Dr. Tajudeen's final column

Below is the last column Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wrote for the Daily Monitor, which he had written last week before a car accident took his life on May 25, 2009.

Govts discourage enterprise and penalise those fighting poverty

The irony of Africa being a very rich continent but Africans being some of the poorest peoples in the world is no longer lost to anyone. While we can argue about the historical, structural, attitudinal, personal and institutional causes of this state of affairs, the fact remains that majority of our peoples remain in need amidst plenty.

Decades of aid, humanitarian intervention, prayers, activism, development plans, action plans, government declarations and so many other initiatives have not produced fundamental change for the poorest and weakest sections of our societies. Yet Africans remain one of the most optimistic peoples, perpetually believing that tomorrow will be better. It is always a miracle how majority of the poor, whether in our urban slums or impoverished rural areas, survive.

Our cities’ overburdened road infrastructures have spurned entrepreneurship in the form of shops on roads and legs meandering between armies of pedestrians and impatient vehicle drivers frustrated at the gridlock traffic. Similarly informal settlements have developed, several times the size of our capital cities with little or no infrastructures. Some of them like Kibera Slum in Nairobi are even becoming ‘famous’ globally for poverty tourism. Unfortunately, it is not the impoverished peoples in these settlements who are even the beneficiaries of their own poverty.

The majority of Africans continue to survive not because of government but in spite of governments. They eke out a living to keep body and soul together, provide for their families, doing all kinds of dirty work with little pay or selling anything that is buyable; hawking all kinds of household wares, fruits, vegetables and myriad of consumer items.

The concept of informal settlements in Africa is not just about where people live but extends to informal markets in all kinds of goods and services.

As the son of a hardworking woman who was a ‘petty trader’, I confess to a bias in favour of these small entrepreneurs who do not depend on any connections with government officials, politicians and big business influence. You go to many neighbourhoods rich or poor and you will find these largely female entrepreneurs, selling food to those working on construction sites, cheap vegetables to other poor members of the society from their baskets, trays or single tables at the corners of roads and streets.

So living in Kenya, a settler, apartheid type state in all but name, I find myself in solidarity with ‘Mama Mboga’. These are women who sell vegetables from their trays, or traditional load carriers tied to their heads, carried on their backs.

From Mama Mboga selling daily perishable vegetables, the ambition is to own a kiosk where you can have storage for more goods , stock more, put a fridge and freezer that can preserve perishable items. When Mama Mboga becomes a kiosk owner, it is a personal triumph of hope over adversity- a long journey from grinding poverty to bearable survival and foundations for permanent exit from poverty. The bigger the kiosk and the better stocked it is, the further away the owner is from poverty. Government policy is threatening the survival of the Mama Mbogas across this continent. In the name of ridding cities of illegal constructions, returning to the original city plans and ‘beautifying’ our cities, city councils and central governments are creating more poverty. Of what use is a ‘beautiful city’ inhabited by people who have lost their livelihoods? Would they appreciate the beauty?

The Mama Mbogas are on the street and in kiosks because they cannot afford the malls and most of their clientele cannot afford the price in the malls.

Our elite are embarrassed by the mass poverty that surrounds us but they are unwilling to provide leadership and appropriate policies to take our peoples to prosperity. Instead they engage in avoidance and denial mechanisms to pretend to visitors that ‘everything is okay’.

That’s why they rid our capitals of beggars, hawkers, and other undesirables before any major ‘international’ conference, but out of sight is not out of mind for the Mama/Baba Mbogas in our midst. You can pull down their kiosks and destroy their tables but they will come back with new tables, under umbrellas and their clientele will know where to find them. By no means are there clients all wretched of the earth. I still call my favourite Mama Mboga, Mama Sarah, or her husband , Martin, to send me top up cards from wherever Nairobi City Council have forced them to.

Problematizing Corruption

I just finished (finally) reading Michela Wrong's latest book, It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower. I'm not going to review the book, per se, but I do recommend it to anyone interested in East African politics, corruption, foreign aid, diplomacy, etc. More than anything, it has made me think more deeply about this problem we have called corruption.

What has really been bothering me of late is that it seems for too many people, corruption isn't a problem. Wrong quotes a journalist saying of Kenya, "Steal a mobile in this country and you get lynched, steal $100 million and you get to run as MP". This is also true, to some degree, in Uganda. You can easily be killed for stealing a chicken, but steal from the Global Fund and...um...well, you can just sit tight in your Bugolobi or Kololo mansion. Yes, people talk -- some of them, for a while...but ultimately the story dies and the big shots soldier on. The media picks up on the next big story, perhaps even a fire or collapsing building that is actually the consequence of corruption, and the previous story is forgotten. Corruption is like a mosquito buzzing around your bed at night -- bothersome, but not annoying enough to make you get up and squash, so you roll over and keep sleeping. Which is too bad, since you may very well fall ill with malaria as a result of your inaction.

Ok, maybe that's a lame analogy, but you get the point. If corruption is not seen as a "problem" to those it affects the most, how can we ever end it? Like malaria actually. Why do you think people have used mosquito nets as fishing nets and for bridal gowns instead of using them to prevent malaria? Clearly how one uses a mosquito net is a conscious choice, and people are responding to incentives in deciding how best to use a net (which they are sometimes given for free). Reducing the prevalence of malaria, like reducing corruption, will not happen by shoving solutions down people's throats, and it may even make the problem worse (as Andrew Mwenda will argue has occurred with anti-corruption agencies in Uganda, such as the IGG). We need to start thinking differently about how corruption works and thrives in different environments. I do not think there is a one-size-fits-all solution.

I will conclude with one of my favorite bits from Wrong's book, in the Epilogue, page 327:

One of the many lessons of John Githongo's story is that the key to fighting graft in Africa does not lie in fresh legislation or new institutions. To use the seemingly counter-intuitive phrase of Danny Kaufmann, expert on sleaze: 'You don't fight corruption by fighting corruption.' Most African states already have the gamut of tools required to do the job. A Prevention of Corruption Act has actually been on the Kenyan statute book since 1956. 'You don't need any more bodies, you don't need any more laws, you just need good people and the will,' says Hussein Were. In Kenya, as in many other countries, the KACC [Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission] is part of the grand corrupters' game, providing them with another bureaucratic wall behind which to shield, another scapegoat to blame for lack of progress. Rather than dreaming up sexy-sounding short cuts, donors should be pouring their money into the boring old institutions African regimes have deliberately starved of cash over the years: the police force, judicial system and civil service.

See Wrong's interview with Transparency International here.

If Kenya has a fever what happens to Uganda?

As the saying goes, when Kenya sneezes, Uganda catches a cold. So what happens to Uganda when Kenya has a fever? That frightening scenario is now playing out before the eyes of Uganda’s business community.
Mr Godfrey Hategyeka, Transport Manager for Katraco Uganda Ltd, was beeped by a mysterious number at 12:30pm on January 31. When he returned the call a stranger answered, a Kenyan who informed him that the Katraco drivers had abandoned three of their trucks in Kericho, just outside of Kisumu, and were running to safety. The trucks were bound for Nakuru to load petrol, but they never made it to their destination. A group of over 200 rioters used petrol bombs to burn the trucks, one of which had a Ugandan licence plate. Right before the trucks were burned, one of the rioters himself called Mr. Hategyeka from the driver’s phone. “Why would you want to burn the trucks?” Hategyeka asked the rioter.
“We are aware Museveni supports Kibaki,” the rioter explained, “We have heard that he is sending in troops. For that matter we are going to burn…for us we have to burn the trucks.” Most insurance companies will not cover the losses of Katraco and dozens of other affected companies, since they categorize the damage as the result of war or civil disorder.
Transport companies such as Katraco may not even be the hardest hit. Hategyeka estimated his losses to be USh 200-250 million per burnt truck, but Ugandan importers and exporters are facing even greater costs the lack of secure transportation has caused a backlog of containers at the Port of Mombasa. According to Mr Dennis Rukundo, the Operations Manager for a transport company based in Mombasa, traders are allowed 14 days to remove their goods from the port. On the fifteenth day they begin paying demurrage fees -- $40 per day for a 20 foot container and $80 per day for a 40 foot container. Rukundo says the Kenyan government waived demurrage fees from December 25, 2007, to January 3, 2008, but if containers were not cleared by the 3rd, traders were required to pay the fee for the days included in the waiver and any additional days.
Many traders were unable to remove their goods from the port in January due to the lack of safe transport. While Rukundo says the congestion at the port is improving, as of last week no Ugandan registered vehicles were moving on the road for fear of being attacked and burned. The shortage of transport has also increased the cost. Previously, traders paid $3000 per truck travelling from Mombasa to Kampala. They now pay $3900 per truck and Rukundo says the cost may rise even higher. In addition, some transporters are charging up to $480 per truck in extra surcharges to cover the risk of transport.
But if traders think their costs are high now, wait until March comes. Rukundo says the Kenya Revenue Authority is increasing their port fees from $200 to $600 per truck. And that’s not all – traders will have to pay an application fee of $1000 and buy a bond of $3000 before they are even allowed to pay the $600 fee. These fees, however, only apply to trucks carrying transit cargo, not to local trucks, which means Ugandan traders are at a disadvantage.
With Kenya’s future uncertain and with rising costs at the Port of Mombasa, will Ugandans take their business to the Port of Dar es Salaam? “We tried,” explained Ssekiito, Chairman of the Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA), “The minimum cost there per container was $4000. It was not practical.” The road from the Port of Dar es Salaam to Kampala is also much longer than from Kenya’s coast, nearly 2000km compared to about 1250km from Mombasa, and can be nearly impassable at times according to Hategyeka.
As traders face high costs and risks, Ugandans will no doubt be feeling the pain in their pocketbooks, if they are lucky enough to find the goods they are looking for at all. “If you go to Nakasero market,” says Ssekiito, “you find that some of the stores are empty.” Grain, consumables, and construction materials are all harder to come by and increasing in price. Ssekiito cannot say whether the situation will get better before it gets worse. “All this will depend on the involved stakeholders, the involved politicians. If they are promising good news, the prices will automatically start coming down. Most of the problems we suffer are a result of perception…In a market structure where the forces of demand and supply are dictating the price it is hard for us to say whether they are coming down or up. It all depends on the perception.”
In the meantime, traders like Hategyeka and others are growing impatient and seeking the assistance of the government of Uganda. Katraco has appealed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for assistance in retrieving its trucks. Yet as of last week, ministry official and Head of East African Affairs, Julius Kagamba, could not guarantee the safe retrieval of the trucks. Hategyeka and others feel the government should be taking more decisive steps to protect Ugandan businesses.
As a landlocked country, Uganda is necessarily dependent on its neighbours for the import and export of goods. Unfortunately, the current crisis Ugandan businesses now face appears to be a case of placing too many eggs in one basket – the Northern Corridor. “For some time government has not minded about putting in place infrastructure for the Central Corridor,” says Ssekiito. “We even had a place provided for us at the Port of Dar es Salaam for Uganda particularly, but we didn’t use it because this [Northern Corridor] was shorter…We only forgot that you can’t take things for granted. You need to have options…Every avenue must be developed ahead of time such that we are prepared.”
A large part of this abovementioned necessary infrastructure is the road network. According to the Road Agency Formation Unit (RAFU), there are a number of projects underway to widen and improve roads throughout Uganda. Unfortunately, current funding does not allow for roads to be widened to double carriage capacity. In addition, according to Dan Alinange of RAFU, there is no coordinating body orchestrating road construction across countries in the East African community.
Kenya’s fever may have subsided in recent weeks, but Ugandan businesses will likely be in their sick beds for some time longer. Perhaps this should be a lesson in the value of preventative care. Immunization – that is, investing now in alternative routes and working together with the larger East African Community to improve infrastructure in the region -- may prove far less costly than the inevitable treatment that will be required after the next outbreak of political upheaval.

Melina Platas
The Independent

Kenya as an example

“For all its flaws, an example to others,” announced the headline on Kenya in a December 2007 issue of The Economist. Less than two months later, the Kenya it depicted as “a haven of stability and prosperity in eastern Africa,” no longer exists. In its place is a country where ethnic conflict has taken on a life of its own, with violence increasingly detached from the political strife with which it began. The speed at which Kenya’s social fiber has come unraveled has both Kenyans and the international community scrambling to de-escalate tensions that have become primarily ethnic in nature.
As we are inundated with images of men sharpening pangas in the street, of the bloody limbs they have hacked, of bodies strewn about, we are reminded of recent ethnic conflicts such as that of Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. What explains this so-called ethnic violence, what are its ramifications, and what can be done to prevent it? On the face of it, defining ethnic violence seems fairly straightforward – it is violence that occurs between ethnic groups. What is less clear is explaining how and why these ethnic groups come to be defined as such and where and when violence will occur.
In some cases, ethnic groups are fabricated for political purposes, as was arguably the case in Rwanda during and post-colonialism. In others, like Kenya, groups of people are in fact distinct. But the cohabitation of culturally distinct peoples is not a necessary and sufficient condition for ethnic conflict. Observers often argue is that historical animosity or “ancient hatreds” explains violence between ethnic groups. Such primordial explanations, however, have little predictive power. Furthermore, they do not explain how or when people choose to organize themselves according to ethnicity as opposed to another aspect of their identity.
In Kenya, as in many countries, ethnicity has been used in recent history for political and economic leverage. Under presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, certain groups were favored in the distribution of the national cake. Professors of Economics Paul Collier of Oxford and Stephen O’Connell of Swarthmore College cite Moi’s Kenya as a classic example of ethno-regional redistribution. Under Moi, the telecommunication and other industries were used for the economic benefit of the Kalenjin, the core of Moi’s political base. Kibaki, for his part, appointed members of the Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu ethnic groups to top ministerial positions within the ministries of finance, justice, and internal security. Despite Kenya’s impressive economic growth under Kibaki, many non-Kikuyu feel the Kibaki government has favored its Kikuyu political base.
Even given this history, however, one could not have predicted with any certainty when or where ethnic conflict would occur in Kenya. It is not the existence of distinct ethnic groups as such that results in ethnic violence. It is, I would argue, politicians or elites’ manipulation of these ethnicities to wield political power that has the potential to throw a stable country into genocidal chaos. It appears that Kibaki and Odinga used ethnicity as a political tool, one that has caused a domino effect over which they now have little control.
While violence began primarily as a means to express legitimate anger over a fraudulent election, there are now other factors also at play, including opportunistic thuggery. Stanford University professors James Fearon and David Laitin explain that if thugs or gangs engage in ethnic violence with ulterior motives unrelated or only indirectly related to ethnicity, such as looting or land grabbing, “processes begin that leave moderates in the group little choice but to follow a similar path. By initiating tit-for-tat sequences, thugs bring about the construction of more antagonistic group identities, making it rational to fear the other group and see its members as dangerous threats.” It is in this way, perhaps, that Kenya has now spiraled widely out of control. The looting and gang violence have now created a legitimate threat to the Kikuyu, who have responded violently in kind. In short order thousands of ordinary Kenyans are fleeing for their lives. How then to stop Kenya from slipping further down the path toward its own destruction – social, economic, and political?
Unfortunately, the more time that passes means not only more loss of life, but also more difficulty in returning to normalcy. Lehigh University professor Chaim Kaufmann argues that, “in ethnic wars both hypernationalist mobilization rhetoric and real atrocities harden ethnic identities to the point that cross-ethnic political appeals are unlikely to be made and even less likely to be heard…restoring civil politics in multi-ethnic states shattered by war is impossible because the war itself destroys the possibilities for ethnic cooperation.” Kenya is has not yet reached this point of no return, but it is drawing closer by the day.
It is crucial that both Kibaki and Odinga openly criticize and actively prevent further ethnic violence from occurring. In addition, both men must reach across ethnic lines and avoid the further polarization of a country already deeply fractured. Without the mutual commitment of Kibaki and Odinga to stabilize the country first and foremost, neither man can hope to run the state. Odinga’s promise of federalism, or majimbo, may be useful in easing tensions between the Kikuyu and Kenya’s historically less fortunate groups, but only if the Kikuyu are not alienated in the process.
The Kenya of today is not the Rwanda of yesterday – it does not appear ethnic violence was either orchestrated or inevitable. Nevertheless, the country has reached a critical juncture, and with each passing day of violence, a resolution becomes increasingly difficult and the societal wounds deeper. The December Economist headline remains the same, though Kenya has changed. Not only despite its flaws, but because of its flaws, Kenya should be an example to its neighbors and others around the world. Ethnicity as a political tool has a mind and heart of its own. To wield this tool, despite potential pay-offs, is to gamble with the stability of a country and the lives its citizens. Those who have taken and who continue take this gamble must be prepared to take responsibility for its consequences.

Melina Platas
The Independent