http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Lessons-for-Kenya-from-Europe/1950946-4211218-14mlsn1z/index.html
[SIZE=5]Lessons for Kenya from Europe[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]By NG’ANG’A MBUGUA[/SIZE]
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IN SUMMARY
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[li]These and other services have been made possible for the taxes that Kenyans pay.[/li][li]Kenya is bigger economy compared to its neighbours.[/li][/ul]
When Germany made it easy for Turks to move in and work there, a unique problem presented itself.
“We wanted workers for our factories,” one opinion shaper said in 2005. “We got people instead.”
Education in Germany is free. When Turks went to work there, they went with their families, which meant that their children were also entitled to free education.
Similarly, mothers with young children get a monthly stipend for every child as part of Germany’s policy to encourage couples to have children.
CHILD-BEARING
When poor Turkish women learnt of the programme, many invested in child-bearing. To this day, in cities like Berlin, it is not uncommon to find a pregnant Turkish woman pushing a pram with three children.
Each child represents a monthly stipend for the mother, but they will enjoy unfettered access to Europe in a way that their parents could never have dreamt when they were young.
These are some of the lessons that Kenya could learn if Tuesday’s declaration by President Uhuru Kenyatta is implemented. In his inauguration speech, he said that East Africans with identity cards from their home countries would be treated as Kenyans.
The open invitation instantly raises the question of whether the children of East Africans will enjoy free primary and free day secondary education if their parents move to Kenya.
It could also mean that they will be entitled to enjoy other benefits, such as being signed up with National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), which means that they will enjoy all the benefits that the scheme offers its Kenyan members.
These and other services have been made possible for the taxes that Kenyans pay.
How will they feel when they are asked to share them with other East Africans?
SAFEGUARDS
The social safeguards programmes that Kenya has put in place are largely funded by the taxes of the working class, who constitute only a small fraction of the entire population.
In Exodus, Paul Collier’s seminal book on migration, he says, “for redistribution to be politically feasible, sufficient fortunate people must be willing to subsidise the less fortunate.” But he goes on to add that “there is evidence that what erodes the willingness to redistribute is the rate at which diversity increases.”
What this could mean for Kenya in the medium and long term is that there could be increased reticence to fund social safeguards if it is seen to benefit a growing number of East Africans…
