We do not have to wait until the pain of a crisis forces us to change

By kap Kirwok

You have heard the clichÈ, "No pain, No gain". What you may not have heard is that Kenya has a flipped version: "No pain, No change". It has been our preferred mode of operation for so long that it has virtually acquired the status of an economic development model.

Two seemingly unrelated news items in the past week illustrate this point wonderfully. There was the news that China had officially overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy. And then there was news of the on-going tussle between the Dock Workers Union and the Kenya Privatisation Commission. The former is opposed to the plan to privatise the Kenya Ports Authority as part of a strategy to turn Mombasa into a landlord port. Before we examine the context surrounding the port news, let us first look at a modern phenomenon called the People’s Republic of China.

For about 30 years since its founding (1949-1978), the People’s Republic of China experimented with an autocratic socialist system. Instead of achieving what Mao Zedong called the Great Leap Forward, the result was stagnation, even regression – economically and culturally. Instead of doubling down on Mao’s experiment, Deng Xiaoping, ever the pragmatist – he is the one who said "It does’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice" – decided to merge capitalism with communism. He grafted a market economic model onto a socialist political system. The results have been spectacular. In 1978, China’s share of global economic output was about 2 per cent. Today it is estimated at 9 per cent – an impressive change in a mere 30 years. Equally impressive is the fact that the economy has kept up a steady clip of 10 per cent throughout that period. The result has been massive wealth creation and millions of people lifted out of poverty and growing global influence.

The rise of China has been nothing short of spectacular. That this has happened peacefully (so far) has won it grudging praise from some of its most hardened detractors. For many developing countries, the success of the Chinese model of development, the Beijing Consensus as it is called, is beginning to look like an attractive counterweight to the liberal, open market western model, the so-called Washington Consensus.

In the Chinese model, an elite group of well-educated leaders set and drive the nation’s agenda, allowing capitalism to flourish within an environment where dissent is controlled or crushed. No squabbling is allowed. Decide and get it done. This model saw China overtake Britain and France in 2005, Germany in 2007, and now Japan in 2011. The United States is next by as early as 2020 – according to some projections.

There are those who say this model is unsustainable in the long run: they cite a suspect monetary policy, environmental stress, unsustainably low wages, social unrest, among others. Supporters respond by pointing out the following fact: For 2000 years, from the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC to 1840 AD, China was a super power, accounting for about 30 per cent of the global economic output (the USA currently accounts for 24 per cent).

Back to "No Pain, No change" model and the Port of Mombasa.

The landlord port model has been shown to be more efficient while decreasing costs for port operators. This is why port privatisation is a growing trend worldwide. If done well, it usually leads to more business for the port – and therefore more jobs. Study after study have shown this to be the case. And yet the Port of Mombasa, East Africa’s most important infrastructure asset, remains severely congested and inefficient; this at a time when the demand for its services is growing. A painful crisis is inevitable if the required reforms are not carried out immediately. Business and therefore jobs will be lost.

We don’t have to wait until the pain of a crisis forces us to change. We did not have to wait until the pain of traffic jams in Nairobi became unbearable before beginning to construct city by-passes. We do not have to wait until airlines begin to divert traffic for lack of parking space at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport before constructing a new terminal.

Kenyan’s are adaptive beings, and therein lies the problem. We adapt to pain. We adapt to port delays and financial loss. We adapt to traffic jams. We adapt to poor service. We adapt to and accept all manner of insults, abuses and inconveniences – until it becomes unbearable. Then we demand change – often too late.

It is time we respond to pain and the promise of gain – by changing things. Time for a new clichÈ: no pain, no change, no gain.

The writer is the Kenya County Director for TradeMark East Africa. The views expressed here are personal.