“Indigenous people full of primitive energy”

LAST week was the day the Minister of Finance made a trip with the trusty briefcase with the national coat of arms emblazoned on it to the Parliament to present the national budget for the year 2012 – 2013. These days presentation of the national budget is done on the same day all over the East African Community. The press in the EAC countries were filled with headlines and analyses on the budget.The budget news was very ‘big picture’ – increase in the size of the budget and a reduction on reliance on budgetary support from foreign donors. The one item that was indeed reported was the plan to increase import duty on construction materials. But even this was reported almost as an afterthought. Anyone doing or planning to do any construction will surely have got a bout of indigestion at this news. The Ministry of Finance is probably implementing some grand master plan that we non-economists cannot readily see but from this arm chair it looks like they have driven up construction costs and pushed real estate values into the stratosphere. Break out the tents people or brace yourselves for a lifetime in the pocket of your banker. The rationale for the increased duty was not made clear in any of the news reports I read. Protectionism perhaps? Did the treasury get greedy for more revenues and decide to squeeze those whom they thought could bear an increased tax burden? Who knows. I would also be curious to know how the whole gaming-taxes-to-pay-for-cuts-on-duties-on-fuel deal worked out. Last year, we were told that gamblers would make up the shortfall caused by the Government’s very kind decision to reduce import duties on fuel. As a skeptic of this scheme, I would have loved to know how that went. Away from the budget and high economics, yesterday I saw an advert by KoreaAir that was doing the rounds on social media sites. KoreaAir is launching a flight from Incheon to Nairobi on the 21st of this month and to encourage travelers from Korea [presumably] to visit Kenya, a promotional poster/picture was made announcing the new route. As usual, a savannah shot was used as the picture [offensive enough but really the fault of Tourism Boards’ and Lion King]. The zebra-in-the-tall-grass shot was not the problem, the odious bit came in the last line of the text which stated, and I quote, “…enjoy the grand African savanna, the safari tour, and the indigenous people full of primitive energy.” As you may have guessed, the problem was not the unnecessary comma after ‘tour’. What exactly is the attraction in people filled with primitive energy? In fact what exactly is primitive energy? Such lines sound uncomfortably like those old time, and badly written, romantic novels set in the ‘African Jungle’ where a foreign damsel in distress escapes deadly predators and is rescued from the ‘lusty natives’ by a foreign superman. Like the FP article calling Rwanda a ‘one-star’ country, this ad was in extremely poor taste. As an African, such characterizations are enough to put grey in my hair. Let me energetically [and primitively] call out KoreaAir. For shame!