Kenya, Africa; A Fork in the Road - Political Administration of National Economics

 

 

Kenya, Africa; A Fork in the Road - Political Administration of National Economics

Every post-modern independence economy in Africa faces a fork in the road. Before we describe the fork in the road there are two paradoxes we need to dispel about national management.  The first is the claim that the “modern independence” paradigm is the beginning of African nations. It is a myth and myopic monologue that border on insulting the history and collective intelligence of the continent. There have been kingdoms, chiefdoms and fiefdoms in Africa managed by indigenous leaders long before the tribal European world wars I, II & III. The second, is the presumption that acceptance into the global economic paradigm is the object, dream and desire of all the African people and is regulated by foreign nations. Those who subscribe to this view you will dismiss and disparage every local solution to any global challenge.

This brings me to the fork in the road in the management of the economy. It is between politics and professionals.  There is no doubt that political solutions secured post-modern nationhood (having read the first paragraph you will understand my emphasis on “post” as there was a “past”). Political mobilization was, prior to postmodern independence, a primary and successful agent of change. Nonetheless, it is this success that is the bane of nations economic management. At the fork in the road of modern independence, the new nations urgently needed technocrats to run government. However, politics has been unwilling to cede power in the postmodern independence era and continues run a complex, multifaceted economy with a political administration with a blinkered focus on winning the next election. A poor man remains poor in every political dimension or dispensation as exploitable political capital in vigrously reheresed and shouted manifestoes. However, a poor man’s transformation requires technical intervention. Nonetheless, intellectuals often put frenetic energy into “defining” economies as democratic or communist. And when the findings do not quite fit either paradigm they are termed socialist (presumably a mix of both) that that somehow incorporates the primacy of the people in national management instead of the popularity of the party. If this fix still doesn’t work, Western academics have been known to extend political definitions beyond simple interpretation – adding left, right and center to the confusing nomenclature. The question one might ask is, does politics define poverty or politics define poverty?  Many in Africa still believe that politics is the cure to poverty long past the fork in the road - a fairytale that has been long dispelled by progress in the East.

Just ahead, in the fork in the road, you can tell the nations that still hold to politics as a panacea to a plethora of economic nighmares. These nations have installed limited vision political administrations to manage government pandering to myth that global advancement is a solution to local problems. In the minority, just up ahead in the fork in the road, are those nations that define advancement as the empowerment of the people and call on professional management to advance the disposition of their people. The biggest contribution of politics up to the fork in the road, was and still is, to secure the nation. But just up ahead, after the fork in the road there is a greater need for technical administrations to manage the nation.  

Allan Bukusi