Moonki,
You're a comedian. By services I mean modern services.Do I have define everything. Boss this is not law.We are talking economics here. So we are agreed that kenya FORMAL services are doing good. Now lets focus on the informal sector. Informal sector include informal manufacturing (Jua Kali dude making sufuria) and Boda boda (providing transport services)...and of course the bulk of farmers...who nobody knows what they produce.
Let recap the kenya formal economy
10% - Manufacturing
30% - Agri & related -employment 60%
Services (retail,financial,gov,social, etc) -60%.
Then Informal sector - this include informal agri, manufacturing and services - black market - nobody knows what they are doing -although 12m or about of kenyan are this sector. Their economic contribution can only be inferred say from consumption date (cement, beer, fuel)...so they are captured.
Our economic assignment is to move these guys in the shadows to formal sector...move the jua kali guy sweating by the roadside to cottage industry and eventually MNC? move the boda boda guy to uber-tax paying citizen earning decent salary, move matatu tout to own his own matatu and eventually transport or logistic company, move mama duka from his duka to supermarket. It mean doesn't every of these guys will become business owners. Nope it simply mean we formalize those sectors. Some boda boda guys will become taxi drivers while others will become taxi owners. Formalize this sector to SMEs as you have in developed world.
All we need is to bring them from their shadows, make them tax paying, have them earning well to sustain a middle class lifestyle, have medical insurances, have bank accounts, be able to access credit facilities, joined nssf or some pension fund, nhif, the works and generally be as any one employed in any company.
You ask how can we do that without following the touted model. They ought to be employed by some large MNC stitching shoes and doing mundane stuff, but getting regular salaries, paying taxes, getting bank accounts,being in the systems. having some pensions and some housing. This is how South Korea or Asian tiger or China or name them moved people....from peasant or jua kali...to slavish formal jobs as factory workers..then eventually to decent jobs...and eventually to service jobs (deploying capital & brains instead of labour&muscles).
Now you ask how kenya can skip all this. And I answer already kenya has taken steps to skip this.
Kenya for it's level of development now has 1.5 bank accounts for every person. Kenya has more than 50m bank accounts. The maasai herder is bring brought to the system. We can tell what he earns. This is unprecedented. It probably too you south korea or china several years of manufacturing things to get at that level. We are learning that these guys are actually making money than formal employee with education as the denominator.Kenya the last 10yrs has shown that innovation...you can easily bridge the gap. 10yrs ago...kenya as whole had maybe 1m bank account..held by the moneyed and educated...now everyone has 1 and half bank account.
