Why Kenyan startups have a White face

PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK

We can’t hold it against Stratis Karamanlakis if he decides to leave the comfort of London, travel to Kenya, and launch a startup that pairs employers and job seekers—a venture for which he is using his own funds.

Hopefully, he pays taxes.

With this victim mindset, Africa will fail.

But the Whiteness is not the issue. Capital is the issue, and utter mistrust of youth and their perspectives. Our obnoxious belief that brick and mortar is real makes everything worse.

I am aware of a number of people who are worth millions or even billions of dollars, but if you approach them with the next big idea—an IT-based solution to a problem that will undoubtedly be profitable in a few years—they will laugh you off as an idealist.

However, since 2000, the majority of the largest startups have been in the media, IT, and intangible goods sectors.

The culture of quick success is another issue. Say Uber approaches a wealthy man who also happens to be a senior official at the the Ministry of Transport about opening an office in Kenya. Rather than consider launching his own Uber, the man will likely ask for a one-time bribe or purchase numerous cars to be listed on Uber and receive a cut.

He could have received a 20 percent cut for each ride, but he opted for a 10 percent or less portion. The laborious nature of all these things bothers us.

Straighter to the point. $15 trillion worth of embezzled public funds from Kenya are safely hidden in tax havens on posh islands. And that’s just the money we are aware of.

What if our country’s billionaires used that money to invest domestically? We have a ton of issues to resolve and make money from.

We still need to update our educational system, transportation network, healthcare system, agricultural sector, and housing stock. Think of it.

What if our multimillionaires farmed maize and wheat instead of importing them? Imagine that in order to export our produce, our educated class made inroads into places like the Middle East and Africa.

What if our billionaires invested in the development of industrial cities on a regional scale?

Tell me, please. They can’t invest because they acquired their money with ease, and it would take too much labour to tell them to construct a tanning plant that will produce stylish shoes for global sale. Not even their children would stop them from living like zombies, dying, and letting the trustees devour their money.

For this reason, we set up camps in Beijing, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Washington, and other cities, pleading with investors to come and invest here.

While we’re at it, we also put up impossibly high barriers that prevent young people from even taking pictures of the street for their own use.

The good news is that a lot of young people are coming to Africa and investing here. Our only hope is that eventually, Africa will be able to afford intelligent leaders.

Duke Nyankabaria is a student at Moi University, Eldoret. [email protected]