Kenya urgently needs focused stewardship, Mr President

NAIROBI: Kenyans are a patient lot. At the height of the recent terrorist attacks, they displayed awesome unity. In the 2008 post-election violence, they rallied as a nation to save their country from the brink of ethnocentric annihilation. In the early 1990s, they tightened their belts to outlive the devastating droughts and economic meltdown. In 2002, they joined hands across the ethnic and political divide to dispatch the dysfunctional KANU home because of corruption and mismanagement.

Today, Kenyans face daunting economic challenges that threaten to drive them deeper into poverty and servitude. The depreciating value of the shilling, coupled with skyrocketing interest rates and proposed higher taxes bodes ill for the region’s largest economy. The government is in a hole in massive debt, and is still digging. What Treasury refers to as turbulence in the economy is a polite expression of an unprecedented economic malaise that is on an intensive IMF drip.