I think the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will not give us solutions to the challenges that we have over the high cost of living.
In my view, IMF and the World Bank will give us policies that favour them as lending institutions.
We are better off coming up with our own homegrown solutions on lowering the cost of living.
But like any other stakeholder, and everybody else, they have a right to appear before the National Dialogue Committee to give their suggestions.
But the truth of the matter is that IMF and the World Bank will not provide any solutions to the problems we have.
In fact, they will add us more problems over and above what we already have.
I’m saying this because all the polices and all the programmes that IMF and the World Bank have done in the past have led to severe economic dents in the countries that have adopted their policies.
We have seen it, even here in Kenya, we are in deep debt partly because of the advice and polices of the IMF and the World Bank.
So, in my view, the two bodies should be given an opportunity to appear before the National Dialogue Committee.
However, not much attention should be given to them because they will not provide any solutions.
We have many Kenyans who can come up with home grown solutions to the economic problems.
We have economists and institutions that can advise the committee on the best way to solve the problems of the high cost of living.
These are the people that the committee should give attention if they truly want to address the issue of the high cost of living.
Otherwise, relying on the World Bank and the IMF to get solutions to the cost of living, caused by the sharp rise in the cost of basic commodities, will be a waste of time.
Economist spoke to the Star
