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In Kenya, its everybody's turn to eat

Kenya, is a third world country facing lots of problems from a capital city with water shortages, national blackouts, crime to bloody elections. A lot of explanations have been fronted as to the root of our problems.

The politicians have taken almost all the blame, closely followed by our tribes and then other smaller reasons. Careful examination of all of this roots will reveal that you are far from the truth.

As it has been pointed out, Kenya is a capitalist state, and before you jump to a conclusion that that is where the problem lies, it is not. Capitalism merely rewards the smartest and those who have the capital.  In capitalism, every one aims for a chance to be successful, and more often than not, aim to out succeed the rest.

Well, aiming to out succeed the others is not a problem, but like drugs, can become a very dangerous habit. Like a junkie who will go to any level to get the next fix, people aiming to be successful can go to any level to reach such heights. The result of this is that morals go out of the window and pockets help weigh decisions, leading to a greedy nation.

A greedy nation is what Kenyans are. Like a man drowning in floods that come out of nowhere, Kenyans will clutch at all straws to get to the top. A Kenyan will take themselves as an individual who must succeed with the rest of the Kenyans been a means to the end. Your average Kenyan has therefore transformed to the popular bad guy that does very unethical things in your average Hollywood movie.

We therefore have politicians who will mislead Kenyans in their quest to get to the top. People and forests have been torn down by Kenyans who have been promised a hefty meal once "we" get there. The nation has become the new beautiful girl in town who everyone wants to sleep with and no one intends to marry. Whoever sleeps with the girl first gets the honour of bragging and showing off.

We are now transfixed at  short term goals; the quickest way to become the richest man in our lifetime. everyone wants to be John D. Rockefeller , a man whose wealth amounted to 1.5% of the total wealth of the USA, the world's wealthiest country by then.

As a result, we have resulted to corruption, public plundering of resources and elimination of our competitors by all means. Such an approach has been known to be successful, but not when everyone is trying it out. When everyone tries it out, you end up in a lockdown: - A situation where a few appear to have succeeded but on closer examination, the people as a whole end up not to have succeeded as they end up creating a circle that traps anyone trying to get out of it.

In short, you end up with a country where the costs of production (such as electricity, water, living ) and cots of doing business (corruption ) are high. This makes the country less competitive in a global economy. Our industries end up producing expensive goods that can not compete with goods manufactured elsewhere. As a result, we have to close our borders to cheaper goods manufactured elsewhere. The name of this practice is "promoting local content". In English, they call it burying your head in sand.

As each one in the chain demands to eat their share of the national cake, the cost of production increases. By the time the consumers buys petrol from their local station, a sizeable proportion has been "eaten". Police then get their chance to "eat" from the matatus and the criminals. Civil servants "eat" in their offices as they speed up services and locate lost files. The civil servants not in a position to "eat" directly from the public have to eat too, and their go the missing government supplies. about the missing government supplies, even their bosses wont spare the stores. Those not employed by the government have to recover what they fed to government officers by charging high costs for their products and services, some go a step ahead by taking advantage of their employees. Private employees meanwhile have to "eat" from their employer by stealing from them. Those lucky enough to be unemployed have the opportunity to steal from the rest, after all, isn't that what they cal karma? That is the circle that we are now in.

The question is how long before we are no longer in a position to "promote local content" . At that point, we will need to devise new ways of eating, for the chain will have been disrupted, at a hefty cost.

So ladies and gentlemen, make hay while the sun shines, eat all you can before we become a victim of our own undoing.


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Comments

Anonymous said…
I have just stumbled on this site, I like alot I shall become a follower for real. Good work
Dennis Kioko said…
Thank you, & welcome back.

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