MUGA: Kenyans tend to mess up even the best things

I have a question for you readers today: “Why is it that Kenyans have this odd tendency of ruining what was supposed to be a good thing?”

Let me explain what I am referring to here with a couple of tangible examples.

First in line is “affordable internet access”.

Although currently a private sector service, there are those of us old enough to remember that the Mwai Kibaki government (in 2009) contributed substantial public funds to bring onto our shores the first undersea fibre optic cable, which made fast and affordable Wi-Fi available to much of the country. (That is, after the supporting “backbone” of connected fibre optic cables criss-crossing our nation had been completed).

All kinds of good things were predicted as the natural consequence of such modern ICT infrastructure. The most fervent hope at the time was that Kenya could at last rival India as a hub for “backroom services”, via “call centres” which had already created millions of jobs in India.

But instead of becoming a global hub for call centres, what Kenya became notorious for, globally, was helping college students in rich countries cheat on their essays. Nobody knows for sure how many Kenyan university graduates ended up in this line of work – researching and writing up college essays for a fee – but they certainly must have been more than those working in any call centres we may have here in Kenya.

Then, second in line, there is the proposal which was once prominently discussed that Kenya could be a continental hub for medical tourism.

Initially, I did not take this very seriously. But then I learned from a friend then serving at a European diplomatic mission – at a memorable lunch – that she and her husband intended to have their first child while serving right here in Kenya.

Their reason was that not only did Kenya have high-quality “neonatal” medical services no different from those in her home country, but thereafter she would be able to return to work promptly since they could easily afford to hire a nanny for their baby – something that they could not possibly afford were they to be based in any country in Europe.

Another European diplomat present at that lunch chimed in to say that he had a year ago had a very complex dental procedure done, right here in Kenya. In his case, this had nothing to do with any need for domestic help. Rather, he preferred to continue being in Kenya with his young family, instead of going back to Europe for a fortnight or so, when the sophisticated dental services he needed were available right here in Nairobi.

I took these anecdotes as “proof of concept” that Kenya’s medical establishment was indeed good enough for a successful entry into the field of medical tourism.

For these were not your average expatriates. These were senior professional diplomats, ambitious and hardworking, and determined to eventually serve their countries as ambassadors. They had already lived in many countries around the world. If they said Kenyan medical services were excellent (the medical services in the top private hospitals, of course, not public hospitals), you felt confident that they knew what they were talking about.

So, although I knew of many Kenyans who had travelled to India or South Africa in search of advanced medical procedures, I was convinced that we had what it would take to make Kenya a regional medical tourism hub.

But in time, it turned out that Kenya’s medical tourism largely consisted of poor men and women being conned into selling their kidneys to a well-oiled, organ trafficking cartel operating right here in Kenya, with its headquarters reportedly in Eldoret.

The foreigners who came as medical tourists were not spared either. Some were said to have received kidneys which proved to be incompatible.

And so I come to a follow-up question to the one I posed at the beginning: If Kenyans (ordinary folks as well as highly skilled professionals) tend to turn what was to have been a good thing, into something deceitful and illegal, why then are we surprised when we often end up with leaders who also have these very traits?