FLY ON THE WALL : Wealth redistribution the rich cannot fathom

What you need to know:

  • A commentator on the hashtag #SoEAR16 during the Nairobi release, Peter Ngure, captured our collective imagination with his view that Kenyans have confidence in a leadership that robs them, while Tanzanians have limited trust in a leadership that invests in them.

The State of East Africa 2016 report makes for illuminating reading if for no other reason but the fact that it calls out our growth for what it is – the Consolidation of Misery.

A commentator on the hashtag #SoEAR16 during the Nairobi release, Peter Ngure, captured our collective imagination with his view that Kenyans have confidence in a leadership that robs them, while Tanzanians have limited trust in a leadership that invests in them.

It got me thinking about the many sins of omission and commission that President John Magufuli is accused of committing, including his distaste for the business-as-usual mentality that all governments seem to be fond of.

Unbridled greed, the glue that mutually binds our leaders together, seems to have come unstuck at Dr Magufuli’s doorstep. He is not a businessman, at least not in as far as is known publicly, hence he can come down on businesspeople’s greed like a ton of bricks.

The State of East Africa Report is a product of the Society for International Development (SID East Africa), chaired by Dr Juma Mwapachu, former Secretary General of the East African Community.

The 2016 report, which was recently released in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, has unintentionally unraveled a riddle that many in Kenya, Uganda or Rwanda and elsewhere in the world were trying to understand, i.e. how the oil pipeline deal slipped from passing through Kenya to Lamu Port and ended up in Tanga, the Tanzania route!

The SoEAR16 report argues that the political economy of East Africa could change depending on how the governments decide to manage their resources and that includes expenditure on security among other core areas.

Dr Magufuli has already shown, the modus operandi aside for the moment, that his desire is to redistribute resources from the normal to services and projects that directly impact on the poor and deliver justice to the poor and service to the underserved.

This, which he has taken to with zeal, is an almost messianic mission, considering 50 years of GDP growth that has been skewed in favour of the less than 10 per cent of the food chain.

Furthermore, while GDP has been used to show economic growth, East Africans continue to face tough economic times with as the numbers of the poor increase thus opening the gap between the poor and the rich. One of the areas where growth is cited is the security sector, the largest mass employer in the formal employment sector in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Every time you see those guards with batons be afraid.

Be afraid because we are so unequal that the rich need us the poor to protect them from us. This rich poor gap explains why Dr Magufuli’s approach is rubbing the rich, and that includes senior civil servants and businessmen, the wrong way.

Remember that in the pipeline deal, besides the technical teams findings, Uganda had to deal with two presidents, one a technocrat (Dr Magufuli) and the other (Mr Kenyatta) a politician with deep business interests. Uganda chose to deal with the one whose interests are not in business.

Who benefits from the triple heritage, as Professor Ali Mazrui (bless his soul) would call it, of injustice, inequality and insecurity? And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where Dr Magufuli stands out. His measure to call for fiscal discipline, austerity and belt tightening may seem to have made him unpopular.

The State of East Africa 2016 report is about regional integration, and it also asks some questions as to whether the opportunities that this process presents will be helpful in supporting efforts to narrow present inequality gaps. The best answer we can give to this is a lukewarm “it depends”. It depends on the choices leaders are willing to make; whether they are willing to take bold steps to reconfigure the institutional and power architecture to ensure that all citizens of the region benefit from integration as opposed to only a small section.

Kasera Nick Oyoo is a researchand communications consultant with Midas Touche East Africa