Azimio la Umoja One Kenya leader Mr. Raila Odinga has indicated growing the double-digit economy through manufacturing. This, he said, will create more wealth and jobs. Mr Odinga noted that supporting the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises including the Jua- Kali sectors as drivers for the “Made in Kenya” initiative, creating an enabling environment for climate-smart agriculture, improved livestock farming, and growth of the blue economy will be factored in his administration.
We in Africa have so far failed to create a solid business & jobs base and trying to build one now will not work unless we make huge shifts in attitude.
The first shift in attitude we all must make is to stop simply accepting that foreigners or a small elite of Africans will own a disproportionate number of the best businesses and hold the best jobs.
That explosion must consist mainly of African owned, managed and financed businesses.
Second, if we ordinary Africans really want to get rid of poverty, then WE OURSELVES, every one of us, must do what we can to support the creation of a strong business & well-paid jobs base. But enough of us, even if we only did that and nothing else, would create an explosion in business & jobs that take ourselves, our families and all our citizens to a better life, not just a favored few.
And this could happen virtually overnight.
The third shift of attitude we must make is to understand a harsh reality of society, but then truth often is brutal poverty in Africa only exists because we ordinary Africans co-operate with it. Everywhere in the world, in every foreign nation, the fight against below survival living and poverty has always been started and won by ordinary citizens, never by governments.
Western and Asian business interests actually want us to do nothing. It is precisely by doing nothing that we have co-operated in our own poverty.
Our next shift of attitude is that we must immediately shop for only African-made products instead of Western and Asian ones.
And it is very easy for us to do! If enough of us, ask for African-made products wherever we go shopping and buy them whenever possible, we will create an explosion in businesses, jobs, pay, standards of living and the reduction in poverty.
We could catch the entire world (and ourselves!) unawares.
Every product imported from the West or China actually robs us of jobs and keeps us in poverty while at the same time increasing the jobs and wealth of the West or China. Ask yourselves these questions:
-Are we buying goods from the West only because we automatically assume they are better than African-made ones?
-Why are we buying 290 million litres of alcohol soda, juice…energy drinks a day when, surely, there must be someone somewhere in Africa who could make an alternative?
-Why is imported blended coffee the best-selling coffee in Africa? We sell the beans to the West in the first place to sell them back to us at huge profit. We should be capable of creating several hundred African coffees that taste better.
-Why are imported teas the best sellers? We sell the leaves to the West in the first place to sell back to us at big profit.
-Why is imported toothpaste the top seller in Africa? Can’t we manufacture ours at half the cost!
-Why, when every can we buy helps to keep us in poverty, are we buying imported beers and lagers when we already brew our own?
-Why are shoes, clothes, and a huge range of other products from China now the best sellers in Africa when we can easily make them ourselves and keep all this profit and all those jobs for ourselves?
-Do we need most of our top hotels and game parks and ranches to be under foreign ownership?
-Why are we selling large areas of African land to foreign countries and food producers when we can process the food ourselves and sell it to them?
-Worst of all, why are we giving foreign companies and countries the right to mine our oil and natural resources? I agree we do not have the skills to mine, but all we must do is employ the skills we need from the West or China and keep all the profit for ourselves.
We are also asking you not to buy the worst form of imported counterfeited goods.
I know they are cheap and save you money but, unfortunately, we have no idea how much damage we do by buying these cheap is expensive.
The choice is this: Is it better to buy counterfeits which have already cost tens of thousands of us our jobs and increased our poverty, as well as holding back our own standard of living? Or is it better to buy products made in Africa which may cost more but will help everyone including the poorest of us to a better standard of living?
Cheapness is China’s dagger in the back of Africa. You need to understand that African-made products will probably have to cost more because workers must be paid more if they are to achieve high standards of pay and living—and that includes almost all of us because we also are employees and we all want to earn more! Bear in mind that Chinese companies pay slave wages, both to their own Chinese and African workers.
The last big shift we have to make is our attitude to investment.
Without that, we cannot build the businesses we need. Our governments are pre-occupied with trying—without much success—to attract foreign investment and foreign-owned businesses instead of looking at what can be done at home.
Both they and many experts believe Africa cannot progress without foreign investment.
But this is a dangerous myth because it actually holds up our development. Once Africa proves it can, on its own, create a serious base of these businesses, there will be no problem in attracting foreign investment for bigger projects.
We could achieve this within two years—although, frankly by then we would never need foreign investment if our financiers and bankers got together and managed their affairs properly.
Some small businesses will fulfil the criteria for micro-finance. Another source of money is remittances from the Diaspora. Often, of course, there is no excess because the people who receive it need every cent for living.
But there is a surplus to invest in business.
Then there are members of the Diaspora who invest their money in the West. Some have large investments outside Africa. We are asking you to question your motives because, if you will not invest in your own countries, why should anyone else?
Also, we ordinary Africans have a lot more money than people realize as the mobile phone explosion has shown. Did you know Africa is easily the fastest growing market of cellphones in the world?