Democracy is not Everything

Very interesting article which I found in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper. Couldn't agree more.

By DONALD B. KIPKORIRemail the author
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Posted Friday, July 25 2008 at 22:06

The more I look at where we stand as a country, the more I realise we are dancing on the same spot if not backwards.

For the past two months, our secondary schools have gone up in smoke, literally, and as usual we form committees to tell us what happened. To every national crisis, scandal, accident and emergency we form committees, commissions, taskforces and probe teams. Do we really need all these? Isn’t this culture of “investigations” reflective of a failed national leadership?

On December 12, 1963, we were gifted self-rule and bequeathed a country that was at par with countries of South East Asia and above average in Africa.

Since then and through the three administrations of Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi and now Mwai Kibaki we have barely managed to retain our place of pride in Africa, a continent of poverty and civil strife.

Time and again, the three governments have reminded Kenyans that we are an island of peace and a prosperous economy; a cynical truth.

Middle income

And now we are being told that by 2030, we shall be a middle-income country. World Bank divides world economies into four: lower, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income.

Lower income countries are those whose gross national income (GNI) per capita is $765 and below, lower middle income have GNI per capita between $766 and $3,035, upper middle income are between $3,036 and $9,385, and upper income are those over $9,385.

Is Kenya able to pull itself from its current GNI per capita of $580 to $3,036 in 22 years, nay, even in 100 years? I doubt. I maybe wrong.

In 22 years, with its current population growth rate of 2.6 per cent, our population will be around 65 million. To have a per capita of $3,036 in 2030, we ought to have developed our economy to have a GNI of $197 billion! Our GNI now is $18.7 billion.

Can we grow our economy 10 times in 10 years? Let us put it another way; how did Singapore grow its economy 53, yes, 53 times between 1965 and now?

In 1965, Britain as it did in Kenya, gifted the people of Singapore with independence. I use the word gifted knowingly and deliberately. Independence came to both Kenya and Singapore around the same time and not because of active war of liberation as some always want us to believe.

Mau Mau was vanquished in 1952 and it would, therefore, have never been the reason for our independence. We got independence because of deliberate change in British colonial policy. At independence, Kenya and Singapore had nearly same economies, but what happened that we took opposite directions?

When Singapore got independence, its economy was entirely based on income it received from serving as a British military base and also in serving as an entrepot. An entrepot is merely a point in sea routes that doesn’t materially change the port of call.

The islanders were illiterate and lived in squalor. Its per capita was $303. A modern example is Djibouti which is a French and an American military base and once in a while, an entry point for Ethiopian goods and nothing more.

Singapore had its economy transformed from a squalor entrepot into a highly sophisticated society in one generation, thanks to Lee Kuan Yew.

Lee established People’s Action Party (PAP) with which he won the elections in 1959 and became a dictator prime minister until 1990 when on his own volition stepped down to allow his family and surrogates to continue, but calling himself Chief Mentor!

On becoming prime minister, Lee set himself only three goals: national security, growing the economy and tackling social issues. Singapore suffered from problems of a small population, limited land space and absence of natural resources.

Lee had to come up with strategic plans to achieve his dreams by using his people and location of the island. He began this path of transforming his country by despotic but benevolent leadership. The government became the ultimate if not the sole determinant of land allocation, labour and capital resources. Anyone had to toe the government line or jump into the sea.

As a dictator, Lee set up efficient and transparent government institutions, removed all protection and subsidies to industry, encouraged and facilitated an education system that churned out highly-skilled and trained manpower, and offered an enabling environment to local and foreign investors.

The port of Singapore was transformed into a class of its own offering shipping services that are efficient, quality and on timelines. Singapore’s port and airport are now must ports of call in South East Asia.

By using gloved fists, Lee transformed Singapore in one generation and according to World Bank statistics, made it the fifth richest country in the world with a GNI of $132 billion and GNI per capita of $28,730. Lee never promised democracy. And he did not deliver democracy. He made three promises and he fulfilled them all.

Our three successive governments have done to us the opposite of what Lee did: Each made promises to give us heaven and when we looked up, we found the earth beneath us had moved! Examples abound connecting the three governments that none of them was or is inspired leadership. Kenyatta sowed the seeds of tribalism, corruption, impunity and nepotism, Moi watered it and Kibaki is enjoying the harvest.

In a land of pygmies, a man standing 4 feet is a giant and that is what Kenya has been for a long time in Africa.

Singapore is bereft of natural resources and with less than 1.47 per cent of its land arable, yet visionary leadership has made it one of the richest countries in the world. Kenya is endowed with more people, more arable land, wildlife and scenic beaches but we compete with Uganda, Somalia and Sierra Leone in bottom ranking of UN human development indices.

Kenya has a highly respected trained manpower, near sufficient institutes of higher learning, a functioning Judiciary and a plethora of regulatory bodies but national leadership lacks to gel them together.

History shows that it is leaders who make nation-states realise their dreams. Think of Alexander the Great who made a backwater Macedonian principality conquer the then known world creating the Greek Empire.

Stated vision

Kenya sorely needs a leader to take it to the next level. Some people may support President Kibaki’s laid-back style but it is a style that will take us nowhere. It is because of this style that ministers sing different tunes and a culture of impunity allowed to permeate across all strata.

In civilised countries, ministers whose dockets exhibit weaknesses like they have been experienced in the ministries of Finance, Education, Internal Security, Defence and Immigration, would have had the ministers resign before they are fired. Not in Kenya; here ministers beg the President to allow them to “step aside”!

Across Africa, the only country with the kind of leadership needed is Rwanda. Under President Paul Kagame, Rwanda has undergone a real paradigm shift in her people and leadership attitude to what they want. And Rwanda will be the only country to achieve its stated vision of being middle-income economy by 2020, 10 years before Kenya’s pyrrhic target.

Kenya will continue with its usual business of producing papers, reports and visions, and setting up committees, commissions and probe teams and 2030 will find us where we are, if not worse. Till we get inspired and get visionary leadership in the mould of Lee and Kagame, we can as well go to sleep.


http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/442756/-/item/2/-/15o38hv/-/index.html