The recent fury over fuel prices was never only about oil. It was a seismic outburst from years of structural strain. Yes, geopolitics lit the match. War in the Middle East and threats to the Strait of Hormuz choked energy and trade, and for a net importer like Kenya the timing was brutal.
But external shocks only expose internal fractures. We were already limping under debt service that swallows nearly half of revenue, a fragile shilling, and a cost of living that sprinted past wages. The pump price is the spark, not the fire.
The deeper fracture is corruption. It steals classrooms, medicine, roads, and trust. It turns public service into private harvest. Every shilling siphoned is a job not created, a workshop not built, a young person told to wait. We cannot budget our way out of theft.
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We must prosecute it, publicly and without sacred cows. Add trade rules that favour finished goods, credit markets that price African risk as sin, local and global monopolies that crush small rivals, and tribalism that turns jobs into clan inheritance, and you have the powder keg we live with. It explodes politically because economics keeps failing to deliver. As 2027 approaches, ballots alone will not save us. Jobs will.
The way out is not a slogan. It is work. Tangible, decent, paid work for every Kenyan ready to show up. Six joined pillars can carry us from mid-term to long term without illusions.
First, re-anchor the economy on productivity. Agriculture remains our backbone, yet it is still rain fed, under mechanised, and exposed. Irrigate it. Aggregate it. Add value to it. Back it with affordable credit and cold storage in every sub-county.
When a tomato farmer in Loitokitok can reach Nairobi without five bribes and 40 percent post-harvest loss, her income doubles. Manufacturing must move from aspiration to floor space. Make it cheaper to make things in Kenya than to import them.
Power at $0.08 per kWh, Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds in 30 days and county workshops where a welder in Githurai can register a firm in a morning and sell without a bribe. Industrial parks and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) should be working ecosystems for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), not billboards for the connected.
Second, finance tools, not consumption. A Jobs and Enterprise Fund should guarantee loans for sewing machines, dairy chillers, tuktuks, laptops, and toolkits, not land speculation. Pair it with paid apprenticeships in plumbing, coding, agro processing, and care work.
Tie every stipend to attendance, output, and sobriety. Reward effort, not suffering. Make the government a market for the small. Ring fence and open about 40 percent of public procurement for local small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with a clear definition of them, with payment in 30 days, enforced by law.
Publish every award and payment date online. Late payment by the state kills more businesses than competition does. If the state pays on time, banks will lend. If banks lend, jobs multiply.
Third, kill the middlemen who tax the poor. Farm gate to market is a corridor of cartels and broken roads. Build aggregation centres with grading and contract enforcement.
Digitise county levies into one annual fee. Energy must be treated as economic security. High power costs ripple through every price. Expand renewables, fix distribution, and break cartels so costs stabilise. Energy you can plan on is investment you can attract.
Fourth, align skills with market reality and dignify the informal economy. Rebuild Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions as factories, not classrooms. Every graduate should leave with a contract, a toolbox, and a mentor.
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Put life skills and mental health back in schools so we stop producing graduates who are skilled but broken. Formalise “jua kali”. It is not marginal. It is central. Give it workspace, legal protection, affordable finance, and market links, and micro firms will become stable employers.
Fifth, restore the social contract and starve corruption of oxygen. Digitise services, enforce transparent procurement, and empower oversight so leakage becomes impossible, not just illegal.
Fair taxation, visible services and inclusive policy rebuild trust. When people see taxes become clinics, classrooms, and clean water, they participate. Tribalism and polarisation distort merit and waste talent. Shared prosperity must be the binding vision.
Sixth, accelerate the adoption of new and inevitable revolutionary technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) all over the country. Incorporate the teaching of AI from early childhood education upwards, the way China is doing, so our people do not have to play catch up in future. It will also open many local and global opportunities.
Global storms will keep coming. Oil will spike. Ships will be blocked. Droughts will return. A country where most people have decent work can take a punch and keep standing. A country where most people are idle will fall from a shove.
Build the roads, jail the thieves, pay on time and let people compete. Do that, and discontent cools into purpose. Fail, and 2027 will not be an election. It will be an audit and the people will be the auditors. The post-election period will not be easy either, in terms of economic and political management, as expectations will grow bigger. It is time we got serious on strategic planning and the investment that must go with it.
By Harrison Mwirigi Ikunda
The Writer is a trained journalist and a Political, Economic, Social Analyst and Commentator
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