Let’s guard against mortgaging our own country to outsiders

Ever wondered where that tasty tilapia you just bit into came from: Lake Victoria, Indian Ocean or a fish farm in Central? Sorry to disappoint you but chances are that it came from Vietnam, China or elsewhere in the East. Seventy per cent of all tilapia currently consumed in Kenya is imported. 

President Kenyatta announced last month that he was banning the importation of Chinese fish but that decision was quickly reversed or at least put on hold when Chinese diplomats reacted badly to those trade threats. It seemed like a trade war was imminent but truth be told foreign fish will continue to be imported for quite some time since Kenya only harvests 25 per cent or 200,000 metric tons of its required annual demand of 800,000 tons.