By Kipkoech Tanui
NAIROBI, KENYA: Some 129 years ago the Berlin Conference took place and historians prefer to diarise this 1884 event in Berlin, under Otto Von Bismarck, as the Scramble for or Partition of Africa.
It was the turning point for African States as they slipped into the yoke of direct colonial rule. Earlier, they had just been under their influence and control through trade links.
The trade itself was lopsided, and some would say it has not changed a bit because of the magnitude to which there is trade imbalance between Africa and the West. What is significant is that for these imperial states, Africa was the source of cheap raw materials such as its diverse mineral wealth.
To date, despite our claim to sovereignty, we still are as a Continent the backbone of European and American economies, as their main source of raw materials and destination of their finished products. In turn they remain the chaps whose doors we knock regularly, begging bowl in hand.
So as not to bore you with figures, let us just take the case of coffee and tea that we are good at producing, but remain products we export to be used for blending to produce the world’s best. The rich class in Kenya buys it when imported as exotic and classic coffee. Value addition you ask? We do very little my friend, and if you believe the tea you buy in the shops are from Kericho, Kisii, Bomet, Nakuru, and Central Kenya, you are a victim of the economic deception in this part of the Continent. As one governor told us recently, Kenyan tea is so expensive because of the blending value, we would not afford if it was to be sold as Grade One in our shops. So what happens is that the lower grades are blended with similarly graded teas from neighbouring States, and packaged as our own teas.
Now you get a feel of what we shall call economic imperialism. In short, it is how the white men conditioned us to like their products and tastes, and then physically pulled out, once they have us on the economic leash. That is how we have remained on their beck and call.
Now let me share with you a story told us by Mr Geoffrey Wachira, the chap who helped revive Invesco Insurance and wrote a book about it. He is an expert in Good Corporate Governance and this week, we also got long lessons on the subject from Dr Joshua Okumbe and Mr Guru Wachira, all of Centre for Corporate Governance.
The summary of what they teach is that organisations and states come down because of poor leadership, depreciation of trust in the leaders, and ineptitude or negligence by leaders to map out the risks ahead and detour the iceberg. This really sounds like the case with Kenya if we were to look at this political conglomerate as a corporate entity.
Wachira told us of this lawman who after Independence, while at the State Law Office, was assigned to take around a delegation from Singapore. This economic powerhouse, just like the Asian Tigers, was on the same economic footing — meaning GDP cluster — as Kenya then.
They had come to Kenya to try and see how it was coping with self-rule. They went back with our blueprints for multi-sector growth. Unlike we in Kenya, they didn’t restrict the contents to bookshelves and bars or other social places where we revive them, only to show how academically informed we are. No, they put it to practice, blending it with their own ideas.
Today as guys are arrested for dropping chewing gum and cigarette butts on the sparkling streets of Singapore, in Kenya those who throw paper-bags stuffed with human faeces into other people’s compounds are just frowned upon. In fact, we have justified this practice as a function of poverty, and even dignified it as ‘flying toilets’, ignoring the fact that the poverty in Africa is manufactured and perpetuated by the various political regimes.
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