County investor forums don’t make sense

By XN IRAKI

Almost every Kenyan county has lined up an investor conference to showcase the opportunities they have. Are such conferences necessary? Do they make economic sense?

Conferences became popular after the end of Kanu era. One could argue that they reflected the newfound freedom of speech. Others see them as a bonanza for the hotel industry. We are even talking of conference tourism and devolution of KICC. Some observers opine conferences show the influence and presence of academicians in government.

Others argue, and I fear they may be right, that conferences reflect our approach to solving problems; talking around them or giving answers and not solutions. We love talking about problems and even shouting about them. We put up signposts showing black spots instead of redesigning the road. We put up signs like “slippery floor” instead of making it safer.

Conferences are also a sign of our unwillingness to confront the real problems head on. In most of these meetings, we call outsiders to talk to us — we think they have better solutions. One of the tricks used to attract people to conferences, including Christian conferences, is to indicate that you have international guests with big titles. We forget that we offer the best solutions to our problems. That is why they have remained unsolved for 50-years,

There is, however, an economic reason conferences should be fewer; the efficient market theory, which helped Eugene Fama win the 2013 Economics Nobel Prize. It states that in the markets, most of the information is public. What opportunities are counties selling that the investors have not seen or snapped up?

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Investors, or even better, the markets, are very good at identifying opportunities; in fact they are always ahead of the government. Safaricom started M-Pesa; did you hear of a conference?

Package opportunities

Instead of conferences, counties should set up research departments that would identify unique investment opportunities and package them for investors in better ways than other counties. By continuously doing research, counties would stay ahead of their competitors.

Another approach is to make counties more attractive. Make land transactions easy, build roads, make water available and more importantly, make the county livable like Nairobi, which — though seen as filthy — detribalises and even internationalises you.

I can tell counties for sure; millions would  leave Nairobi if they found better places to live. 

Can you make investors feel secure? If you recall, investors suffered a lot in the 2008 post-poll violence. They had taken themselves to the counties — after no conference — to follow opportunities. How paradoxical that they are now being invited back. Or which investors do counties have in mind? Wazungus?

The best way to bring investors is to be open. That is why Kajiado has done so well. Anyone can buy land and settle there and start an enterprise. That is why America has done so well in attracting investors. With a certain amount of money to invest, you even get a green card. Have you heard of such a card in the former Soviet Union?

Let us be blunt, we are focusing on the wrong frontier in investment — land and physical assets instead of knowledge. Which country has offered free land to anyone willing to set up a science and technology-based university? Which county has declared that it will register more patents than any other?

Devolution was touted as the final solution to economic woes of the counties. But that is only possible if they see themselves as borderless, attracting the brightest and ambitious.

If they start talking of “locals” and “foreigners” they will lose the plot. The most vibrant counties in the next 50-years will be the most diverse.

To unlock the economic potential of devolution, we need to become less academic and see county borders as administrative conveniences, not fences.