We can finance some of our projects without foreigners, so why don’t we?
What you need to know:
- Commercial interests were at the top of the agenda, hence the high profile role in President Obama’s delegation by the Secretary of Commerce, Ms Penny Pritzker and the head of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic), Ms Elizabeth Littlehead.
- Even in the private sector, it seems we have dropped the time-honoured corporate tradition of well-prepared after-dinner speeches delivered with wit and banter.
- Last year, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt had a choice of either allowing these players to fund construction of the second Suez Canal or raise the money locally.
President Barack Obama fired the imagination of the whole nation with his powerful public speeches.
I found myself lamenting about the impoverished state of public speaking and debate in our country. Clearly, our leaders do not appreciate the power of well-prepared and powerfully delivered speeches — oratory that projects vision and hope to the citizens.
Even in the private sector, it seems we have dropped the time-honoured corporate tradition of well-prepared after-dinner speeches delivered with wit and banter.
Clearly, oratory, charisma, and plain speaking as displayed by President Obama are not part of our strengths. I will be the first to concede that President Uhuru Kenyatta delivered one of the most powerful and persuasively argued speeches to the National Assembly as he prepared to leave the country for the Hague last year.
Of course, as former president Daniel Moi would say, speeches do not put more ugali on the table. But a leader with a vision of history, one who projects fresh and deep insight into the country’s problems, will give the citizens more hope than a politician who cannot see beyond the next election or a dictator obsessed with defeating the next coup attempt. Enough of powerful speeches.
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
What are the other takeaways from President Obama’s visit? It is that future relations between Kenya and the US will be defined more by trade and investment than aid.
Commercial interests were at the top of the agenda, hence the high profile role in President Obama’s delegation by the Secretary of Commerce, Ms Penny Pritzker and the head of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic), Ms Elizabeth Littlehead.
Going forward, expect to see increased activity from American companies and Opic, especially in the space of renewable energy, with the big manufacturers of turbines angling for large solar and wind energy projects.
The Americans have imposed a carbon dioxide emission ceiling on Opic’s portfolio, which means that it can only participate in renewable energy.
I see a situation where the Chinese will be dominant in roads, Lamu ports, and railways, the Japanese fighting to keep their turf in the Olkaria geothermal space, and the Americans chasing wind and solar projects.
During Obama’s visit, Ms Pritzker, signed an MoU with the government, covering Lapsset projects. My prediction is that the Chinese are too entrenched in that space.
NEW SCRAMBLE
Indeed, we are in the middle of a new scramble for spheres of influence by these international players.
The Chinese have more or less taken over both geothermal drilling, contracts, and sale of drilling equipment and the Japanese have built the largest power plants in Olkaria and taken control of the first phase of the building of new container berths in Mombasa.
The Chinese are building both the standard gauge railway and the first three berths of Lamu port.
The fight for spheres of influence can be fierce. For instance, I recently came across correspondence where the Japanese complained to the government about what they view as an attempt to edge them out of port development projects in Mombasa.
Having financed the building of the first phase of new container terminals, and having in March this year signed a loan agreement to construct the second phase of the project, they were well entrenched.
RUDE SHOCK
They got a rude shock early this year when, out of the blue, the government changed tune by announcing that the second phase of the project would be given to any company that wins concession to manage the new container terminal.
The Japanese are aggrieved because all indications in Mombasa are pointing to the entry into their sphere of politically-influential Gulf companies.
How about us? Do we just sit back and allow these latter-day imperialists to hog everything? I believe that if we organised our resources better, we could do some of these large projects.
Last year, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt had a choice of either allowing these players to fund construction of the second Suez Canal or raise the money locally. He raised $8.5 billion through a bond sold to domestic banks and retail investors in three weeks.
How much did the Safaricom IPO raise and how much was returned after over-subscription? If there is one thing I agree with President Obama, it is that we underrate our potential.
jkiseroke@ke.nationmedia.com
