Tag Archives: Kenya

In which I write about Africa’s emerging drug problem

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The globalization of terrorism over the last decade has created a situation in which the number one threat to international security is no longer strong, conquering states, but failing ones that provide safe havens for terrorist organizations. Drug trafficking in Africa reflects the heart of this concern. The illicit trade is both contributing to the deterioration of state institutions – which could result in state collapse – and financing terrorist groups like AQIM and Al-Shabaab. So far the international community has not treated the matter with the urgency it deserves. The consequences of inaction will be dire, as has already been seen in Central America. The region’s misfortune of being an important transit route between South American cocaine production centers and North American consumers has resulted in the highest murder rates in the world, fueled by transnational organized crime and drug trafficking. The statistics are astonishing: Among 20-year old men in some Central American countries, 1 in 50 will be murdered before they are 32. Africa, a region already replete with weak states, might be next if drug trafficking on the continent continues to grow.

More on this here.

Is our children learning? (Credit to Bushism)

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The Guardian reports:

More than two out of every three pupils who have finished two years of primary school in east Africa fail to pass basic tests in English, Swahili or numeracy, according to a new report, Are our children learning?.

The differences in performance vary both across and within countries:

The report found large differences in average test scores between countries in east Africa. Kenyan pupils perform best in literacy and numeracy. Ugandan children perform worst in the lower school years, but slowly overtake Tanzanian children and outperform them after six years in school.

But it is the within-country differences that are cause for a rethink of education policy in east Africa. Kids in private schools appear to do much better than those in public schools (the gap is most stark in Tanzania, 28 percentage points). The Ugandan school system appears to be the worst, with barely half of EVEN the private school kids passing.

In a finding likely to fuel the debate on public versus private schools, the report said students in private schools perform better than pupils in state schools in all three countries – a difference particularly marked inTanzania, where the pass rate among 10 to 16-year-olds for numeracy and literacy tests was 47% in state schools, compared with 75% in private schools.

“In part, the difference between Tanzania and the other countries is likely to be driven by the much smaller share of pupils attending private schools, even among the non-poor, suggesting they must be particularly selective,” said the report. In Kenya, the pass rate in private schools was 83%, compared with 75% in government schools, while in Uganda the gap was 53% to 36%.

As a product of the Kenyan public school system (and a Wazimba for life), I believe that public schools are the way to go. With some thought and innovation, public schools can be made to work – and in the process serve as the best chance for inter-generational SES mobility. The debate should be about how to improve public schools, as opposed to over the false choice of quantity vs. quality.

A possible model could be something akin to the Kenyan National Schools concept in which select schools across the country get extra resources not only to boost performance but also to act as testing grounds for new learning tools – which can then inform policy to help “Provincial Schools” catch up. Of course this would ineluctably create a multi-tier school system at the beginning, but it is arguably better than a system in which most (if not nearly all, see Uganda and Tanzania) public schools are failing.

It is important to note that in Kenya the best high schools have historically been public. With investment and openness to experimentation and innovation this tradition can be maintained.

H/T @AAA_ipregroup 

Energy in East Africa

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Still on my ongoing project on commodities in Africa, I came across an interesting piece on prospecting for oil in East Africa in which an industry expert had this to say:

The success rate in this region is outstanding. To provide some context, oil and gas exploration typically has a success rate just 10-20%. That’s terrible when you think about. It can cost $50 million to sink an offshore well, and the chance of making a financial return could be as low as one in ten.

But East Coast African energy exploration stands out from the crowd because in all but a few cases they hit oil or gas. To be exact — the success rate has been 87%. A strike rate of close to 9 out of 10 is almost unheard of.

Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda have commercially viable oil reserves. Tanzania has gas and, together with Kenya, has stepped up offshore prospecting in the Indian ocean.

And it is not just foreign MNCs that are in on the game. Locals, in collaboration with foreign investors, are also getting a piece of the energy bonanza in East Africa. Business Daily, a Kenyan paper, recently profiled one George Kariithi, a businessman who started off as a marketing executive and has since built multiple companies in the wider region. His latest investment is in Kenya’s emerging coal sector.

Quick hits

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HIV self-testing showing promising results in Malawi.

Kenyan legislators, who make upwards of $175,000 a year, now have $3000 chairs to snooze on.

Jina Moore on the white correspondent’s burden in “Africa.”

This sad event in Zambia adds significance to my planned fieldwork there in the coming year on Chinese-African relations.

And lastly, celebrating the informal economy on the Continent:

[youtube.com/watch?v=Yi0fNa1G4-4&sns=fb]

The Material Value of the Kenyan Presidency

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The following campaign message by Martha Karua, a presidential candidate in Kenya’s election in March of 2013, highlights the material value of the Kenyan presidency.

“Tufanye hesabu tena…Let’s count the cost and keep all of us accountable. A recent research suggested that some presidential candidates will spend as much as Ksh. 11 billion shillings ($130 million) each to try and capture the presidency. Now, at around Ksh. 3.2 million a month including allowances, the President of Kenya earns Ksh 38.4 million ($452,000) a year, much more than what President Obama, the German Chancellor and the PM of England earn, and which translates to Ksh. 192 million in a five year term. So in one five year term, the most a president can hope to earn is around Ksh. 192 million, quite a substantial sum by world standards.

My question; why would anyone spend Ksh. 11 billion to only earn Ksh. 192 million? Does this math add up to you dear Kenyans? How would that individual be hoping to recover the remaining Ksh. 10.78 billion to cover their campaign expenses including buying of votes and bribery? The answer is simple! Corruption and impunity! Inflated government tenders to well connected family and friends. These inflated tenders drive the cost of living for all Kenyans sky high, the very reason ordinary Kenyans can barely make ends meet last 49 years!
Do the Math!”

Saitoti, Ojode Dead in Copter Crash

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Internal security minister George Saitoti and his assistant Orwa Ojode died in a helicopter crash in Ngong Forest on Sunday. Messrs Saitoti and Ojode were headed to Ndhiwa in Nyanza Province. The cause of the accident is unknown. Five other people died in the crash.

More on this here.

More on Drug Trafficking in Kenya (Complete Edition)

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The scary part of all of this is that President Kibaki’s alleged mistress and daughter are implicated to have been at the center of a drug trafficking ring. The elite presidential escort group was involved in the protection of Armenian drug traffickers.

The only good thing in all of this is that KTN has been able to air the truth, despite earlier attempts by the police to intimidate the two investigative journalists.

[youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q4RAAwz9jko#!]

Reality Show Meets Agricultural Extension in Kenya

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[youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lQABDLVoQWM#!]

H/T The Guardian.

 

On Industrial Policy (In which I concur with Blattman 1001%)

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I have made the case before here, here and here.

For more here’s Blattman, commenting on Industrial policy:

“You can’t pick winners” is the knee-jerk retort to the mention of anything that even rhymes with industrial policy. I would call it the triumph of ideology over evidence, except that even “ideology” feels like a generous term. Lazy thinking might be a more accurate description. Some have given the question a great deal of thought, but most have not.

I’m not suggesting that the paper above has the right answer (odds are, like most papers, it does not). I’m also not suggesting that governments can pick winners (probably they can’t). Nor am I forgetting that industrial policy is easily politicized and distorted (as surely it is). So what am I talking about?

More on this here.

Kenya’s Obscene Politician’s Salaries: Still a Problem

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President Kibaki will probably not win the Mo Ibrahim Prize because of his questionable reelection but he sure will leave office a happy man.

According to the Star:

“When President Kibaki walks out of State House after the next elections, he will go home with a hefty gratuity—Sh50 million. The gratuity, the highest to be paid in the history of the country, has already been factored into the 2012/2013 budget by newly appointed Finance minister Njeru Githae.

Apart from the one-off payment of the gratuity, Githae also proposes to increase the annual allocation for retired presidents from the current Sh17.7 million to Sh30.2 million. The increase is meant to cater for the monthly pension which is due to Kibaki plus what taxpayers have been paying Moi since he left office in early 2003. The two will continue to draw the pension for the rest of their lives.”

“……Kibaki will also be entitled to get a monthly pension equal to eighty per cent of his current monthly salary. Kibaki is currently paid a basic monthly salary of Sh2 million (about $26,000) and earns an average of Sh24million ($200,000) a year under the current exchange rate.”

The figures are actually a bit off. Under current exchange ranges 2 million Shillings a month amounts to about US$300,000 annually. Not a bad deal at all.

These figures, however, raise questions about compensation packages for politicians in Kenya. Recently the treasury bribed MPs to pass the new budget and to be nice to the banks with a “gratuity” amounting to almost US$50,000. This on top of their already obscene annual salaries which stand at US$ 161,000, excluding other shady allowances that are never included under official pay. The last time I checked, all things considered, these MPigs (as they are derisively called locally) make upwards of US$174,000.

Per capita income in Kenya (in current dollars) stands at around US$800, with about 40% living below the poverty line.

I have argued before that paying MPs a decent salary may make them less amenable to executive manipulation (For supporting evidence see Barkan and Co. on legislative strength in Africa). But this just takes it too far.

Is regionalism helping the East African Community

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Evidence seems to suggest it is:

Trade between the EAC countries almost doubled from $2.2 billion in 2005 to $4.1 billion in 2010, although regional trade with the rest of the world expanded faster, meaning that the relative share of intra-EAC trade has stayed around 21 per cent since 2005 [The African Average is 11 %]. “Europe enjoys 64 per cent internal trade; our 21 per cent is better than we thought, but we have to make efforts to do better,” said Betty Maina, chairperson of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers.

Kenya still remains the biggest economy in the region, although some convergence is definitely likely to happen in the next decade or so given the large hydrocarbon discoveries in Uganda and off the Tanzanian coast.

The region’s oil consumption rose from 96,000 barrels per day in 2003 to 144,000 barrels per day in 2010, with Kenya consuming more than all the other EAC countries put together. East Africa now accounts for 10 per cent of all mobile subscribers in Africa, with the number of mobile subscribers surging from just three million in 2002 to a staggering 64 million in 2010.

More on this here.

Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawian President, is dead

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The Daily Nation reports the passing away of Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika (May he rest in peace).

Vice President Joyce Banda is next in line to run the country, according to the constitution.

But her succession to power could create new political tensions, because Mutharika kicked her out of the ruling party in 2010 as he chose to groom his brother as heir apparent instead of her.

The official silence has heightened anxieties in Malawi, which has seen growing discontent with Mutharika’s government over the last year. Rights groups have accused Mutharika of mismanaging the economy and trampling on democracy.

Mutharika’s death is a trend that will continue in the next couple of years; of Africa independence-era leaders passing on due to natural causes.

The last time I counted about six current African presidents were born after 1959. This number will only go up in the next couple of years. Hopefully, this will mean a new crop of competent leaders without  the baggage of the anti-colonial movement and with enough confidence to chart a new course for their respective countries rather than merely trying to recreate what their dad’s bosses had back home.

This is not to say that younger leaders will automatically be better. Gambia’s Jammeh and the DRC’s Kabila are constantly redefining the possibilities of youthful mediocrity in important leadership positions.

The looming generational change of guard will mostly benefit the few African states (like Malawi, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, etc) that avoided the scourge of the junior officers in their political history.

President Macky Sall of Senegal could prove to be the first of this new generation of leaders.

Quick hits

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On Somalia’s (non) recovery.

For his troubles with the Wade government Youssou Ndour gets appointed to the new Cabinet of President Sall.

The unintended consequences of the Malian coup continue to mushroom. AQIM seems to be taking advantage of the power vacuum left in the north of the country. Lots of people scared out of their wits over the latest developments.

Scientists in Kenya are working on a male contraception pill. May be this time the product will be good enough to overcome cultural barriers and the gender politics of contraception?

Spring break reading list

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I just finished reading Daniel Branch’s Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya. It is an excellent blend of an academic take on theories of violence and counterinsurgency and a historical narrative of Kenya’s war of independence (as I was taught in primary school) or the “Kikuyu civil war” (which is a lot closer to the truth). The book sheds light on the foundations and dynamics of the Mau Mau rebellion and dispels previous accounts which argue that the cleavages that defined the war (Mau Mau vs. loyalist) was primarily class-based and existed before the onset of the rebellion in 1952. I highly recommend the book for the readers interested in Kenyan history or COIN, or violence and civil war.

I also currently reading William Reno’s Warfare in Independent Africa, an account of the evolution of the nature of civil wars in Africa and the type of leaders that led them. Reno groups Africa’s rebel groups into anti-colonial rebels (e.g. FRELIMO), majority-rule rebels (a southern African animal, e.g. SWAPO), reform rebels (who fight against oppressive regimes, e.g. RPF, EPLF, etc) parochial rebels (who fight for circumscribed community rights e.g. OPC in Nigeria) and warlord rebels (e.g. LURD, NPLF, etc).

The book gives an account of how the socioeconomic origins of rebel leaders and the wider political context in which they operated influenced the trajectories of conflict in African states over time.  It also attempts to tackle the question of why most African rebels (even those from Ruritania) have tended to fight for the capital instead of secession, even in states with limited capacity like the DRC (this is however changing, Sudan, Somalia, and Mali are good examples). If you had lingering questions after reading Jeremy Weinstein’s Inside Rebellion (on the industrial organization of rebel movements) then this is a good book for you to read.

Lastly, I finally took Debt, The First 5000 Years by David Graeber off the shelf. Graeber is an anarchist anthropologist who was one of the brains behind the Occupy movement. I took his last Intro to Cultural Anthropology class at Yale before he got fired. Graeber sometimes goes into the deep end, but his ideas are refreshingly provocative. I look forward to reading it and availing my comments soon.

Also need to get my hands on this book when it comes out.

Njenga Karume dead at 83

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Former Defense Minister and GEMA leader Njenga Karume is dead at 83. Mr. Karume succumbed after a long battle with cancer.

The late Karume, who made most of his money from the beer distribution business, was one of the most influential and richest politicians among the “independence generation.” Njenga Karume was mostly a self-made man (His autobiography is titled “Beyond Expectations – From Charcoal to Gold”). With little formal education (many Kenyans know of his “wananinji” pronouncements), he managed to create a business empire that catapulted him to the boards of many a Kenyan company. Being the leader of the powerful GEMA cultural bloc and a close ally of President Kenyatta certainly also helped.

May he rest in peace.

The passing of Njenga Karume comes just four days after another veteran politician and also close friend to President Kibaki, John Michuki, passed away. It is hard not to think that time is beginning to catch up with the political elites who led Kenya’s independence generation. Indeed this year’s general election will be the first without a leading independence leader in contention for the presidency (Theirs sons and political scions will duke it out).

The natural generational change is certainly a cause for excitement; peaceful elite rotation mostly leads to positive outcomes. But at the same time I have the nagging feeling that the 50 and 60 year old “young turks” who are about to take over may lack the encompassing interest that the “wazees” shared (Notice how nice Kibaki has been to former President Moi). Yes, they were not always good people –  the deaths J. M. Kariuki and Tom Mboya forever remains a blotch on their record – but you have to give it to them for holding it together even when things were falling apart all around the neighborhood.