The Hornet’s Nest
Wealth Transfer in Kenya is More Than Meets the Eye..
In the Standard of 16th April 2017, an article written by Dr XN Iraki was published. The subject was: “Wealth Transfer” - at the individual level, at the family level and at the national level.
It was an interesting article for several reasons. One, it went to some depth in trying to understand the popular issue of wealth accumulation in Kenya and, more particularly, the question of the legitimacy of methods used in that process. Two, it delved into the more thorny issue of corruption in the country and, by innuendo, among the different “communities” that make up our social fabric. And third, it made some comparisons between Kenya and the most advanced country on earth, viz., the USA, on the issue of innovation.
Innovation
Let me start in reverse so that the issues are put in perspective. In the article, Iraki shows data from the World Bank that shows that in 2004 a total of 84 patents were registered in Kenya. Patents are a proxy for innovation. In the US, a total of 356,943 patents were registered in the same year, that is 4,249 times as many. By 2014, Kenya had 279 patents against a total of 578,802 for the US this now being 2,074 as many. In absolute terms, this was a remarkable achievement by a country that had been independent for a paltry 51 years against the 238 years that the US has been independent from our common coloniser, i.e., Great Britain.
But this is only part of the REAL story. As I have mentioned above, the US has a post-independence period advantage of 4.7(238/51). If you adjust the 2014 patents statistic by this number alone, the US patent advantage falls to 441 times(from 4,429). But, that is not all: the US has a population of 360 million while ours was only 42 million an advantage of 8.8 times. If you adjust the 441 times above by 8.8 you get a new statistic of 50 times! So, our paltry 279 patents in 2014 were, comparatively, not so bad after all. Converted appropriately, it would amount to 11,539 patents (279x8.8x4.7). And this is using publicly
available data from the indomitable World Bank which are already biased in favour of the US – how many Kenyans know about patenting anyway? Before we leave this topic I suggest that there is another invidious fallacy here: Just what constitutes an innovation? I will come top that later.
Wealth Accumulation
We in Kenya have over the years been systematically socialised and educated about the evils of wealth accumulation. This has been through education and religious systems that tell us as kids that to be rich is sinful. But is being rich so bad? As anybody who reads the Judaic Bibles with an open mind will tell you, being wealthy was considered to be a desirable pursuit of the human spirit all the way from the Old Testament (Abraham and his migration from Ur to the land of “milk and honey” -read, plenty of resources) to the New Testament (recall the parable of the rich man and the allocation of his talents, i.e., wealth). This latter is the so-called “Matthew Effect” which concludes with “unto those who have, more will be added and to those who don’t have much, even the little they have will be taken away from them and given to the rich”. A Biblical invocation with serious modern consequences.
A review of many of our own traditional values is entirely consistent with biblical teachings. In most of our societies, poverty was looked upon with derision as it was equated with laziness just like in the bible – recall about “the ant and the sluggard”. In my culture, a poor man was not even considered to be worthy of a wife! And in several of our communities, the only way to get dowry for a wife was to go on a raiding mission for cattle at the nearest target – usually a neighbouring tribe. The means used to acquire such wealth were not an issue: the end justifies the means like in the Nike slogan “Just Do It” or like the black American singer “50-Cent”: “Get rich or die trying”.
So there you are: the bible, your culture or the American dream - same message. You will note that the questions of morality or legality do not arise – just like a lion is not bothered by the morality of eating a buffalo.
Wealth Transfer
This is where hell meets high water. Should you as the creator of wealth be concerned about how you transfer your wealth and to who? Strictly speaking, you are under no obligation to transfer any of your wealth to your progeny just like the lion cannot transfer any of its “wealth” to its cubs. They must learn early how to make their own hay otherwise you give them an undeserved advantage over other species.
In the Bible, it is again the prodigal son who, in fact, becomes the inheritor of the father’s wealth and not the non-adventurous son who stayed at home. It does not matter if he got broke in the process. In my culture, it is the son named after the mother’s father (githumba) who, in fact, became the successor to family wealth as he did not wait to collect an inheritance from the father but went out to create his own. In many cases, inherited wealth can become a curse partly because it is not valued highly by the inheritees – just look around the country.
Perhaps the one exception in Kenya is the Indian community. A familiar example is the main owner of East African Building Society whose bank, when he died, was sold to Ecobank by his son who promptly took off for the good life in Canada. No doubt there are many others.
Corruption
If there is one word that should be eliminated from our lexicon it is “Corruption”. It is a word of dubious etymological origins and anthropology. Many of our local languages do not in fact have a value- based interpretation. In my own culture, a chief would not agree to preside over a dispute unless a fat ram was slaughtered for him in advance and a suitable libation of beer provided to enable him and the elders who formed his council to come to a considered judgement. Similarly, you never went to see a “big man” (even your father-in-law) for any serious consultation empty-handed. It was an accepted social norm.
My own conclusion is that corruption as we know it was introduced into this country by our colonisers in order to mess up our social values and, in many cases, force us to abandon them. And they did not even have
the slightest compunction in using religion as a bait for the “simple” native mind. So, if you really want to know about the source of the scourge, just ask the remaining Brits in this country - luckily, there are many of the still around (and their wonderful students).
So, what in the mind of the native is considered to be corruption or cheating, if you look closely, there is rarely any sense of guilt or wrong-doing! All you have to do is look at the eyes of those charged in court with this “vice”. In fact, you see a look of undisguised triumph. For them, there is nothing wrong in being innovative.
Which brings me to the sting in the tail: If you were to adjust the patents in Kenya by the number of other “innovations”, would we be so far behind the US? It is all a matter of changing the definitions and like Shakespeare once said: “A rose by any other name smells as sweet”.
On reflection, this last subject, i.e., corruption, has evolved into a national cult. It is almost viewed as the norm - from school children cheating in their examinations, to youngsters becoming betting addicts, to leaders rigging elections, to lawyers helping their obviously guilty clients to escape the wrath of the law.
Question becomes: Is there hope for us or are headed to sure self destruction? Will things continue like this until we are unable to tell the difference between good and evil? In short, losing our humanity and thus becoming just like the animals we evolved from. Only time will tell.
My own conclusion is simple: We cannot continue doing these same things and, like Einstein once said, expecting different results.