What the professor has failed to see is that there are rational reasons for this. The so-called "balance sheet recession" and a reluctance to borrow, which he suggests are the cause of Kenya's recession, are really just symptoms of a far more serious disease. 

Many business people are reluctant to tell the Government the whole truth about their assessment of Prof Nyong'o's proposals. As a businesswoman faced with a ministry that refuses to talk to the private sector, increasing Government controls, including threats of price controls, and potential for a fatal debt crisis when a seriously under-funded and inevitably corrupt Social Health Insurance scheme fails to pay its bills, I find myself in a position where there is not much to lose. 

What scares business people is that there are too many bureaucrats who have nothing to do but to meddle in our businesses, hold us to ransom, and concoct schemes for the Government to spend even more money. 

Kenya does need more economists. It needs people who are at the forefront of economic research and thinking, and not diehard technocrats who zealously defend debunked theories and Government interventionist solutions. 

The problem with Prof Nyong'o's strategy is that it is a product of a Keynesian framework combined with a socialist central planning regime, accepted by most economists in the 1960s, but which have resulted in underdevelopment and even disaster for many countries of the world, Kenya included. That framework needs to change. 

The last 15-20 years have seen a proliferation of research pinpointing causes of development failure, among which is growing theoretical and empirical evidence in favour of economic freedom as driving the engine of growth. 

Economic freedom is highly correlated with higher growth rates. Within individual countries, those that have changed regimes from centrally planned Government control and direction to free markets and reduced bureaucracies have seen increases in growth rates that have resulted in dramatic narrowing of income gaps between them and more developed countries. 

Government policies and Government planned solutions inevitably lead to waste and sub-optimal allocation of resources, while free markets tend to produce optimal allocations and efficiency. 

When operating in an environment in which property is protected from force or fraud, contracts are enforced, the stock of human capital is actively increased and improved (yes, we like free schooling; now work on quality!), and where fiscal responsibility and integrity of the currency are maintained, economic growth will result. 

Professor Nyong'o, business will play its part when confidence is restored and an enabling environment for growth is created. The current Economic Recovery Strategy does not do that. Please go back to the drawing board and use a very large eraser! 

DIANA PATEL, 
Nairobi 

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