If you travel regularly around the region, you develop a network of cab drivers in the different capitals. One of my Nairobi cabbies recently ran out of petrol on the way to the airport and he immediately called his colleague who quickly showed up and took me to catch my flight. The regular cabbie sent me a lengthy sms apologising for the mishap and pledging better service in the future.
If you last went to Kenya in the days of KANU rule (pre-2003), you would be surprised by such an incident. But Kenya has since moved on from those days of rough, tactless officials and business people to a society of smooth diplomacy, where customer care is practiced from the president down to the waiter in a food kiosk. And at regional level, it is paying huge dividends.
Take the case of the East African Community. On the surface, it appears like Kenya that needs it most to secure benefits from its protocols for its businesspeople. Well, that is true,
but if the EAC shut down tomorrow, it is Kenya that would miss it least. For Nairobis long-term diplomatic strategic planning has positioned the country to continue as the regional economic power.
Like America, Kenya has permanent interests which any president in State House, whether Kikuyu or Luo (Kenyans no longer keep permanent political parties) must protect.
Kenya today pampers other East Africans with hassle-free immigration (unlike some places where getting a residence permit is harder than accessing a bank vault
<==== can you guess who he's talking about? 🙂 ) making Nairobi the destination of choice for big and small business people.
Posters at all entry points boldly say East Africans are not required to produce the notorious yellow fever cards to enter Kenya. Ask for one week and the smiling immigration officer gives you three months. Ask for a month and you get six.
But recent developments which did not come accidentally show that Nairobi is getting even more valuable economic allies than the traditional EAC. The magnitude of infrastructure deals Kenya has signed with Ethiopia and South Sudan are simply dizzying.
Billions of dollars are being invested in an electricity transmission grid from Ethiopia, railway and oil pipeline to South Sudan. And as you have already noticed, Kenya Airways is fast becoming the de facto national airline of the continent with a few exceptions like Ethiopia, South Africa, and Egypt.
What is making me say all this? It is the realisation that Uganda has taken so long to get a substantive foreign minister since he stepped aside, showing how little diplomacy and foreign policy matter to Kampala.
This could explain why the country that has acted as a military power in the region has so little influence around and can hardly secure the interests of its business people outside its borders. Whatever Ugandas foreign policy is, it has no link with the countrys economic fortunes.
The words of our junior foreign minister on the eve of South Sudans independence last year still ring in my ears when he said, For the foreseeable future, Ugandans will continue selling tomatoes in Juba for the comfort of Kenyan managers there
. But even that may not be for long. When Kenyan supermarkets take over retail trade in Juba, Ugandan tomato sellers will no longer be required.
When EAC was being re-established 20 years ago, some Ugandan thinkers asked whether it wouldnt be better for Kampala to concentrate on building a new bloc with Rwanda, Congo and South Sudan.
We stopped at talking, but Nairobi went ahead and implemented it. <==== reminds me of Mwembetayari 's signature 🙂
