Why Kenya leaders should 'dehustlise' the economy

Air on sale! [XN Iraki] How time passes! For eight years, I have been writing a mini-column every Wednesday, "Hustlenomics." In it, I describe the economic lives of ordinary Kenyans mostly through observations. Recently, on a visit to a developed country, I wondered if I could have written that long if I was not in Kenya. I would have probably run out of ideas. There are too few hustles in developed countries. The prompt for this conclusion was a visit to a petrol station in the US's Pacific Northwest. Here, you pay two dollars (about Sh260) to check your tyre pressure by yourself. You literary buy air! In Kenya, you get that service for free and someone does it for you. Do it yourself (DIY) does not mean it's free. Many other ordinary hustles have been automated in developed countries. That includes fueling your car. One could quickly ask why there are so many jobs in developed countries. The myth of informality as a path to job creation has been oversold. More innovation and technology reduce hustling jobs and increase high-quality jobs that require less muscle power but still pay better. Americans don't glorify their Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), they focus on blue chips like Google, Oracle or Facebook (Meta), which were in fact started by Ivy League or near Ivy League graduates. In Kenya, high school dropouts are expected to become entrepreneurs. See the disconnect? The other job creator is low population growth, which lessens the demand for jobs. That is why we flock to Europe and risk drowning in the Mediterranean. Back to hustling. With such a high level of informality, we buy and sell anything. Unfortunately, we don't make many things that we could sell. With only a few formal jobs that could give you a regular salary, pension and other benefits, we have to be creative and innovative. Take a walk in Nairobi's downtown or watch hawkers on the highways. Curiously, we have taken our informality online. Facebook is now a vibrant marketplace. Though hustling is celebrated, it should not define our economic future. I have become an advocate of the formalisation of the economy to capture the creative energy of Kenyans and make it easy to scale up our enterprises. If we could focus on the innovations and ingenuity in our informal sector, we could easily have our own SAPs, Hyundais, BYDs and Facebooks and Equities. Unfortunately, formalisation is seen through taxes but not the long-term benefits like social security, pension, higher standards of living and even longevity. Why can't we try it? Who will spearhead it? Noted the many new SACCOs? Is that a model to use in all sectors? What role will the government play in this formalisation?

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Why Kenya leaders should 'dehustlise' the economy

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