Baking the cake: Why Dangote Lamu Complex must reset our economic story

An aerial view of the proposed Dangote Fuel Refinery plant site marked in Red), near the Lamu port with three operational berths at Magongo, in Lamu west mainland, Lamu County. [File, Standard]

Kenya’s economic history feels like a long and winding tale that begins with the hopeful signs of light at the end of the tunnel before we discover it’s an oncoming train headed our way.  Are we trying to grow like a low-margin FMCG (what I call the income statement, or GDP approach) rather than an asset-rich bank (the balance sheet, or wealth creation approach)? We squeeze incomes to pay for government more than we sweat assets to build Kenya.  Cake-baking, anyone?

By this mad thinking, Wednesday’s launch of the Dangote East Africa Oil Refinery and Petrochemical Complex in Lamu reads like an unapologetic pivot to a wealth-creation model.  We’re not talking economic purity here, but strategic clarity , essentially, “go big or go home”!