Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Trade secrecy. Sigh.

If you don't enjoy the secrecy surrounding the Kenya-Uganda agreements signed during our President's visit across the border, then you are not having much fun in your life. How empty it must be that the only thing that gets you up in the morning is another gripe at Uhuru Kenyatta's "unconstitutional" behaviour. Or some such shit. Pole sana. Hankie?

Jokes aside, this obsession with secrecy by our government is counterproductive. In a one party, pre-digital age, information control is de riguer. In the twenty first century, it is proof of a 1960s mindset unsuited to a professed digital government. Stalinist DPRK can get away with it; it has a massive digital army dedicated to keeping all information out of the reach of its benighted people. 

Kenya does not, not that we would know given the secrecy surrounding Kenya's defence forces. But if it did have such a digital army, its deployment among the civilian population would be difficult because of the relatively low cost of digital communications tools and a growing population of the very curious.

Leaks have characterised the digital government. So even if it manages to shove a tight lid over its Uganda dealings, it is almost certain that information about them will leak, making the digital government look foolish in the bargain. The one that is guaranteed to raise political temperatures is the sugar agreement. The President says that he would rather we imported "cheaper" sugar from Uganda rather than from Brazil. In the spirit of EAC bonhomie, no one can argue with that. But given the opacity regarding the terms of the sweet deal, what do you want to bet that the Western Kenya political classes are about to argue that "their" industry is being sabotaged by the President and his anti-democratic crony across the border?

There is no problem with secrecy if it is for strategic purposes. But when a trade deal is being concluded, the ostensible reason is a win/win scenario for traders in both countries. The affected traders are or should be given an opportunity to see the broad contours of the deal and offer their input to make it effective. Months'-long stakeholders' consultations are vital; after all a trading partner is looking out - or should be, anyway - to making sure that his industrial base is thriving, producing more at the lowest cost and selling for the highest price to earn the highest profits, employ the largest number of people and, crucially, pay ever more to the taxman. This is a matter of policy as much as domestic and regional politics.

Where is the policy paper on the sugar deal? Where is the agreement between the governments of Kenya and Uganda and what are its key terms? Why was it concluded between heads of state and not between ministers of trade? Why is it secret?

Sadly, in the past decade, Kenya has proven quite adept at forgetting its strategic interests. In its obsession with whether or not one man will ever become president, Kenya has simply allowed its political classes to run things - frequently, into the ground. One thing the Global Entrepreneurship Summit exposed was that Kenya was quite unready to hold a conversation on entrepreneurship because two and a half weeks after it closed, analysis of the Summit itself remains patchy, understanding of its objectives remains shallow and only the politically well-connected seem to be making anything out of it. How then do you expect a sober examination of the trade agreements entered into between the Government of Kenya and that of Uganda?

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