YALA SWAMP DOMINION PROJECT:

Questions that must be handled on Principle.

In 1975, Lyn Squire and Herman G. Van der Tak published a World Bank research Project called Economic Analysis of Projects. They had two issues of concerns - shadow prices
- Rates of return and impact of the project on the distribution of incomes within a country both between INVESTMENT and CONSUMPTION and between RICH and POOR.

This report took a Foreign Direct investment (FDI) Perspective which is what the agenda of World Bank is. The conclusion is that FDI is good and must be managed efficiently to reduce costs and MAXIMISE returns on investment while pacifying the communities in to ensure acceptance through what is currently popularly known as corporate Social responsibility.

About 26 years later Amartya Sen of India, the Nobel Economist 2000/1 wrote his Development as freedom. Let me summarize. In Prof. Sen’s research that lasted nearly 30 years covering countries from South America to India through Africa and Europe, he came to the conclusion that FDI is not the solution. Not even centralized state led development but development that transforms the cognitive power of communities and people based on research, ownership and strategic management. He concluded that these would only be viable under a regime that respected freedom. Freedom is therefore development. Not more roads but whose roads. Not greater economic growth but whose economic growth.

We must help this debate move forward by rising above environment assessment and engage ideological by introducing political economy issues of economic and social aspects of the projects.

Ownership
Who owns Project? Foreigners; What is the place of the locals- of course observers? They can only seek manual jobs and earn wages. So who are the real beneficiaries? Dominion plus politicians who have received kick backs and commissions to supply fertilizers and this and that. What are the people’s benefits Tobby has supplied us with the list of benefits to the community and I nealy fell for it. But I know better than to be emotional on this matter.

Management
Who are the Managers of the Dominion outfit and in whose interest are they managing the farm? The owner of course! Even if they were Kenyan, Luo and Luyha etc, once the project is foreign, they will manage the projects to serve the interests of the investor.

Value to the community and Kenya.
I am occasionally treated to regional arguments about economic projects. The government wants to lease Malindi Port to some Arabian investors. The coastals want to stop any one from Bara to manage and work at the said port. The coastals would rather kill all Luo, Kikuyu, Kamba or Luyha workers in Mombasa and Malindi rather for “stealing their employment” but they can not see that the Malindi Port is a foreign structure for exporting value.

Kenyans never argue about real interests. They kill each other over identity. Maasais will be ready to wipe out all Kikuyus and Kisiis who are digging Maasai farms on lease but are ok dancing in Italian owned resorts in Maasai Mara or in Malindi. IDENTITY rather than interest is the curse of Kenya.

As regards Yala and Dominion, there is a report that jobs have been created and school fees paid. But you know even coca cola creates jobs but over 60% of the value to Atlanta Georgia. Indians have therefore to kick Coke out of India like Polio. They are asking why India must be a haven for benefiting the developed North. They have refused to be Absolute and for America to the Net recipients. Transfer of value is the secret of the development of the North (West as some of you call it). I do not want to be involved in an emotional rollercoaster about how this community has been denied FDI and others have gotten more FDI. I want to ask why are we like India not establishing the Kisumu Bank, the Alego Cooperative SACCO, the Kwale Bank and the Bank of Garissa to mobilize capital for investment in Garissa and in Yala and Yimbo generally.

Jobs can not be the rationally for slavery and depletion (this is the term in Political economy which explains the effects of FDI). Moi never had no road Map for Kenya’s economic transformation and development. Kibaki has none but at least has one on economic growth (not development); We should ask Tobby’s government to establish a roadmap and strategy economic development based on sound Principles (to mean retaining value from production, moving communities from reliance on land, increasing employment and incomes as a strategy for a huge and strong middle class and generally lowering the cost of money from 21% to at least 7% or 5.4% as in Japan or the US).

Dominion is not the secret of helping the people of Yala, not even Sasini or Del monte. Those are structures for net value exportation not for development. Even if Delmonte was to farm in the whole of Thika and Kiambu the people will not benefit because it a structure of value expropriation and not value accumulation for Kenya.

Ethical operations including EIA
What I know of the capitalist mode of production is that dignity is not an issue. Look what I wrote to a friend who was praising economic growth in Kenya by SMS “Kibaki has turned our country into a temple for the worship of money and figures. For Kibaki’s capitalist ruling elite, governance is not about Promoting human dignity by promoting equity, popular livelihoods, and national values such as respecting the Truth and promises and democratic institutions of governance. His oligarchy doesn’t want us to raise the question of ownership, control and quality of these economic figures”. Nyamwamu March 5th 2007.

This is the perspective of capitalist operations and it does not respect dignity. In Delmonte which has been cited here many times, dogs have mauled people for passing near pineapple farms, workers have been killed and rivers poisoned, chemical made women to miscarry. That is supposed to be fine. After all what are Africans worth other than their labour? I guess this will become the next line of argument in Yala. Wait and see.

Democratic interaction with the community
Under the rule of Law, you can not have your way with proper arbitration. Simply because certain politicians have interests in the Dominion, all Luos in Siaya will have to toe the line. I have seen arguments from knowledgeable people who threaten us with dozens of PR material that are nothing more than propaganda. That the EIA is fine and the idea is how to clean up the environment after it has been destroyed. This argument which has been peppered with sweet sounding experiences from Europe and North America and half truths forgets that Europe and America was exploiting the environment to build their economies and therefore to create wealth that will be used in the future.

So HOW does Dominion clean the environment after it has bolted to the US? How have we cleaned Lake Victoria after Pumping raw sewage into it for four decades? I have only seen Hyacinth and a choked dying lake. I went to school in Homabay High School and I witnessed how we used to suffer the ignominy of dying from typhoid because sewage poured to the lake was being pumped back to us by the Moi administration and I am sure that this argument for “destroy then clean” is one for depletion and not development.

Listen, the folks in Siaya and Busia need knowledgeable people not to conspire against them in cohort with Dominion but to help create social power to negotiate with Dominion.

Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu