Economic growth and rising poverty

Opinion
Kenya Times,
17/03/07

By Ndung’u Wainaina

WHEN United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report on Human Development Index was released recently, the Government reacted angrily and dismissed the report as “inaccurate and exaggerated.”

The same lethargy to truth and hostile criticism met the Society for International Development report (2005) on the inequality within the Kenyan society.

Whether the Government accepts or not the truth remains: Over 57 per cent of Kenyans are living and trapped in a vicious cycle of abject poverty. Both reports received acclaim and resonance in our society for it is the one “wearing the shoe.” You cannot “cook figures” to distort a reality.

For that reason, the assertion by Finance Minister Amos Kimunya and his counterpart in National Development Henry Obwocha that the Government is set to release the updated report on the true picture of the poverty index is welcome but won’t change the impact and poverty situation in the country.

While the Government keeps flashing out and flagging high economic growth at 5.8 per cent, the reality is that millions of Kenyans are hitherto immeasurably poverty and a very small clique of about 10 per cent control over 42 per cent of the country’s wealth.

We are trapped in a capitalism market value system where anti-public discourse is profoundly dis-empowering.

This small filthy rich group largely benefiting from milking state enterprise strongly feels overburdened to pay tax to sustain the public sector. The contradiction in this phenomenon is that for the poor, the public sector is the only opportunity existing to access education, healthcare, security, transport among other crucial services.

In this situation, the moral imperative for development is replaced by tide of accumulation and self-enrichment. The school of thought behind this conspiracy is that government is not responsible and obliged to promote equitable development and neither is it a job creating centre.
Accordingly, it is the responsibility of the market. The Government is only there to create market and investor friendly conditions.

When government talks of investor-friendly environment it is saying access to cheap slave labour and allowing foreign investors to bring in raw materials at almost no cost which kill our own sectors of production like agriculture.

Instead of protecting and nurturing our key sectors of economy we are exposing them to unfair competition with goods that are produced at highly subsidized and protected environment.

The message that these two ministers were communicating while refuting the human development index and SID reports respectively is that “Kenyans you did great struggle but we are in power and are delivering.” What a sarcastic view!

The philosophical and ideological thinking behind this dehumanizing free capitalism market driven economy traces its history to the Sessional Paper No.10 of 1965 which President Kibaki was a principal architect.

The pillars of this paper were centralized economy, investment and allocation of resources to high potential return areas and top-down economic growth (re-distributive change).

The Structural Adjustment Programmes of 80s and 90s reinforced this capitalist economy condemning more Kenyans to poverty morass. It is the same philosophical underpinning contained in the vision 2030.

This elite based economic growth without human development denies majority access to means of production, dis-empower people and cumulatively increase inequalities.

We have to create the prerequisite legal and policy framework that enhance and add value to our informal sector which in the long run will form backbone of our industrialization and part of solution to unemployment.

The ‘Kibakinomics’ is about embedding free market economy whereby transformation of state is conceptualized in the realm of redistribution in which the capitalist market grows without control provided it reaches 10 per cent. Once there, fiscal resources shall be available for redistribution.

What a deliberate policy and an easy way of crafting a society of people who become consumers of change? Ever thought the origin and rationale of the argument that “what this country needs is a good manager?” This capitalism market driven system is glorified by those enjoying the advantage and leverage of its benefit who happen to be the 10 per cent owning the 42 per cent of the country’s wealth. We have to desist from talking about disadvantage as individual disadvantage for this means that the system is fine only that one is lacking space and advantage.

Solution is a concrete systemic transformation.

It is significant to note that the majority cluster of groups that experience this horrendous sin of impoverishment happens to be women, youth, landless and urban slum dwellers.

The same clusters form the bulky of voters who by virtual of their vulnerability become easy targets for manipulation to sell their votes and engage in electoral violence.

Poverty besides being the single biggest threat to security, human dignity, state stability and human rights, it also undermines consolidation of democracy.

Poverty and inequality has created a country that is undemocratic, unjust, condone culture of intolerance and ethinicisation.

President Kibaki and his two ministers need to realize that values of human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedom are not privilege but entitlements to a human being.

Abject poverty happens to be source and breeding ground for crime and vicious conflicts. Government need to come to terms with one single reality that poverty does not fit in the narrow politics of politicians.

Our solution as Kenyans is not to rely on magnanimity of a person but it is to ensure we have a democratic constitution that provides for justiciable Bill of Rights acting as the cornerstone of our democracy and enshrines the values of human dignity, equality and freedom.

We have to construct a people-centred economy that values every human being on an equal basis and enjoy a life of dignity.

Our key challenge is to broadening participation in the economy, extend opportunities to all and deepen the quality of social development but not under the current economic paradigm.

* The writer is a Programme Officer, NCEC and Director, International Centre for Policy and Conflict. E-mail: wainainan@icpcafrica.org