing with the public transport sector. Most young men and women make a living based purely on how efficient the transport system is.

The decision to restrict boda bodas to between 6AM and 8PM was not only repugnant to the essence of business but an immoral injustice to those who have no other means to make a livelihood. This is the bridge between hope and crime. The youth who engage in this business, find it as their only solace and it has good money, especially at night, because of its convenience and speed.  What the police are saying to the millions of youth engaging in this trade is simple; it’s better to do better crime, because we cannot allow legitimate business beyond certain hours because of high crime.

The police are simply saying that their best solution to issues affecting Kenya as far as crime is concerned, is to ban everything. Ban, ban, and do some more banning. Soon they will ban the use of mobile phones as they will say that criminals are using the same to plan their criminal activities.

BAN AND BAN AND BAN

These three decisions validate the point that our police are not up to the job in dealing with crime in an evolving economy. To handle the boda boda issue, the police need to liaise with the oversight body for the same, map them out, given them numbers and colours, train them on how to respond when faced with thugs and let them contribute their fair share to building this nation.

But if you ban and ban and ban issues and things instead of looking for permanent solutions, youth will need to survive and since they will not be able to trade legally, they will opt for crime.

If the police engaged capacity-building institutions, they would come up with better decisions. A decision that creates unemployment or reduces the income level of those in earning lower incomes should not be supported at all.

This is a 24-hour economy, inasmuch as it’s not official. Kenyans are industrious people, by making  us work within a specified work schedule, not only creates a strain on the economy and the limited resources, but also creates an environment where the lower class has to fight to just a survive a day at a time and most likely, their option will be crime.

The police need to go back to the brainstorm table and rethink these three decisions.

Twitter: @SokoAnlayst