Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Globalcitizen12 on January 05, 2016, 08:10:58 PM
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what the heck is the rest of Africa doing? Anyway here is an argument that offers insight into why Kenya growth died in the late 90s and Tanzania continued growth during this period. One thing Tanzania did well that is mentioned here is aligning herself with SADC instead of EA. Ndii’s argument makes a lot of sense and shows how nationhood building should go hand in hand with economic growth. You cannot have a balkanized nation and expect growth. If RV as bread basket is in turmoil then the rest of the country goes into a coma.
NDII:What Magufuli presidency means for Uhuru’s reign
I gave a talk on the economy to a youthful management team of a Kenyan company recently that elicited an unexpected reaction to what I thought was an obvious matter of fact, this being that Tanzania is on course to overtake Kenya’s economy in size — in five years at most — and if the current growth differential is maintained, Tanzania’s economy will be at 20 per cent larger than ours in a decade.
The observation surprised these young “digital” Kenyans and left their nationalist egos deflated.
From an economic perspective, this reaction is irrational.
The prosperity of our neighbours and East Africa Community (EAC) partners is in our interest since they are our most important markets, and the bigger the EAC economy as a whole, the more attractive it is as an investment destination.
The Kenya-Tanzania economic rivalry has its origins in the 1967 Arusha Declaration in which Tanzania adopted its “Socialism and Self Reliance” ideology popularly known as “Ujamaa.”
This set Tanzania on an ideological collision course with Kenya’s capitalistic orientation.
As Tanzania’s economy faltered, it provided a useful counterpoint for Jomo Kenyatta’s government against criticism of brazen crony capitalism.
Similarly, Nyerere’s Government used Kenya’s growing inequality to ward off criticism of Ujamaa.
The rivalry was aptly captured by Radio Tanzania’s epithet of Kenya as a ‘‘man-eat-man” society and the retort from Kenya, attributed to Charles Njonjo, that Tanzania was a “man-eat-nothing” society.
The bad blood culminated in the collapse of the first East African Community.
In 1985, Nyerere made history by acknowledging the failure of Ujamaa and retiring himself voluntarily, only the third African president to do so (after Leopold Senghor of Senegal (1980) and Amadou Ahidjo of Cameroon (1982) and one of only four to date — the venerable Nelson Mandela is the fourth.
While the capitalism-socialism dichotomy has dominated discourse on the divergent paths that Kenya and Tanzania took after independence, it is one of three, and in my view the less salient one.
The other two dichotomies are political vis a vis economic development and moral-ethical leadership dichotomy.
DEVELOPMENT AND FREEDOM
Kwame Nkrumah famously advised newly independent African countries to seek first the political kingdom and all else would follow. Nyerere quite evidently shared Nkrumah’s view.
His enduring legacy was to meld Tanzania’s ethnic groups into a nation. Tanzania is without doubt East Africa’s most socio-politically cohesive country.
The successful promotion of Kiswahili into a universally spoken language contributed to this nationhood.
But perhaps more significant was Nyerere’s leadership by example— he was “tribe blind.”
Nyerere’s prioritization of political development seems to be rooted in his belief that freedom and development are inextricable, a view that predates 1998 economics Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s popularization of the idea of “development as freedom.”
In “Freedom and Development” Nyerere writes: “Freedom and development are as completely linked together as are chickens and eggs. Without chickens you get no eggs; and without eggs you soon have no chickens. Similarly without freedom there is no development and without development you soon lose your freedom.”
He elaborates freedom as consisting of three freedoms namely national freedom (i.e. independence), freedom from “ignorance, poverty and disease” (i.e. from material deprivation), and personal freedom, specifically an individual’s “right to freedom of speech, freedom to participate in all decisions that affect his life, and freedom from arbitrary arrest because he annoys someone in authority and so on”.
By contrast, Jomo Kenyatta’s administration elevated material progress above personal freedom and civil liberties.
In his introduction to Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 Kenyatta declared the development debate closed.
This was a paper that justified favouring the development of high potential areas in the name of maximising economic growth, setting the country on the path of distributional grievances and criminalisation of dissent.
By the turn of the decade, Jomo Kenyatta’s State had morphed into an intolerant tribal oligarchy. Moi followed suit.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
This weak political foundation was laid bare by multiparty politics.
The ethnic cleavages that had fuelled violence in the run-up to independence had only been suppressed not resolved.
The Rift Valley exploded. In 1997, the violence spread to the Coast. A decade later, the world watched in consternation and horror as Kenya tottered on the brink.
The myth of Kenya’s exceptionalism, an island of peace in a troubled region, exploded.
The man-eat-man society epithet took on an ominous meaning.
With her solid political foundation, Tanzania had no trouble transitioning to multiparty politics.
As Kenya was convulsing in ethnic conflagrations, Tanzania was forging ahead economically.
As the chart above shows, Kenya’s economy was a third bigger than Tanzania’s in the early 90s.
This obtained until Kenya’s economy crashed in the aftermath of the 1997 elections, just as Tanzania’s was taking off. By 2003, the gap had reduced to a fifth.
Tanzania’s economy has grown by 6.1 per cent per year since 1997, Kenya’s by 3.7 per cent.
If our economy had kept pace, it would be almost 50 per cent larger than Tanzania’s.
Instead, the Kenya’s economy took another political hit in 2008, narrowing the gap to less than 10 per cent.
Instead of a US$ 55 billion economy, we’d be a US$ 80 billion economy. This is the economic cost of tribalism.
But it is in the moral-ethical realm that the Kenya-Tanzania dichotomy is at its most uncomfortable, which brings me to President Magufuli.
I recently introduced the Magufuli debate in a conversation with some of the President’s sidekicks.
ASSAULT ON GRAFT
The reaction was as swift as it was predictable — they changed the subject.
It is the misfortune of Uhuru Kenyatta that his presidency is now to be benchmarked against a Tanzanian President who is rekindling Nyerere’s leadership ethos—humility, modesty, integrity, the personal discipline and public service ethic.
President Magufuli’s assault on corruption has exposed the soft underbelly of Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidency.
For all his heehaw, President Kenyatta is a reluctant graft buster.
Tethered as he still is to the KANU kleptocracy that nurtured him, his tolerance for corruption has to be significantly greater than zero.
He is surrounded by instant millionaires.
His fallen Devolution CS Anne Waiguru evidently bought an outlandish house in a development associated with one of his close associates, what other lifestyle audit did he need?
I have read in the newspapers that Sh1.5 million of NYS money was wired to a member of Deputy President William Ruto’s staff who is still in office.
In addition to the questionable source of his largesse, the Deputy President trashes the law against public officers’ involvement in harambees with impunity week in week out.
There are of course those who have been quick to dismiss President Magufuli’s crusade as an unsustainable political stunt.
They are missing an important point.
In economics, we call what Magufuli is doing signalling.
Signalling is motivated by information market failure.
Academic credentialism is a signalling device to potential employers who cannot tell competent and incompetent job applicants apart.
CORRUPTION INTOLERANCE
The information market failure at issue here is the difficulty of honest genuine investors telling apart leaders who are serious about combating corruption from pretenders. Let me illustrate.
I wrote recently about potential investors who were asked for an eye-popping US$ 300 million bribe.
These investors had been led to believe that they were dealing with a leadership that is serious about attracting investment.
They had spent a lot of money and valuable time preparing their project, which they would not have lost if they had prior knowledge of the people they would be dealing with.
Whether by design or happenstance, Magufuli’s crusade is signalling zero corruption tolerance.
What’s more, his signalling is credible, as it is backed by his record of integrity and performance.
Investors can come to Tanzania with the confidence that when they encounter the corruption and bureaucratic obstacles, the man at the helm can be relied on to deal with it.
What is less remarked, and is in my view more significant, is the fact that President Magufuli’s arrival is not a historical accident.
The CCM shunned President Kikwete’s heir apparent, the wealthy scandal-prone Edward Lowassa after he was caught up in yet another corruption scandal.
Lowassa left in a huff and leveraged his dubiously acquired money to become the opposition’s flagbearer.
The CCM settled for Magufuli, a rank outsider of modest means, who went on to beat Lowassa in the election.
By ejecting Lowassa and nominating Magufuli, the CCM raised the ethical bar. By electing him, Tanzanians endorsed it.
In 2010, we congratulated ourselves for setting a high moral-ethical bar in the Constitution. When elections came, we removed the bar.
The prognosis is not great— as I observed in a previous column, every one of our elections with a defending incumbent has been violent.
And as is now customary, the economy will go into hibernation.
This will be another half a percentage point shaved off our average growth rate for the next five years.
What if we go down half a percentage point and Tanzania goes up half a percentage point?
We are looking at a Tanzania economy 20 percent larger by 2020. Tribalism is costly.
This being the season of goodwill, I end by sharing a pearl of Native American wisdom.
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.
“A fight is going on inside me,” he told the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is Evil— he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego”.
He continued, “The other is Good— he is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person too”.
The young boy thought about for a minute and asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
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Interesting. I doubt very much that TZ will overtake kenya soon. Apart from the thriving mining sector (which is susceptible to world commodity prices boom n burst), I think Kenya has far more advanced and diversified economy.Then you have exchange rate..TZ has nothing on Kshs..1ksh is equivalent to 21 TZ shs.
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Yes Tanzania does rely on commodities a lot. I wonder at what level is agriculture contributing to their growth. Tanzania too is very protectionist to of their market. The only companies getting a free pass are SA companies. I am surprised at how poor rural Tanzania is. Gold price and other minerals may have helped this growth. The discovery of Natural Gas reserves may be a game changer in terms of energy. I think this discovery may be what propels Tanzania past Kenya. Kenya needs commercially viable cheap Natural GAS find ASAP for domestic use.
I think we ought to look at the indicators and do a comparative analysis eg what is the manufacturing growth etc.
I am been hearing a lot of agri-industrilization talks in Nigeria. There is a movement that was heralded by Obasanjo to industrialize using Agriculture. I wonder how big this movement is and how viable. I have read about a few governors who are investing serious money on food processing plants and commercial farming. If this happens Nigeria may finally be able to escape the oil curse and diversify her economy.
Kenya needs to allocate 15 to 20 percent to agriculture. Continue protecting the market offering subsidies to be competitive and explore large scale farming.
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Yes, a comparative analysis on the kenya and TZ fundamentals will go along way to understanding the problem. As of now, what I know has been working in TZ is minning and tourism (mostly due to mess we had here in kenya). What is working in kenya...the service sector is near world class (financial services, ict)...and the retail & wholesale sector is becoming formalized (supermarkets+malls) and is now second to south africa...and we are starting to pour a lot of cement (real estate).
Yes Africa has a lot to gain from agriculture and whole value chain. There is a lot of room for growth..basics such as fertilizers (which incidentally is plentiful in Morroco)...should be pursue together with value chain stuff.
Yes Tanzania does rely on commodities a lot. I wonder at what level is agriculture contributing to their growth. Tanzania too is very protectionist to of their market. The only companies getting a free pass are SA companies. I am surprised at how poor rural Tanzania is. Gold price and other minerals may have helped this growth. The discovery of Natural Gas reserves may be a game changer in terms of energy. I think this discovery may be what propels Tanzania past Kenya. Kenya needs commercially viable cheap Natural GAS find ASAP for domestic use.
I think we ought to look at the indicators and do a comparative analysis eg what is the manufacturing growth etc.
I am been hearing a lot of agri-industrilization talks in Nigeria. There is a movement that was heralded by Obasanjo to industrialize using Agriculture. I wonder how big this movement is and how viable. I have read about a few governors who are investing serious money on food processing plants and commercial farming. If this happens Nigeria may finally be able to escape the oil curse and diversify her economy.
Kenya needs to allocate 15 to 20 percent to agriculture. Continue protecting the market offering subsidies to be competitive and explore large scale farming.
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Yes, a comparative analysis on the kenya and TZ fundamentals will go along way to understanding the problem. As of now, what I know has been working in TZ is minning and tourism (mostly due to mess we had here in kenya). What is working in kenya...the service sector is near world class (financial services, ict)...and the retail & wholesale sector is becoming formalized (supermarkets+malls) and is now second to south africa...and we are starting to pour a lot of cement (real estate).
Yes Africa has a lot to gain from agriculture and whole value chain. There is a lot of room for growth..basics such as fertilizers (which incidentally is plentiful in Morroco)...should be pursue together with value chain stuff.
Maybe you should have a look at this Credit Suisse report: http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=C26E3824-E868-56E0-CCA04D4BB9B9ADD5 (http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=C26E3824-E868-56E0-CCA04D4BB9B9ADD5) and this: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/africas-boom-is-over/ (http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/africas-boom-is-over/)
Things are, unfortunately, not as rosy as they were hyped.
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Sub-sahara is expected to grow at world leading 4.5% if am not wrong. Africa rise is irreversible.You cannot look at one indicator (industralization/manufacturing) and ignore the many other positives indicators that show Africa rise is for real..from improving governaces, less wars, more educated folks, more healthy folks, more folks with access to modern banking, nearly everyone with access to mobile and ICT...e.t.c and dismiss all that...by claiming Africa growth is entirely financed by "oil and mineral boom"....while all countries in Africa with impressive growth..from Ethiopia to Kenya...are growing without any of that.
Maybe you should have a look at this Credit Suisse report: http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=C26E3824-E868-56E0-CCA04D4BB9B9ADD5 (http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=C26E3824-E868-56E0-CCA04D4BB9B9ADD5) and this: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/africas-boom-is-over/ (http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/africas-boom-is-over/)
Things are, unfortunately, not as rosy as they were hyped.
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Sub-sahara is expected to grow at world leading 4.5% if am not wrong. Africa rise is irreversible.You cannot look at one indicator (industralization/manufacturing) and ignore the many other positives indicators that show Africa rise is for real..from improving governaces, less wars, more educated folks, more healthy folks, more folks with access to modern banking, nearly everyone with access to mobile and ICT...e.t.c and dismiss all that...by claiming Africa growth is entirely financed by "oil and mineral boom"....while all countries in Africa with impressive growth..from Ethiopia to Kenya...are growing without any of that.
So what is financing Africa's growth?
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More populous,more peaceful, more healthier, more educated,more youthful, more urbane Africans who are better connected and integrated to the world economy.You cannot beat that.
So what is financing Africa's growth?
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More populous,more peaceful, more healthier, more educated,more youthful, more urbane Africans who are better connected and integrated to the world economy.You cannot beat that.
So how does a "More populous,more peaceful, more healthier, more educated,more youthful, more urbane Africans who are better connected and integrated to the world economy" finance Africa's growth?
Whence does Africa derive the financing to drive this growth?
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pundit is saying that consumer spending is propelling African growth which is very correct especially when it comes to service industries, Technology and value addition in agriculture and retail
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Starting with the economics, from the Financial Times (Oct 2015):
Slowdown calls ‘Africa rising’ narrative into question.
Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa will slow to its weakest pace since 1999 this year, and only inch up modestly next year, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
The forecast is just the latest piece of analysis to implicitly call into question the “Africa rising” narrative that improved governance means the continent is almost predestined to enjoy a long period of mid-to-high single-digit economic growth, rising incomes and an emerging middle class.
It follows the release of the 2015 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which found that standards of governance have declined since 2008, suggesting the progress made earlier this century was largely driven by windfall gains from high commodity prices rather than structural improvements.
...
John Ashbourne, African economist at Capital Economics, forecasts even weaker sub-Saharan growth of 3 per cent this year, a figure that would be “unprecedented in the period of the whole Africa rising narrative”. Furthermore, he argues that with Africa experiencing rapid population growth, the problem is even worse than it might at first appear, with countries such as Nigeria likely to experience negligible growth in GDP per capita this year.
“It will be more or less stagnation. Three per cent growth in Africa is a much worse outcome than it would be elsewhere in the world,” he says.
Like the IMF, Mr Ashbourne does believe Africa’s GDP growth will tick up in 2016, as some of the factors that have depressed growth in Nigeria, South Africa and Angola fade.
Nevertheless, he believes the current slowdown should be food for thought for adherents of the Africa rising concept, which, he says, has been “overplayed”.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/3/93d5c572-7bf6-11e5-a1fe-567b37f80b64.html#axzz3wfdul2BC
Beyond economics:
Africa Rising? Tell that to the millions still trapped in poverty
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/23/opinions/africa-rising-narrative-poverty-chude-jideonwo/index.html
See also:
- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/africa-economy-rising-growth
- https://ke.boell.org/2014/03/04/africa-rising-think-again
- etc.
From the World Bank:
In 1990, East Asia accounted for half of the global poor, whereas some 15 percent lived in in Sub-Saharan Africa; by 2015 forecasts, this is almost exactly reversed: Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for half of the global poor, with some 12 percent living in East Asia.
According to the detailed figures---current and projections---Africa is well on its way to corning the "market" on extremely poor people. Here are World Bank figures up to 2012 (numbers are in millions):
East Asia & Pacific: 1990 - 995.5, 2012 - 147.2
South Asia: 1990 - 574.6, 2012 - 309.2
Sub-Saharan Africa: 1990 - 287.6, 2012 - 388.8
One sometimes sees an excited announcement to the effect that some American company has opened yet another junk-food place somewhere in Africa. This is touted as proof that Africa is rising, supposedly because there is now a growing "middle class". What such statements omit is that while the numbers in the "middle class" might indeed be growing, so are the numbers in the "lower ranks". And the latter is likely to be growing factor because that's where "reckless" reproduction takes place.
Simply looking at economic growth, junk-food joints, etc. is not very helpful. One needs to also look at the relative population growth, how the economic growth is put to good use, etc.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian President:
Africa's economy has grown at more than 5% annually over the past decade -- some of the highest economic growth in the world -- leading many to use the phrase of "Africa Rising" when describing its countries. However, a country's economic growth does not always lead to development or improvement for its poorest citizens.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/world/africa/africa-rising-invest-girls-johnson-sirleaf/
Taking just food, which is as basic as one can get, the Global Nutrition Report just came out. On the Africa that is "rising", it has this:
the scale of malnutrition in Africa is staggering:
- 58 million children under age five are too short for their age (stunted)
- 13.9 million weigh too little for their height (wasted)
- 10.3 million are overweight. None of these children are growing healthily
- 163.6 million children and women of reproductive age are anemic
- 220 million people are estimated to be calorie deficient.
13 countries in Africa are having to manage serious levels of stunting in children under 5 or anemia in women of reproductive age and adult overweight. In many African countries, only a minority of children are growing healthily. In Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, for example, the percentage of children under 5 who are not stunted or wasted ranges between 43 and 48 percent.
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Africa or to be specific sub-sahara economy is financed by all sorts of sectors...some countries depend on oil, minerals, tea, cocoa, coffee..while others depend on tourism, service sector...but definitely Africa growth is too broad based to be dismissed with the failing oil and commodities prices. Ethiopia for example will grow at 10% plus this year. On average despite the global gloom Africa will still registers 4.2%...despite South Africa and Nigeria facing economic troubles.
So how does a "More populous,more peaceful, more healthier, more educated,more youthful, more urbane Africans who are better connected and integrated to the world economy" finance Africa's growth?
Whence does Africa derive the financing to drive this growth?
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They are all sort of articles saying all sort of things esp on the internet. How about you tell us what you think...rather than bombarding us with all sort of links.
Starting with the economics, from the Financial Times (Oct 2015):
Slowdown calls ‘Africa rising’ narrative into question.
Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa will slow to its weakest pace since 1999 this year, and only inch up modestly next year, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
The forecast is just the latest piece of analysis to implicitly call into question the “Africa rising” narrative that improved governance means the continent is almost predestined to enjoy a long period of mid-to-high single-digit economic growth, rising incomes and an emerging middle class.
It follows the release of the 2015 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which found that standards of governance have declined since 2008, suggesting the progress made earlier this century was largely driven by windfall gains from high commodity prices rather than structural improvements.
...
John Ashbourne, African economist at Capital Economics, forecasts even weaker sub-Saharan growth of 3 per cent this year, a figure that would be “unprecedented in the period of the whole Africa rising narrative”. Furthermore, he argues that with Africa experiencing rapid population growth, the problem is even worse than it might at first appear, with countries such as Nigeria likely to experience negligible growth in GDP per capita this year.
“It will be more or less stagnation. Three per cent growth in Africa is a much worse outcome than it would be elsewhere in the world,” he says.
Like the IMF, Mr Ashbourne does believe Africa’s GDP growth will tick up in 2016, as some of the factors that have depressed growth in Nigeria, South Africa and Angola fade.
Nevertheless, he believes the current slowdown should be food for thought for adherents of the Africa rising concept, which, he says, has been “overplayed”.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/3/93d5c572-7bf6-11e5-a1fe-567b37f80b64.html#axzz3wfdul2BC
Beyond economics:
Africa Rising? Tell that to the millions still trapped in poverty
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/23/opinions/africa-rising-narrative-poverty-chude-jideonwo/index.html
See also:
- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/africa-economy-rising-growth
- https://ke.boell.org/2014/03/04/africa-rising-think-again
- etc.
From the World Bank:
In 1990, East Asia accounted for half of the global poor, whereas some 15 percent lived in in Sub-Saharan Africa; by 2015 forecasts, this is almost exactly reversed: Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for half of the global poor, with some 12 percent living in East Asia.
According to the detailed figures---current and projections---Africa is well on its way to corning the "market" on extremely poor people. Here are World Bank figures up to 2012 (numbers are in millions):
East Asia & Pacific: 1990 - 995.5, 2012 - 147.2
South Asia: 1990 - 574.6, 2012 - 309.2
Sub-Saharan Africa: 1990 - 287.6, 2012 - 388.8
One sometimes sees an excited announcement to the effect that some American company has opened yet another junk-food place somewhere in Africa. This is touted as proof that Africa is rising, supposedly because there is now a growing "middle class". What such statements omit is that while the numbers in the "middle class" might indeed be growing, so are the numbers in the "lower ranks". And the latter is likely to be growing factor because that's where "reckless" reproduction takes place.
Simply looking at economic growth, junk-food joints, etc. is not very helpful. One needs to also look at the relative population growth, how the economic growth is put to good use, etc.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian President:
Africa's economy has grown at more than 5% annually over the past decade -- some of the highest economic growth in the world -- leading many to use the phrase of "Africa Rising" when describing its countries. However, a country's economic growth does not always lead to development or improvement for its poorest citizens.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/world/africa/africa-rising-invest-girls-johnson-sirleaf/
Taking just food, which is as basic as one can get, the Global Nutrition Report just came out. On the Africa that is "rising", it has this:
the scale of malnutrition in Africa is staggering:
- 58 million children under age five are too short for their age (stunted)
- 13.9 million weigh too little for their height (wasted)
- 10.3 million are overweight. None of these children are growing healthily
- 163.6 million children and women of reproductive age are anemic
- 220 million people are estimated to be calorie deficient.
13 countries in Africa are having to manage serious levels of stunting in children under 5 or anemia in women of reproductive age and adult overweight. In many African countries, only a minority of children are growing healthily. In Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, for example, the percentage of children under 5 who are not stunted or wasted ranges between 43 and 48 percent.
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Here is Waiguru robust reply to the Dr Ndii. Great read.
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/3026576/-/9tkfl3/-/index.html
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Here is Waiguru robust reply to the Dr Ndii. Great read.
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/3026576/-/9tkfl3/-/index.html
She did not understand Ndii's article. If light duties means regurgitating Jubilant talking points, what is Itumbi's job then?
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They are all sort of articles saying all sort of things esp on the internet. How about you tell us what you think...rather than bombarding us with all sort of links.
This clearly indicates what I think:
One sometimes sees an excited announcement to the effect that some American company has opened yet another junk-food place somewhere in Africa. This is touted as proof that Africa is rising, supposedly because there is now a growing "middle class". What such statements omit is that while the numbers in the "middle class" might indeed be growing, so are the numbers in the "lower ranks". And the latter is likely to be growing factor because that's where "reckless" reproduction takes place.
Simply looking at economic growth, junk-food joints, etc. is not very helpful. One needs to also look at the relative population growth, how the economic growth is put to good use, etc.
The links I provide are intended to help those who simply wish to maintain---and sometimes quite vigorously too---positions that have nothing to do with the facts and the reality. What I sometimes refer to as "oblivious determination". I have often found it helpful (to such people) to provide relevant information; I hope they are grateful.
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Ethiopia for example will grow at 10% plus this year.
And it has also launched its biggest beg-for-food campaign in decades. An estimated 10 million people are in danger of starvation this year if "donors" don't do the needful. (Looks like they do 1 million for each 1%!)
See anything wrong with that Empty-Stomach Rising picture? That's my point.
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10% has the drought & it's effect factored...so what exactly are you saying? That a rising country should never experience natural disasters? That rising country should never beg for assistance? but should divert all the money that should go probably to developing railway lines to buying food?
Ethiopia for example will grow at 10% plus this year.
And it has also launched its biggest beg-for-food campaign in decades. An estimated 10 million people are in danger of starvation this year if "donors" don't do the needful. (Looks like they do 1 million for each 1%!)
See anything wrong with that Empty-Stomach Rising picture? That's my point.
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This article from the economist says efforts to fill the energy demand in Tz are stalling because Tanesco is the only company allowed to distribute electricity. M-Kopa, the Kenyan company is meeting some of this demand. But they cannot meet the requirements for industrialization. Magufuli has his work cut out.
AT THE edge of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital, in a space roughly the size of a football field, stands hope for Africa’s industrial future: the Ubungo power plant. Gleaming pipes emerge from the ground; five modern generators hum quietly. This was where, in 2013, Barack Obama announced his Power Africa plan to electrify the continent.
The trouble with plants such as Ubungo is that there are not enough of them. Opposite the power plant, young men sell charcoal to burn for cooking and heat. At night in the city centre the streetlights are turned off. South of the Sahara there are only seven countries—Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa—in which more than 50% of people have access to electricity. In a typical year the whole region generates less electrical power than Canada, and half of that supply is in South Africa.
Generating power in Africa ought to be a good business. Africans tend to pay extraordinary prices for electricity. Businesses rely on dirty and expensive diesel generators. Tanzanian mines are powered by generators burning diesel that has been trucked across the country; a kilowatt-hour can cost as much as $1. Grid power at an American mine, by way of comparison, costs less than a tenth as much.
So there ought to be a rush to invest in African power plants. But there is not. Tanzania, a country of 50m people with substantial recent discoveries of natural gas, illustrates some of the bottlenecks.
Tanzania has about 1,500MW of installed electricity-generation capacity—about as much as a small American city. More than a third comes from hydroelectric power stations. Because of drought in recent years, these rarely run at full capacity. In early October, at the end of the dry season, the country had to shut down all its hydroelectric plants. Tanzania is not alone in relying heavily on hydropower. In Malawi and Zambia almost all power comes from water, when it flows.
Tanzania wants to build new gas-fired plants, connected via a new pipeline from a newly discovered gasfield in the south. Plants such as the one at Ubungo ought to generate lots of extra power cheaply. But that is not happening as quickly as it should. The Ubungo plant, which is owned by an American firm, Symbion, did not begin running at full capacity on local gas until last September. Before that, shortages meant that production often relied on imported liquid fuels such as kerosene.
Gas is relatively clean, reliable and inexpensive. Indeed, the Ubungo power station could easily add capacity, says Magesvaran Subramaniam, Symbion’s local boss. It is just a matter of buying more mobile generators. The trouble is neither a lack of gas to power the plant nor a shortage of demand for the juice it sends down the wire; it is that the only customer does not pay its bills on time. Tanesco, which has a monopoly on distributing power in Tanzania, is severely cash-strapped. Its outgoings are inflated by the need to buy expensive emergency backup fuel to keep the lights on when the supply from dams falters. In practice, payments to independent power producers such as Symbion often come last on its list.
On December 2nd SonGas, a private-equity owned firm that runs another gas-powered plant in Dar es Salaam, and which contributes as much as 20% of Tanzania’s grid power, threatened to stop generating electricity unless it is paid money is it owed by Tanesco. SonGas, like other firms investing in power plants across Africa, has a guarantee from Tanzania’s government that it will be paid—something financial backers generally insist on before investing in private power producers. But this does not help its short-term cashflow. Tanesco’s arrears do not mean that SonGas can refuse to pay for the gas it buys.
For many, then, the best hope of getting the lights on is to bypass the grid entirely. M-Kopa, a Kenyan firm, is expanding across east Africa selling its solar-powered battery systems, which contain a torch and a mobile-phone charger. Customers are effectively given loans to buy them; repayments are made through mobile money.
Generating power at home may transform life in rural areas for the better, but factories, mines and mills need a reliable, large-scale power supply. If Africa is to industrialise, it needs power plants. These will not be built unless customers start paying their electricity bills.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21685504-electrification-plans-are-stalling-because-distributors-wont-pay-power-hungry