Kenya walks fine line in quit notice to expatriates

In June, the Government issued a quit notice to the expatriate community.

The directive, issued by the State Department for Immigration, stated that the Government would not renew permits for expatriates whose terms have expired unless it was proven beyond doubt that no Kenyan could perform their jobs.

It is not the first time the Government has issued such a notice to expatriates. Both former presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki threatened similar action during their tenures.

Like in the past, the Government accuses foreign nationals of illegally acquiring work permits. It also censures NGOs for paying foreign workers up to four times what they pay Kenyans for the same job.

According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2011, expatriate Indian workers formed the bulk of foreigners issued with work permits, followed by the Chinese. Between 2007 and 2010, 26,077 foreigners were issued with work permits, with only 14,000 being active, and 11,251 having either expired or been cancelled.

The love-hate relationship between Kenya and the expatriate community is as long as the country’s history. The presence of foreign workers goes back to the building of the Kenya-Uganda railway about a century ago. Having no local expertise, British colonialists brought in hundreds of Indians to lay the railway.

Naturally, the Indians found a second home here and their population has since increased. Although they tried to dabble in politics during the early years in the fight for independence, Indians found their ultimate calling in trade and commerce. Their wealth today surpasses any other single ethnic or racial entity with major interests in the industrial world.

After independence, Kenya’s vantage position in the East African region attracted many established international organisations. Industrious Kenyans proved an asset to these foreign interests, both as labour and market.

Essential logic

Like in other places around the world, the recruitment of foreign know-how has elicited mixed reactions. While some view it as a necessary evil for jobs that we have scant or no local expertise, others see it as a racially biased exercise.

Although the essential logic of the expulsion move is sound, Kenya would like to guard itself from having the dubious distinction of a blanket expulsion of foreigners. But the truth is that many foreign firms and organisations have abused Kenya’s hospitality.

Therefore, to begin with, the Government should not allow foreigners to do jobs Kenyans are adequately qualified for. Although some organisations have highly specialised ways of performing certain tasks, they should work towards transferring these skills to Kenyans in the medium term. Such organisations should have a policy that gives Kenyans an opportunity to understudy foreign experts.

But we cannot escape blame for the current predicament in the country’s labour market. Some contractors building high-end real estate and infrastructural projects have been forced to import specialised labour even in basic fields, like welding and masonry, for lack of local finesse.

This is an indictment of our education system that has ignored the stepping up of technical skills training, and converted technical training colleges into universities en masse.

The expulsion of expatriates can also not be used as a panacea for Kenya’s high unemployment rate, which today stands at over 50 per cent. The Kenyan economy needs to grow at over 8 per cent per annum over the next 10 years to bring unemployment at par.

Let us also be cognizant of the fact that thousands of Kenyans work as expatriates and traders abroad. Let us not forget that much of the upmarket economic activity in Kenya is expatriate-driven, and their departure would spell doom for many high-end real estate, hospitality and fast-moving consumer goods businesses.

Critically, we should not fall into South Africa’s and South Sudan’s xenophobic trap that turned violent, leading to the fleeing of many Kenyans and other African nationals.

The writer is the executive director, Centre for Climate Change Awareness.

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