Corruption, inefficiency and bureaucracy are slowing down government operations. Donor funds have dried up and the cost of doing business is at an all-time high.
Then in comes President Daniel arap Moi with a strategy to restore investor and donor confidence in the country: a dream team- team of well-paid technocrats drawn from the private sector with only one job description: changing the face of Kenya.
To head the group, Moi chose renowned paleontologist, Dr Richard Leakey.
This came in the wake of strained relations between the Kenya and Bretton Woods institutions in 1993. Then, Kenya was resisting the infamous structural adjustment programmes.
The reform package included massive retrenchment in the civil service to reduce the wage bill, elimination of price controls and privatisation of several State agencies.
The team
Moi chose his team well. Martin Oduor-Otieno was head-hunted from Barclays Bank of Kenya and appointed finance permanent secretary (PS). Titus Naikuni was poached from Magadi Soda Company and appointed transport and communications minister.
Dr Wilfred Mwangi was picked to be energy PS. Others in the team were Mwaghazi Mwachofi (finance), Kitili Mbathi (investment) and Shem Migot-Adhola (agriculture).
The team hit the ground running with three items on its agenda: to streamline the civil service, restore crumbling parastatals back to profitability and embark on a charm offensive to the donor community and investors.
While it was criticised as an attempt to appease donors, Leakey says the team got Kenya out of a rough patch by restoring relations with Bretton institutions and bringing back the much needed investor confidence.
Leakey confesses that he and Moi did not always see eye to eye. But Moi gave the dream team all the support that it needed to get the job done. At the minimum, it restored Kenya’s dented relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a host of other donor agencies.
Without IMF supportive, the country was on its knees after a number of institutions severed relations with Kenya in 1997 and suspended loans to the country.
“We came in when Kenya was in severe economic trouble. The arrangement was that I would bring together a number of people. And the dream team as it was called then would take charge of trying to get some of the problems that had caused the IMF to cancel its support to Kenya sorted out,” said Leakey in an interview.
“I used to interact with the president a lot, in certain instances several times a day. In the one and a half years that we worked together, he was entirely supportive. Sometimes we disagreed but in less than a year, we restored good relations with IMF and the World Bank,” he said.
“We did a number of things including starting civil service reforms and started to sell off government shareholding in some of the parastatals,” he said.
The team made a number of proposals to the president, including how to seal corruption loopholes. In so doing, the team made a number of enemies in Moi’s government who at some point sidelined it and made decisions in its name.
But Moi was always there for the dream team.
“There was goodwill from Moi and that his office always the team tremendous support,” he said.
According to Leakey, the people around Moi pressured him to get rid of the dream team.
From his perceived past relationship with Moi, Leaky was the most unlikely man for the job. In 1995, he was whipped by Kanu youth wingers in Nakuru who accused him of supporting the opposition. But despite this perceived enmity, the two always got along together.
“Although Moi was under pressure from some of his colleagues, he was 100 per cent supportive of what we were trying. He and I had a number of arguments, it always ended in friendship,” he said.
In the years that followed the disbanding of the dream team, Leakey led a quiet life. But in 2015, President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed him to chair the Kenya Wildlife Service. He is now working on building a Sh12 billion museum on human origins in Turkana County.
Set precedence
While the team was disbanded less than two years after it was formed, his after several attempts to kick-start the economy failed to bear fruit, it set a precedence.
Years later, Uhuru once again tapped the private sector’s expertise and talent to fill dozens of slots in parastatal boards and secretariats.
These included Kenya Commercial Bank Chief Executive Officer Joshua Oigara, Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore, the founder of Ushahidi, Juliana Rotich, Toyota Kenya CEO Dennis Awori and General Motors boss Rita Kavashe who were all appointed to the Vision 2030 advisoryboard.
With time, Kenya’s private sector’s involvement in the public sector became more pronounced after the dream team. Pundits say Kenya’s economy has thrived from the cooperation between the government and the private sector.
This saw the establishment of the Milimani Commercial Courts in 1996 to expedite the resolution of commercial disputes, which were getting lost in the general court system.
During Mwai Kibaki’s regime, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance was created as a channel for engaging with the government and contribute to policy debates.
Today, Kenya’s private sector meets with the president, his deputy, the speaker and judiciary representatives once each quarter of the year.
The private sector has also lobbied successfully for several legislations including the Anti-bribery Bill 2015, the Companies Act 2015, the Private Public Partnerships Act 2013 and numerous amendments to finance bills over the years.
