Hustlers' government came up then left hustlers on budget day

A vegggetable and fruits vendor Wakulima Market in Nyeri town expresses her views on President William Ruto's hustler budget. [File, Standard] Government of the hustler, by the hustler, for the hustler has perished from the earth. Yet the election results and the Supreme Court's confirmation keep being brought up as proof of its existence. It is significant that this reiteration is not by those in power. They would not rely on so flimsy a pair of bases. It is being repeated by their friends. Those in power are Kenyans, and like all Kenyans, share a healthy and abiding cynicism about the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and our senior-most court. Those in power therefore do not think that constant references to those events remove doubts that may still remain about their own legitimacy. It is thus best to be silent about them lest an audit of those events is resurrected. They also know those events, when recalled, only remind their supporters that power was obtained for the supposed benefit of our disadvantaged hustlers as their government. But petrol prices and biting taxes confirm daily that hustler government now requires an obituary and that the word 'hustler' is forgotten and no longer a part of the political vocabulary of the people in power. Nor does the economic programme as set out in the Finance Act generate any more legitimacy. It is now clear to all, including hustlers, that these taxes do not represent the will of the hustlers, much less of the people. So the people in power are again silent and make no claim that the Finance Act is the programme of their erstwhile hustler supporters. So whose programme is it, if it is not the programme of the hustlers? It is the programmme of non-hustlers. It is dictated by the IMF. It is to the biggest benefit ultimately of non-Kenyan non-hustlers. But to make these programmes achieve non-hustlers' purposes against the Chinese in Africa, there are several major hurdles. The non-hustlers and their supporters in Kenya are however silent on these. The first consideration is that Kenya alone cannot bear the cost of putting Kenya on an even keel so as to become the showcase of a non-hustler system on the continent. The second consideration is whether the success of these Finance Act programmes is being or will be, undercut by the undiminished appetites for corruption of those in power in Kenya. Here the silence is on the part of those in power, naturally, but diplomatically, also on the part of some missions in Nairobi. But as time will tell, as it did a few decades ago to the terrible cost of Kenya, these missions will have ultimately to curb, not just warn, the admired wards they speak up for now. And the price of those curbs will again be paid for by Kenyans, including our hustlers, not by these wards. The third consideration is that the Finance Act, other IMF conditionalities, and exclusive bilateral agreements, involve divergences from existing inter-African economic arrangements and goals. Such arrangements inevitably establish fault lines between African nations as well as create tensions between African regional and continental partners. A better approach might be to regional blocs. The fourth consideration is the most important, and one to which global non-hustlers are not paying enough or any heed. This is whether Africa is in any mood to become unequal partners against Chinese ambitions, (or anybody else's), on these, or any, terms. And, whether undiplomatic demands laced with paternalistic dictation and a pretended amnesia about history are the best ways to win the partnership of Africa against the dangers of eventual Chinese domination, against which Africa too, a united Africa, must develop strategies to protect itself. Sixty plus years ago, on 3 February 1960, the Prime Minister of the UK, Harold Macmillan said, "The wind of change is blowing through this continent and ... we must all accept it ... as a [political] fact, and our national policies must take account of it." That advice was to those in the non-hustler world who were then paying no heed to this fact; and were determined to deal with Africa as they had been doing in the past. They did not listen. The wind of change has not stopped blowing. So to return on the same assumptions, without 'taking it as a political fact, and not taking account of it', is a historic mistake and poorer persuasion. The writer is senior counsel

Hustlers' government came up then left hustlers on budget day

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