If there is a currency that nations run on, it must be optimism

Traffic jam along Ngong road.

If there is a currency that nations run on, it must be optimism and hope.

Speculative markets such as the money markets and stock markets are driven by the hope of the future, which we so aptly named forecasts.

The whole point of having a government is to constantly create an environment where people are hopeful.

A hopeful population takes up more risk because they feel that there is a larger safety net upon which they can leverage their risk. 

The opposite of a hope-driven economy is a pessimist approach.

The way to identify a pessimist economy is funny; pessimist economies are copycat economies.

Every entrepreneur is busy copying what has already been done and seen to be successful.

We all become tenderprenuers, quail farmers and app-controlled taxi owners, simply because the only risks our pessimism allows us to take are the risks others have taken even if it means diminishing returns on the investment and death to innovation. 

Further, a pessimistic culture does not hedge decisions beyond the emergency of now. Long-term investments are few and far between.

We all want investments that pay off now because we feel investing with 15 years in mind is too far to risk. This means that our business decisions are not aligned to governmental plans. 

As an example, assume you are a wall builder (if there is such a profession) in the United States and Trump becomes president.

Wouldn’t it make sense to move your family as near the Mexican border as possible? This is the thinking of an optimistic nation where success is driven by the public belief that government plans will come to fruition. 

ROSY PICTURE

Now, imagine a nation where you can access any part of the country within six hours by road, an hour by flight and four hours by train. Imagine a nation where you can register a business within a day.

Imagine a nation where the moment you join university you are assured of an industrial attachment. Imagine a nation where rents are affordable and you can mortgage a house with the help of government. 

A nation where you can manufacture at half the cost of energy of neighbouring countries; where health care is free and universal and education up to secondary school level is free of charge. Imagine what a healthy and educated population looks like, acts like and most importantly, votes like. 

A citizen living in a country like this would begin to invest in the financial and consulting services industry because he knows that the nation will have a wealth of educated citizens to staff the business.

At the same time, such a nation would see a rise in investment in small and large scale manufacturing businesses that aim to take advantage of the low electricity tariffs.

Beyond this, one should also see opportunity in agriculture, assured of the government’s support in creating the road network and affordable implements by which to ensure profitability. Such a nation would be in the same league as the Asian tigers like Singapore, which transformed their economies in less than 5 decades. 

PROSPEROUS KENYA

This country, my dear friends, is the Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta promises us by 2022. This is his proposed legacy. Some may say it is political rhetoric, but that only stems from the low optimism we all share as a nation. We are a nation that hardly sees a glass half full. We see what is wrong and what is impossible.

If you drove anywhere in this republic over the holidays you must have noted it took you shorter than it did ten years ago. This is because our road network has improved. Today Huduma Centres are a reality, we can pay for new licenses online and our airport is bigger and better.

Health care and indeed health insurance are vastly different from what they were  7 years ago. Free maternal health care is a reality as is the SGR and more remarkably Kenya assembles it own tablets for distribution to schools. 

Whether we accept it or not Kenya will not be the same in the next five years, the roads will be built, train networks increased, secondary education will be free.

We as a population need to shed our pessimism and realise that we can either watch the change happen and gain only affordable and comfortable lives or we can share in the pie called hope and in five years’ time be financially transformed for the better. 

I expect to sit in a train from Mombasa to Malaba on a brand new SGR track. I fully intend to travel on a super highway to Mombasa from Nairobi.

I plan to drive to Turkana on properly tarmacked roads and finally have a holiday by the sides of Lake Turkana.

I dream indeed of an expanded Ngong Road, and the end of endless traffic on this stretch of road. 

At the same time I wholly plan to participate in the economic transformation; this optimism is my ticket to moving on up, to the east side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky.