We have 150 million reasons for East Africa to prosper

Every time you log into your Facebook account, Mark Zuckerberg and all the Facebook shareholders make millions of shillings. In the third quarter of this year, 2.45 billion people used Facebook on a monthly basis. Out of this, 1.62 billion were active daily users. Because of this huge numbers, Facebook’s revenue was nearly Sh1.8 trillion during this quarter. This is more than a half of Kenya’s Sh3 trillion budget this year. The science behind it is simple – numbers.

This is what the East Africa Community (EAC) has lost. Although we are a 150-million strong market, we simply don’t use these numbers to our advantage. I dare say that the reason we don't have lots of money in circulation is either outright theft at the Treasury, or we are not innovative in the way we trade. Paying suppliers owed by the Government is not the ultimate solution to boosting our economy because the same suppliers have already lost major opportunities as their payments were delayed!