Recently I was invited for a technical training workshop that was very productive. Later in the day and the following day I shared the experiences and knowledge gathered with a diverse group of people outside the industries involved and largely in some semi-formal and informal setups.
I was shocked by the reactions of the people. Many told me they are fed up with so many promises coming from the government. They said the cost of living and unfulfilled promises were really hurting them.
Going through social media platforms, one gets the feeling that Kenyans are about to erupt or some kind of revolution is in the offing. Why the anger besides the obvious reasons that most people are alive to? Has something engineered this state of apathy, depression, latent anger and almost hate?
There is palpable anger and it should be managed. There is a need to listen to the people, especially those operating at the bottom of the pyramid economic structure. They are hurting and we have to do something as a country.
When I see the Federation of Kenya Employers warning of worker layoffs, I get livid and really scared. According to FKE data, between October last year and November 2023, 70,000 formal jobs have been lost.
It attributes this to difficult economic conditions, increased and increasing tax measures and the weakening of the Kenyan Shilling iagainst the US dollar. The relatively high capital flight is not making the situation any better.
If you look at our exports vis-à-vis the imports, you can see a very large gap. Our exports, which are mainly agriculture and the not-so-high amounts we get from our tourism industry relative to its potential, are a pale shadow compared to the imports.
Do we stand a chance in manufacturing and exporting to say America, Europe, Japan, China, South Korea and so on? It is a matter of conjecture for now. In the era of branding and brand recognition, we have to work extra hard to build a reputation if we are to penetrate global markets if we are to export high-value goods manufactured here.
Yet if you look at history, Japanese-manufactured products such as cars and electronics in the mid-last century did not click much with Western nations' consumers initially, but progressively, years later they conquered the global market.
Japanese models have made great strides in the global market and their quality and reputation are not in doubt. The same case happened to South Korea and lately China and India. So it is still possible, despite some of the bad reputations African countries have earned over time (some unfairly some quite true like in the case of corruption).
To bridge the gap of our measly exports vis-à-vis imports and to help stem the deterioration of the Kenyan Shilling over time, we have to come up with radical measures such as import substitution (as we still have a lot of goods and services we can successfully produce here) and exports of labour (with high rate of unemployment and under-employment with no respite on site we have no choice on this).
While taxation measures are theoretically economically very necessary, the way we have approached them in the current economic circumstances is bound to boomerang on the country.
In essence, spreading them out to net more taxpayers deftly is inferred but the methods and means need to be smarter and very carefully undertaken. I have been checking on various business activities, especially in the Nairobi metropolitan area and I see danger signs all over.
The current situation will exacerbate more unemployment, more under-employment and more public anger. I think it behoves the William Ruto administration to reach out more and make very deliberate efforts for more inclusiveness of more thinkers and stakeholders to resolve the economic crisis we are in.
Things on the ground are not okay. Personally, anything that can make Kenya great and life more tolerable is always my wish. I wish the administration would listen more, do more aggressive research and involve more parties of diversity in knowledge and experiences to get the best of the best solutions for Kenya.
The economic situation is currently very hurting too many people, especially those in the middle to the bottom of the economic pyramid
