Kenya's growing infrastructure
Kenya’s economy in the past decade has made great strides despite numerous challenges most notably the 2007-2008 Post Election Violence as well as endemic corruption, cronyism, and elitism that make up some of the systemic challanges and failures of Kenya’s political and social setup.
Kenya Business 2009 Round Up
Despite this challenges Kenya remains a country with great potential, remarkable innovation and hard working citizens. These attributes have led the Kenyan Gross Domestic Product(G.D.P) tripling in size within a space of nine years. Analysts have attributed this success fundamentally to the lazier faire or hands off approach of the current Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki who is credited with implementing reforms that have seen widespread investment in education, infrastructure as well as opening up credit and the financial sector to local players.
While the Kibaki Administration can be credited with the above. It is important that we deliberately set out in the new constitution to enforce the principle of subsidiarity which protects smaller institutions like small business from unfair competition from larger corporates whether local or foreign. We should also create an environment that allows larger enterprise to set up cheaply and pull as much human resource from Kenya and the East African region to make Kenya a hub for technology and innovation in the region.
Kenya should also take advantage of the world food shortage and curve a niche for itself in exporting more food to the rest of the world. This is dependent on Land Reform as well as developing food processing capabilities in the medium and long term.
Below are some of the early indications that this is indeed happening.
- What next after the Mobile revolution in Kenya? - http://bit.ly/cOX4l
- Kenya’s Tech Scene 2010 (KTS 2010) - http://bit.ly/5qfCoS
- Ali Khan’s 2 cents on how to be RICH! - http://bit.ly/pb3VY
- Nairobi’s Toilet Malls. - http://bit.ly/3vZznr
If you have a business start up in Kenya tell us about it in the section below and lets get Kenya moving forward.
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John siku mingi sana! Great blog you have going on here. There have been some great strides being made in Kenya in the economic arena, but the political arena has a knack for holding Kenya back. I am concerned with the draft constitution that plans to leave the treasury in the hands of the MPs without any clear structure/ responsibility:
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/-/539552/840222/-/item/0/-/nsbvrhz/-/index.html
I like what you are doing with your blog, kudos!
Manyuru
Yes Manyuru a lot of strides in Kenya but poor political structures hold us back.
About MPs it always best elected representatives approve the budget the other options are actually worse. However our MPs leave a lot to be desired.
John, I agree with you that MPs should approve the budget. However, the proposal I was referencing suggests that MPs through commissions and committees they have established, will take care of the day to day activities the treasury is currently undertaking. That sounds like an inefficient system which will have plenty of confusion on who takes care of what.