Graft mints instant millionaires but breeds poverty

A recent study by Knight Frank indicates that Kenya minted a fairly high number of dollar millionaires in the last few years. The potential to attract investment and build wealth in this country is high as a lot has been laid down in terms of capital infrastructural investments to aid the ease of doing business and sustain economic development. There is a lot that attracts investment in this country: a fairly well educated human resource, an arable land with fairly good climatic conditions, road networks, SGR and the three major ports of Mombasa, Lamu and Kisumu which provide a gateway to other markets. Despite all these, many of us still live in very deplorable conditions. In urban areas we have homeless people and those living in squalid conditions. It seems that as we mint billionaires, we breed poverty at the same time. When millionaires become billionaires and the number of people living in deplorable conditions keeps increasing we must ask ourselves why. We must ask why the factors of production that create millionaires are not creating jobs for a majority of the people; Why slums keep expanding with the expansion of the economy and most critically why most of the millionaires are not in manufacturing or tech innovation, the two areas that have the potential to create massive jobs at all levels of the economic pyramid. The answer to these questions is corruption. When people make money at the expense of job creation and solving societal problems, then we end up building an economy where a small elite has money and access to economic privileges while majority live in poverty. Granted, a lot has been done in the last four years. Among other positive trends, the war against corruption has gained traction and the mighty have come down crushing. Some are in court and the recovery of assets is a game changer. The Assets Recovery Authority has done well to effectively utilise the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2009 to identify, trace, freeze and recover proceeds of crime. But there is still a lot that can be done. A year to the next election, both sides of the political divide seem to be looking at the folks at the bottom of the pyramid. The faction associated with Deputy President William Ruto is selling what it calls the bottom-up economic model. The DP is extremely passionate about this model but we are yet to understand the nuances of how it works. The proponents of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) also seem to be concerned by the plight of the poor and the economic disparities and have come up with an economic model aimed at taking development to the lowest political unit — the ward. But politicians will always make lofty election promises and draw up with great manifestos. It is upon Kenyans to be more discerning and thoroughly interrogate the campaign pledges. We must use our sovereign power enshrined in Article One of the Constitution to determine the basis upon which power will be given to the elected leaders in the next election. We need to evaluate these leaders not on what they will do, but what we want them to do. Candidates seeking to be MPs must be put to task on how they will use National Government Constituency Development Funds to solve the problems identified by the people. Presidential candidates need to help us understand how their policies will address both the big national issues and the problems of people who cannot even afford basic needs. —hesbonhansen@gmail.com

Graft mints instant millionaires but breeds poverty

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