You're right on the historical context and the fickleness of gig/hustling economy as clearly demonstrated by COVID-19. You're wrong to assume that people hustle out of choice. Hustling is way for people to eke a living. Nobody encourage anybody to leave school and hustle. It's just that folks dont see any formal jobs coming - and have to create their own informal jobs - in agriculture, in retail& trade, in transport, in food and accommodation.
Informal sector grew out of SAP that IMF/WB - that basically killed subsided manufacturing run by gov & privatized most of it - and of course population exploded in 70 & 80s - and came to fore in the 90s - before people could understand - computerization - came and removed lots of jobs - as automation was adopted.
Now we have major problem - about 15-17m adults in Kenya are hustling.
What does Ruto propose to do - get most of these hustlers into construction jobs (kazi ya mjengo building houses, roads) - and get them into manufacturing.
The housing is very easy - the plan very straightforward - we have housing shortfall - gov has land/can reduce taxes - people need to be forced to save for housing - and you can unleash chinese like construction machine - that need to build a million plus house - and employ 4 million people. The blocker here is our judiciary - housing levy need to pass - so people can be forced to save percentage of their salary that will entitled them to mortgage - and Uhuru ulevi. Our mortgage market remain a big joke - only 25,000 mortagages in country of 25M adults. Our houses remain very expensive. Most people still find buying a plot and building is cheaper because the market has ISSUES that need fixing.
Manufacturing is tough one. I haven't heard any concrete plan.
If manufacturing can get 4million out - and 4 million in construction - you remain with 8m still hustling.
Good news - hustling or informal sector - actually beat formal jobs - in earning for same education level - except it doesnt really have any shocks absorbers (one covid or drought - informal dude is "dead" - while someone in formal employment survives). So we need to build shock absorbers for those in hustling economy.
Now 8M - who will remain as hustlers - need to be supported by providing them with cheap loans, allowing their informal business to thrive alongside formal (kiosk & hawkers should be allowed in town), reducing all these regulation & licensing fees, organizing them into saccos where they can save for the rainy day, etc.
The biggest problem in kenya in the last 68 years is that we have agreed that hustling can get you out of poverty. So every year since 1963 we have sent millions into informal sector without a clear policy on how to formalize these millions. Our public school system has become the ultimate pipeline for these hustlers. As our economic fortunes have dwindled the more we have encouraged the poor to stop seeking education and engage in hustles to escape poverty. In kiambu the mass movement to hustling started in the 1990s. Kids in their preteens could go into the market at the lowest end of the supply chain and earn a living. So boys started quiting school at 14 to go hustle. Most of these hustles are undercapitalized and rely on Goodluck than skilled to make money. So if such a kid got into the good season in market they made a lot of money but it took only one bad season to take them down to the getheri..gathering.soup kitchen. Then in the late early 90s the banking system realized this section was the biggest unexplained...one and they unleashed microfinance loan sharks in suits and tight skirts. What has happened is that the once smelly gichagi waru broker is now a market pimp. With a shiny suit and fake leather shoes he has become a sonko but with less than $200 in cash flow.
This where ruto and his band of dimwitted fools are today. They are promising each other heaven on earth but the sad reality only ruto has the means to start another brothel they can pimp for each other
End of rant
Topic: The hustler pyramid scheme (Read 2751 times)