MP Ndindi Nyoro: Mao Zedong, founding Chairman of China Communist Party made the Chinese people stand up, Deng Xiaoping made the Chinese people Rich, Xi Jinping is making the Chinese people poweful.
Chairman Mao began with basics when he started leading a poor and mostly barbaric society. Deng picked from there and introduced economic reforms that saw China take the path of economic greatness.
Xi is in a mission to consolidate both the economy and grip on both domestic and world power.
But it had to start from basics. We must evaluate if our own trajectory as a Kenyan people stands on strong basics. The real power of modern economies is determined by trade.
Currently, Kenya has deficit on almost all the food items (basics). We consume more meat, eggs, maize, rice, sugar and even fish than we produce. But where does this start. Let’s take an eggs as an example.
A Ugandan egg is more competitive in our local markets than a local one. I mean it costs much less even after factoring in transport; and price is the only differentiating factor on common goods.
The main input in poultry is feeds. The main ingredient in poultry feeds is maize. It costs around Ksh 1,200 to produce a 90 kg bag of maize in Uganda and 2,150 in Kenya. That alone shapes everything else in that domain.
I may not want to tire you with so much verbosity but I strongly feel we’re busy building sky scrapers on quick sands. On fiscal matters, we’re refusing to be pragmatic and strategic.
Our basics are unattended and the more the reason the balance of trade is tilting against us – Uganda now has an upper hand trading with us. This is ridiculous and unimaginable!