Tale of two countries: Contrasting fortunes of Singapore and Kenya

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

I find this opening paragraph to Charles Dickens classic novel, ‘‘A Tale of Two Cities’’ an apt introduction to this story of two men, their two fathers, their two countries, their similarities, but more so their differences.

First on the list is one Lee Hsien Loong —unless you are very abreast with oriental politics, it if fair to assume that you have probably never heard of the name before today.

You are, however, probably more familiar with his more famous dad—Lee Kuan Yew— the first Prime Minister of Singapore, who passed away recently.

Lee Hsien Loong is the current Prime Minister of Singapore and has been in office since 2004. Prior to being PM, he served, among other positions, as Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister.

Similarly, if I were writing this article targeting Singaporean readership, I am sure a fair number of readers there would equally not recognise the second gentleman I seek to introduce—Uhuru Kenyatta.

Unfortunately, I am not sure they would remember the name of his otherwise more famous father either. But I am sure they would find it interesting to note that likewise to their current prime minister, Kenya’s current president was the son of the first president of the republic.

Further, they would note with amusement that our current president too served, among other positions, as Member of Parliament, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister.

Many in Kenya would have wished that given the reflective dynasty-like political parallels in the almost reflective story of Kenya and Singapore, the same could be said of the economic story of the two countries.

True, the two stories are very much alike at the start. But the resemblance lasts only as far as the beginning. As they progressed, the two stories diverge as far from each other as night from day.

The stories of Lee Hsien Long and Uhuru Kenyatta could be said to be from the pages of Robert Kiyosaki’s bestseller financial advisory book, ‘‘Rich dad, and Poor dad’’.

Mr Hsien was lucky to have had a rich dad who bequeathed a rich country with one of the highest GDP per capita in the world.

Meanwhile, Mr Kenyatta unfortunately was left fighting the exact same wars that his father started fighting over half a century ago unsuccessfully; poverty, illiteracy and disease.

He even has to deal with more wars that his father started, a case in point being the fight against corruption.

When Mr Hsien announced to Singapore the demise of his father in the country’s general hospital, the whole world took a pause to mourn with him one of the greatest statesmen who ever lived in the recent years.

At around the same time, Mr Kenyatta was reading a state of the nation address to inform Kenyans what we have known all along, the endemic corruption.

When their fathers had started ruling the respective countries, Kenya and Singapore had almost equal GDP (with Kenya actually marginally richer).

In 1963, when Kenya got independence, and Singapore merged with Malaysia, Kenya’s GDP was $926.6 million while Singapore’s was $917.2 million.

In 1978, when the founding president of Kenya died, Kenya’s GDP had grown to $5.3 billion, but had been surpassed by Singapore whose GDP then had grown to $8.06 billion.

By 1990, when Kuan Yew stepped down from PM’s office (and Kenya on the verge of multiparty democracy), Singapore’s GDP was $38.9 billion compared to Kenya’s $8.57 billion.

Recent figures are more embarrassing. By 2013, as Mr Kenyatta was taking over the reins of Kenya’s leadership, he was managing an economy of only $55.24 billion while his counterpart Mr Hsien was managing a whopping $297.9 billion economy.

The Singapore story is more amazing if you think that supporting this massive economy is a tiny population of barely five million people against Kenya’s massive 40 million plus.

The small population of Singapore means that when measured on GDP per capita, Singapore ranks amongst the richest countries in the world. For instance, in 2013, Singapore’s GDP per capita was $55,182.

To put this in perspective, Japan’s was only $38,663 while the USA’s was $53,041 at the same time. By comparison, Kenya’s was dismally low at only $1,245.5.

The question one asks is, given the parallels in the Kenya-Singapore story, when did the rain start beating Kenya? The simplest scapegoat is to argue that Mr Kuan’s benevolent dictatorial tendencies were partly to explain Singapore’s rise to the top.

The reality is that this explanation is too weak. Kuan Yew was no less dictatorial than Jomo Kenyatta and his successor Daniel arap Moi. Both were successful in laying down powerful dynasties.

The difference has always been that the two founding fathers were worlds apart in strategic vision of where they wanted their countries to be— and only one of them discovered in time that the only pathway to economic progress —lay not in resource wealth or agriculture (or fully implementing advice from World Bank and IMF without first thinking through ramifications), but in education and smart trade.

Allow me to explore this trajectory further in my follow up write up.

[email protected] | Twitter@marvinsissey.