We need a national developmentalist coalition urgently

Senior government officials face criticism over their response to rising fuel prices and worsening cost of living in Kenya. [Courtesy, Standard] 

The current fuel crisis was a reminder of Kenya’s ongoing lack of a coherent developmentalist industrial policy. We have a government that is monomaniacally focused on revenue maximisation. Everything else, from service delivery to support for private sector-led growth have been subordinated to revenue maximisation.

The government does not seem to care about much else, perhaps except for the intensification of the spoils system that makes it impossible to rationalise public spending. We spend over Sh1.1 trillion on operations and management. State House alone gobbles up a budget that is orders of magnitude larger than the typical county.