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| Photo Courtesy of TheSpotlighNews.net |
Recently,the President assented to the bill that entrenches into the law the capping of interests charged by the banks on loans and deposits at a rate not higher than 4% above the CBK's Benchmark rates.
This comes after other legislative attempts to liberate the exploited Kenyans from rogue banks which inhumanely have been charging exorbitant rates failed-twice.One of the overriding arguments from the banking sector and economic pundits has been that Kenya is a liberalized market economy and state interference in the hitherto well-established and mega-profit generating financial sector will be counterproductive in so far as economic gains which have been made in Kenya is concerned.
Economic gains.They said.
That seemed a valid counterargument to those of the proponents of the capping law till you looked at the impoverished social and economic state of the masses vis-a-vis the fat waist and cheeks of the banks and you realized that the banks and the so-called economists have been talking as if they live on Mars and not Kenya.
With interest rates banks have been charging being as high as 24% in most banks and higher than this in other few,have only ensured that they make illicit profits at the expense of the ordinary people they have impoverished and rendered their helpless financial slaves yet every year we have celebrated Madaraka Day as if we are really free; amidst the glaring immoral inequalities in our so-called "liberalized" economy.
Recently ,Equity Bank announced its 10.1 billion net profit for just half of its financial year ended June 2016. 10.1BILLION!In just half a year!And we are supposed to applaud.Admire.Celebrate and condemn those that can't claim same fete.This is supposed to be efficiency and excellence at their best.But at whose expense?How does this translate to social and economic growth of this sector of the world called Kenya?You ask these questions and you realize we have been fooled.It is arrested development in a system where daylight robbery,neo-slavery,down-trodding of the people through exploitative monopolistic mechanisms have been accepted in the society that we don't realize anything is wrong with our space at all.
This has been NEO-LIBERALISM at work.
Through capitalism and the grave influence of international organizations such as IMF,WTO and World Bank which we have never been independent of as far as our need for partners in our development agenda is concerned,we have embraced them and their hard-to-notice neo-liberalism so much that it is a way of life in our new capitalist nation that is silently arresting our development through perpetual poverty,wide gaps between the rich and the poor,lack of state urgency in creation of jobs,dysfunctional education,health and security systems,corruption and glorification of the rich and wealth without questioning the origin of such wealth,exhibitionism by the rich,rampant individualism at the expense of working for the nation's well being,inefficiencies in public service...
According George Mobiot of The Gurdain newspaper,Neo-liberalism as coined by its proponents Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises in 1938 is an ideology that sees competition as the defining principle of human relations;where merit is rewarded and inefficiency punished.
"In its philosophy of competition those who win are the achievers-captains of industry-Forbes top 100 or something of that sort, but those who fail are "defined or self defined as losers",Third World economies-
The freedom that neo-liberalism offers,the same that bankers in Kenyan wanted, " is freedom for the pike,not the minnows".As Mobiot further puts it, " Freedom from regulations...means freedom to charge iniquitous rates of interest"-at the expense of economic emancipation and empowerment of the Kenyan people our banks are legally and morally obligated to do.
So when the bankers went out of their way to pile pressure on the president not to sign the bill into law and came up with frivolous goodies to hoodwink Kenyans into supporting their position,it was the dark demon of paranormal neo-liberal competition and social and economic inequities doing what it does best-protecting its new world order of neo-liberalism that is choking the world by the rise of dichotomized arena of the few super-rich individuals,companies or corporations and nations who are admired and celebrated by the world and the poor and condemned who are told to blame themselves for their inability to be creative,aggressive, assertive and individualistic enough to be where the lucky few are.
Just as Naomi Klein in her book "The Shock Doctrine" states that neo-liberalism theorists advocated use of crises to impose unpopular policies" the pissed-off banks have been quick to prophesy that the signed amendment to the banking law will have dire consequences including locking out SMES and high risk Kenyans from accessing loans.This tells you Crises Phase in Kenya's Financial sector is about to begin with the consequent decline in economic growth because bankers warned us of our reckless desire and demands.
So,here we are:the state at war with neo-liberalism.Will the state's bold move on neo-liberalism save us from the dark pit of arrested development? How much more do we need to do to liberate our existence from the yoke of this limiting ideology? At what point should we entertain neo-liberalism? What measures do we need to ensure this philosophy is applicable within checks?
