It was June 1967 and I was 6 years of age. It was a beautiful summer’s day in Nairobi, Kenya, the place of my birth and I remember it vividly. Our home was a large villa with an open rectangular courtyard surrounded by several apartments built around it, together with an expanse of lush grass and all manner of colourful plants and trees. My brother, myself and my sister were happily playing on our last day at our house. We had to leave forever for a new life over four thousand miles away..
Just a week earlier, my father, his six brothers with their wives were in deep conversation with our grandparents late one night about the fact that the Government were planning to throw out all the Indian-Asians from the Country. Was it true? Maybe it wasn’t but it came from a reliable source and it had to be taken seriously. Everyone knew how the authorities worked. Corruption, incompetence and internal power struggles were rife even in those days, with the prospect of total seizure of all our assets on the cards. So a family decision was made to leave our home – permanently, as soon as possible.
That was the way things were done and it wasn’t long before the plans were made to leave for London. Over 40 years later our house is gone and we find ourselves in 2008 with Kenya, previously known as one of the most stable parts of East Africa, in a state of total disorder and chaos. With hundreds of people killed, mostly by sectarian violence triggered by protests at the government's announcement of re-electing President Mwai Kibaki with 51.3 percent of the vote, compared with 48.7 percent for Raila Odinga, the opposition leader. International election monitors alleged voting irregularities as the official count put Kibaki narrowly ahead of Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement 4,584,721 votes to 4,352,993.
The result was immediately called into question, with election observers from the European Union saying they had doubts about the legitimacy of the count. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a statement that Britain had "real concerns at the irregularities reported by the EU observers and others." One international observer, who did not wish to be identified, told CNN that the vote count was "clearly cooked." Analysts said, however, that it was probable that both of the main parties had been involved in electoral fraud. It is worthwhile examining the politics, policies and culture of the country to ascertain why this has happened and the wider implications for Africa as a whole. History showed how, through the so-called Africanization Policy, over 50,000 asians, mostly business owners who greatly contributed to the economy, were expelled from Uganda in the early 1970’s, spreading to the East African states including Kenya.
This policy led to the unsurprising decline of the economy as the poorly-educated indigenous population were ill equipped for self-employment or commerce. This was not the fault of the people, but the government, with scant regard for the well being and basic human rights of its people. East Africa went downhill fast. Our life used to be idyllic in that wonderful place, with the whole family eating together every day and all of us children growing up together with a real sense of belonging. Our grandfather had arrived there in 1922 from India and from day one, worked hard to become a Senior Bank Manager, raising his children as entrepreneurs, educating them in the UK and then into business back in Nairobi. Little would he have imagined that he and his family would be forced to leave their new home in 1967, some 45 years later.
History repeated itself in 2003 as President Mwai Kibaki announced that he would expel two-thirds of the country’s expatriate workers. British businessmen and economists denounced the decision, which would have affected more than 16,000 of Kenya's 25,352 working expatriates, along with their families. Between 30,000 and 50,000 Britons live in Kenya, more than half of them British Asians. Ironically, Kibaki’s promise to the people after taking the reigns of government from Daniel Arap Moi in 2002 was to foster economic growth, end corruption and improve the lives of Kenyans. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened. In the 1960s and 70s annual economic growth peaked at 8%, but it has dropped sharply to -3%. The majority of Kenyans now live below the poverty level and average annual income is less than 1 US dollar a day.
Because of mass unemployment, there is rising crime - armed robbery and carjackings - in Nairobi and other major towns. Basic infrastructure such as roads, telephones, railways and electricity have been in considerable disrepair for years. It is estimated that a billion dollars is needed to get the nation's roads back into good working order again. Between 1992 and 2002, infant mortality for under five-year-olds rose from 74 to 105 per 1,000. The Western World would not knowingly allow even one child to end up like this. In the midst of all this suffering, ex-president Moi and his family was implicated in a report issued in 2004 to have stolen in excess of a billion dollars of government funds. The report was never acted upon. It is almost painful to contemplate that in a continent that has the World’s largest deposits of rare minerals, metals, diamonds and other natural resources, conservatively valued at 5 times the combined GDP of Western Europe and the USA combined into perpetuity, Africa has the poorest and most impoverished, uneducated and downtrodden people on Earth.
Charitable donations aren’t really working and no amount of international financial aid will solve the problem. What’s needed is a total root and branch replacement of the corrupt and inept government with democratic, fair and timely re-elections. Such dramatic change could lead to a future of prosperity by inward infrastructure investment, zero tolerance to corruption, a workable education system and proper healthcare. The civilized World has the power and means to achieve this but of course this won’t happen anytime soon and so one can truly understand and sympathise with the beleaguered citizens of Kenya. May God be with them.
Jas Kalsi, BSc(Eng)Hons, MBA, is a Management Consultant and past President of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce. |
