Cartels fuel poverty, inequality in Kenya as other EA nations flourish

The country’s lower middle-income status has become an inevitable obstacle to our quest for sustainable development and for accessing policy support, concessional finance, sovereign debt relief and a range of trade opportunities on global markets.

On the strength of this ranking, Kenya is often denied access to such resources whenever they are availed to its Eastern and Central African peers under the auspices of the Bretton Woods institutions. We should expect to sit out even when our neighbours receive some crucial Covid-related support.

Ideally, our middle-income status is indicative of our better human and institutional capacities than our neighbours, including in governance and development matters. Kenya is routinely lauded for its market capitalism and for conducting elections and censuses like clockwork — a feat we cite at the UN General Assembly and the African Peer Review Mechanism.

While it is tempting to exaggerate its accomplishments as a middle-income country, one can see that our politicians are obsessed with self-preservation and beholden to cartels that are exacerbating corruption, food insecurity, inequality and poverty.

There was a period Kenya loomed large in the region — a trailblazer that was substantially better than her neighbours. But every other country has caught up and overtaken us in key areas — except Somalia, South Sudan and Burundi. Anecdotally, we import farm produce like eggs and milk and industrial goods like detergent, cooking oil and cement from the once-inflation-ridden Uganda.

In Tanzania, traffic congestion in Dar es Salam has substantially improved through the expansion of the port, the construction of a key bridge and the launch of a rapid mass transit system. They are also constructing a cheaper and better electric train that will eventually run from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma and terminate on the shores of Lake Victoria in Mwanza.

Rwanda launched a digital curriculum in its schools and is now using World Banks’ Covid-emergency funds to strengthen community nursing, mainstream telemedicine and the use of drones in improving healthcare outcomes. As expected, corrupt and inept Kenyan leadership is stealing Covid resources meant to benefit the poor.

Its middle-income status notwithstanding, Kenya seem addicted to maize, wheat and rice imports. While the negative effects of imported sugar, fish, eggs and other commodities to our agricultural sector are apparent, the government remains indifferent.

In the aftermath of the revelation by Dr Noah Wekesa, the Strategic Food Reserve (SFR) chairman, that our national food granaries were empty, Agriculture CS Peter Munya announced that the government would import maize instead of buying grain from its farmers — on the pretext that it was unable to unmask cartels at the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB).

Be as it may, wilfully punishing farmers is indicative of how audacious, ubiquitous and destructive bad leadership, cartels and petty politics have become.

With right interventions, the country can still achieve food security status and at the same time boost farm productivity, enhance rural incomes, support value addition and manufacturing and help to address rural-urban inequality. With dwindling average acreage and rising food demand will ultimately push us into adopting technologies — many of which are increasingly becoming accessible and affordable.

There is scope for the average farmer to double their output by simply resorting to high yielding seeds and fertilisers. Furthermore, investing in drying and storage facilities for grain and resolving other supply-side challenges at the community level can greatly minimise post-harvest losses.

Prioritising agriculture and affording farmers opportunities to benefit from their labour is hardly a novel idea in development economics for food production is a well-known launch pad for structural transformation and industrialisation. As an agricultural country, reliance on imported food will ultimately impoverish and expose us to price and supply-related shocks.

We should not allow cartels to drain hard currency that could otherwise be used to import technologies. While our neighbours are being helped to understand and operationalise this fundamental truth, Kenya is being held captive by leaders and ruthless cartels that would not waste an opportunity to steal.

Mr Chesoli is a New York-based development economist and global policy expert. [email protected] @kenchesoli