Kenya has moved up five places in the global Ease of Doing Business index, in a newly released World Bank report this week, from position 61 to 56. It’s a great step for the whole country and the region, especially considering that it places us just behind Mauritius, Rwanda and Morocco on the African map. It has long been President Uhuru Kenyatta’s aim to ensure the ranking improves and opens up the country to further investment, trade and room for innovative advances in the business sector. Speaking at the launch of the Doing Business in Kenya 2020 report, Deputy President William Ruto noted that there has been a collective effort to instill Kenya’s economic progress through different policies and programmes.
This has certainly been evident, as the report factored the ease of acquiring construction and property permits, credit access, improvements in the electricity connection and supply section among other things. However, the focus must shift to the grassroots, are we seeing the ease of doing business as a myth or a reality ready to be exploited? As we ask this question, the Counties of the former Western Province and neighboring Trans Nzoia and West Pokot shouldn’t hide under the cosh of global and national rankings but prove that the opening and setting up businesses, for no the local and international dealers is efficient and practical.
When we talk about the Counties of Bungoma, Kakamega, Vihiga, Busia, in terms of economic productivity, what comes to mind is agriculture as the sole and main route towards economic productivity and development triggers. Further,when we talk about agriculture as the sole route towards growth in the region, we ignore the hot iron that is business as a whole, and jump to governance, where a myriad of excuses exist to blur our failures.
It’s a wide enough subject, business, and the more efficient and favorable an environment is to business, particularly the Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), the more the chances of exponential growth. In view of this, the County governments in the Western region should be held accountable to lay out what they are doing to boost SMEs, local and international trade, investments, among others. At the end of it all, we want to know how conducive the environment is for one to set up and run a business, how flexible it is for investments to be made in, let’s say, the major towns in the region, without bureaucracy interference and frustrations form the so called ‘powers that be.’
We won’t hide behind the facade of agricultural superpowers for ever, the bread basket of Kenya covers a vast region, into the Rift Valley, and the economic hubs should be seen as the prized commodities instead. Back to the sub counties, how is the ease of doing business there? Down to the towns, Bungoma, Mumias, Kitale, Busia etc, what can flourish and how? The residents really need to know. We haven’t come to a wedding as bridesmaids to bask in the bride’s glory, rejoicing in the fact that Kenya’s recognition by the World Bank is a fantastic window of opportunity, yet back home, even the most burdened traders, business people can’t get a hold of business permits easily or acquiring premises is a strenuous affair.