As the country hurtles towards the 2022 General Election, a serious debate is raging, leading to the emergence of an ideological divide.
This is between those who think Kenya's problem is the Constitution and others who think it's the economy. It is thus important to interrogate these two narratives to fully understand the current political scenario.
The ‘constitutioners’ or ‘bridge builders’ argue that Kenya's problem emanates from political exclusion occasioned by divisive elections as nearly half of the country feels disenfranchised every general election by being left of government.
The main argument of this thinking is that in every five years, things grind to a halt for about an year or more to occasion a general election that leaves the country more divided and in economic ruin.
The solution to this, they propose, is to expand the Executive through making the top leadership more democratic through the re-creation of five posts of president, deputy president, prime minister and two deputies.
This would lead to Kenyans having more faces of the various tribes at the top, and, therefore, lead to more of them feeling included in government through shared political power and prosperity (state largesse).
To achieve the above, 35 per cent of our national revenue shall be devolved to the 47 counties, creation of 70 new constituencies to ensure fair representation and access to resources such as CDF and to top up Parliament with new MPs (100+) to make it gender compliant.
In addition, that we return to the old system of ministers (Executive) being parliamentarians as a means of enhancing accountability, and that we re-introduce the office of official opposition leader.
Another key proposal is the disciplining of judges through the creation of the office of the judiciary ombudsman, appointed by the President and whose powers have been consolidated, with the attorney general sitting in all the three arms of government.
HUSTLERS' IDEOLOGY
The second ideology is that of ‘hustlers’, who argue the problem is economic. That over the years, Kenya’s political economy has been producing huge inequalities, with a group of very few rich individuals at the top and millions of poor people at the bottom.
This argument is backed by data from Knight & Frank (2020) which reveals in our $100 billion economy, there are 90 dollar billionaires, while the rest 50 million share the remaining $10 billion. Concurrently, offshore financial deposits (stolen wealth) from Kenya are estimated at $148 billion (Sh14.8 trillion) (ICG20189).
Unsurprisingly, Kenya has 8,300 dollar billionaires and millionaires, further demonstrating this glaring inequality and reality. For one to make it to the top one per cent of the population, you have to have a net worth of Sh2.2 million ($22,000), yet 16 million Kenyans live below the poverty line of less than $2 (Sh200) a day.
According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, three quarters of those in formal employment earn Sh50,000 and below in a month. Unemployment remains high at 4.9 per cent between the age groups of 15-64 years, with only 3.91 million of them employed in the formal sector, while 15.052 million in the informal economy.
There are about 14 million informal businesses, with about six million of them being a bit ‘organised’, while the eight million others are mobile, day-to-day business hustles. The two types combined constitute 85% of the country’s employment, thus the informal sector is indeed the biggest driver of our economy (Hustlers economy).
In terms of income, the average daily earning of the mama mbogas, boda bodas, wheelbarrow users etc is Sh200- Sh300. However, this informal businesses gets credit from informal lenders at about 120 per cent, due to lack of collateral, while the formal ones get it at 13 per cent from the banks.
This skewed access to credit is due to the over-borrowing by government to finance its ballooning expenditure since the banks prefer lending to the former as it provides better security and return on investment.
The huge appetite for borrowing by government has occasioned a huge public debt that is driven by development corruption through huge mega projects that end up benefiting a very few group of people to the disadvantage of the majority of Kenyans.
The beneficiaries use the kickbacks to invest in many of the productive sectors of the economy, thus crowding out upcoming investors, who don’t have access to this ‘free money’ and privilege. The masses get the crumbs through trickle-down economics from the big businesses.
The big gunners then use their financial muscle to acquire or maintain political power through monetised elections as they easily mobilise their ethnic base to ‘vote for their own’ since it’s their time to ‘eat’.
Any loss in the elections is thus perceived not as a fair outcome since it’s a loss of access to state largesse via appointment to lucrative posts and more so, government budget and projects.
This ideology explains the reason behind the exponential increase in public debt being that there are more people who want to share the cake instead of baking it, through stealing of govt funds. It’s the formula of how a very small elite club of people is produced and re-produced thus creating total state capture of the Kenya’s political economy.
The ideology proposes solutions to the economic quagmire through greater investment in the informal economy through measures such as access to credit to increase productivity and for the taxpayers to create new wealth and also for the country to pay off the huge public debt, currently more than Sh0 trillion (our total nominal GDP).
The reasoning is that economic reform and recovery shall be achieved through measures such as increased access to affordable credit, maximisation of value chains addition, a robust contributory healthcare system based on one’s basic income, a housing scheme that ensures affordable housing and mortgage facilities to low income earners as a means of land re-use and consolidation and externalising of our markets to emergent local cottage industries.
Another measure is fiscal discipline to reduce wastage, seepage, corruption and size of government. Further, that every Kenyan should have equal opportunity politically, economically and socially.
In short, government programmes should target those at the bottom of the pyramid to create new men and women who will then transform the country in their own small ways.
Kenya will not be changed by a single election, but the a thousand changes in those small places that look insignificant and by ordinary people, who are doing their best to make a difference.
The two ideological underpinnings are indeed persuasive. The constitutional argument is to a large extent formative and, therefore, processual, while the economic one is fairly summative and thus conceptual.
As Hayek said, politics is who gets what where and how. The 2022 contest shall be about resource sharing and distribution and Kenyans will have a choice to make towards their own economic determinism and future.
