Kenya: From White to Black

If black Africa is to make its own way economically, it will have to develop far greater numbers of native-born businessmen. Ghana and Nigeria have both made headway in that direction, but neither is moving any faster than Kenya, which won its independence from Britain less than five years ago. More and moreof Kenya’s blacks, who make up 97% of the country’s population of 10 million, have been going into enterprises that once were the preserve of whites and Asians.

President Jomo Kenyatta has lately sought to accelerate that trend with a vigorous drive for “Africanization.” He has refused to issue work permits to non-Africans when blacks can perform the same job, ruled that certain rural businesses be operated by natives only. Kenyatta has also put pressure on big foreign-run companies to step up their management-training programs for black employees. Kenya’s Labor Minister Eliud Ngala Mwendwa last month warned white and Asian businessmen that unless they train more blacks to fill management positions, they “will be seriously embarrassed and may even be forced out of business in the not-too-distant-future.”

Myths of Hemingway. If Kenya’s government is impatient, so are its citizens, many of whom are preparing for business careers by attending night classes or by signing up for British correspondence courses. Of those Kenyans who have already made it, many are foreign-educated men who have also shown their talents in government service. Three of the most successful:

> Sugar Mogul Charles Wanyoike Rubia, 45, doubles as chairman of the Kenya Development Finance Co., a four-year-old, nonprofit organization created to help establish new industry. A member of the dominant Kikuyu tribe, from which Kenya draws a large proportion of its successful native businessmen, the missionary-educated Rubia was once a clerk in a local stock brokerage, later became a dry-goods retailer before serving from 1962 to 1967 as Nairobi’s first African mayor. Rubia’s development company recently doubled its capitalization to $9,000,000. “Industry does not generally attract outside investors,” he says, “unless there is active participation in industry within the country itself.”

> Travel Director Simon Thuo Kairo, 37, also a Kikuyu, is determined to disabuse tourists “of the myths of Hemingway and Robert Ruark—of the faithful, ignorant, black gun bearer and other noble savages of yesteryear.” A graduate of a South Dakota Presbyterian college, Kairo put in two years as President Kenyatta’s private secretary before staking $17,000 in receipts from his 300-acre cattle, maize and sheep farm to start Kenya’s first African-owned safari operation. Kairo’s safaris, however, are not designed for big-game hunting. Equipped with five Volkswagen minibuses, he takes his clients to “meet the people in the villages and let them enjoy African dishes.”

> Member of Parliament Joseph Anthony Zuzarte Murumbi, 57, served as Kenya’s Vice President for seven months in 1966 before stepping down to enter business. “I felt that in commerce,” he explains, “I could make a real contribution to national development.” Owner of one of the finest libraries on Africana in Kenya, Murumbi is chairman of a large sugar refinery, a Nairobi-based export-import firm, and an advertising agency that promotes, among other things, African trade abroad.

To help more natives prepare for business, Kenya Shell Ltd. and the country’s Ministry of Education have put together an illustrated book in Swahili, with English translations, on rudimentary business practices. Featured are Mr. Shida, a bumbling, unsuccessful shopkeeper, and Mr. Ali, a progressive, flourishing entrepreneur. Mr. Shida, for example; is in serious trouble because his debtors are slow to pay him. Mr. Ali, by contrast, avoids that kind of bind by shrewdly refusing to give credit. A typical lesson deals with the display of merchandise in shop windows: “One of these cakes has flies on it. The other cake is safe under glass. Which would you buy, A or B?” There are even a few words on how to knock the competition. If other shopkeepers find that Mr. Shida is selling potatoes at a lower price, Kenya’s budding businessmen are advised, they can simply explain that “the potatoes have been in Mr. Shida’s shop for a long time.”

Mr. Ali is fast becoming a more representative figure in Kenya than Mr. Shida. In its eagerness to develop a native cadre of businessmen, however, Kenya must use restraint. Pressed by the government to aid in the effort, many non-African businessmen note that effective training takes time. And a group of University of Nairobi economists, African and white alike, has warned that Africanization, essential as it is, could impair Kenya’s continued economic growth if pushed too fast.