Kenyan Shake-up?/Corruption: The Monster That Ate Tomorrow
Pajamas Media looks at Kenya’s brewing political scrap.
Former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi played the role of modernizer and democratizer– but in reality Moi ran an extravagant corruption machine.
President Emilio Mwai Khbaki ran on a “let’s end corruption” ticket. However, he’s made little progress– arguably no progress.
From Kenya’s The Standard:
President Kibaki is consistently being seen as reneging on his pre-election pledge of zero-tolerance to corruption and he may need to decisively make a break from the past and actually ensure that corruption suspects, irrespective of their positions, are hauled to court.
Here’s background, albeit from a South African website. The article dates from December 2004. Disenchantment with Kibaki’s failure to reform runs deep.
Corruption haunts, scars, and in some cases, destroys governments. In the developing world corruption is the monster that ate tomorrow and continues to eat the future. Kenya’s “orange revolt” has the marks of a democratic shock wave spurred by public disgust with corruption.
Corrupt governments and corrupt businesses is one reason many developmental advocates now push “micro-economic solutions.” Actually, micro-development has been a buzz word in developmental aid since the 1980s, in part because it works.
Here’s an essay (dating from 2002) I wrote after visiting several micro-development projects in Uganda and Kenya.
The lede:
What kind of fire does $15 ignite in Paidha, Uganda, or Thika, Kenya?
What caliber of economic and entrepreneurial fire, that is.
For Mary Wanango, the bean lady in the Paidha town market (two colorful acres of intense open-air sales action every Wednesday morning), the impact of a $15 loan has been enormous.
Mary, dressed in a cotton rainbow, is all business about beans. Her initial $15, provided by the woman’s business coop at St. Peters Anglican Church in Paidha, turned her into an international trader.
“I now cross the border to the Congo town of Kudikoka,” she told me through a translator. “Because I have capital, the loan, I can now buy several kilos, 20 kilos in bulk, cheaper than I buy in Uganda.”
Her business has boomed. “My customers here in Paidha buy more at a lower price. I have repaid the first loan and sought another.” Her import cost at border customs, if the Congolese and Ugandan border cops don’t pump for a bribe? “1500 Uganda shillings.”
That’s roughly 80 cents. Don’t sniff, that’s steep government taxation for Uganda’s rural West Nile Province, where 1200 shillings is a good day’s wage.
Exchange rates and local economics, however, only begin to suggest the potential economic impact of small but highly directed loans, or in some cases, small-scale aid programs.
Aid teaches corruption. I was in Kenya last month. Cute kids “How are you?” so many ask. A few are bold: “give me money”. Still cute at 6. Not at all cute 20 years later, with the same second statement but now as police officers or local bureaucrats: “give me money.” Just like they learned 20 years ago — from aid.
Comment by Tom Grey - Liberty Dad — 11/24/2005 @ 9:35 pm
So many third world governments aree kleptocracies that discourage business. When I was in Kenya I saw wonderful, handcrafted furniture being built on the road from Nairobi to Isac Dinesin’s coffe farm. I asked the guide if they exported to developed countries. His reply was that the furniture builders didn’t want to become too successful because the government would come in and take their businesses away from them. We don’t realize how important the right to private property backed by the courts is. We take it for granted but it is rare in third world countries. Yes, micro loans can help people start and run subsistence level businesses, but when they become too successful they can lose them to the government or a crony of the people in power. For economic success there has to be a right to privaye property becked by courts and a government that doesn’t steal from its citizens.
Comment by JJ — 11/25/2005 @ 4:51 pm