youcan'tstopusnow wrote:mukiha wrote:2012 wrote:Kibaki is an economist and I'll be shocked if he assents.
Yeah! And you forget that he was the one who perfected the art of price controls when he was Finance Minister in the 1970s. His budgets (Finance Bills) were virtually a list of prices of various commodities.
This lead Kenyans to believe that budgets are are the days when new prices are announced. Every time prices were changed outside the budget day, we called it a "mini-budget".
In a bid to reduce the practice of hoarding by traders in the run-up to budget day, Saitoti slowly moved the price announcements away from the budget day. People complained because he had many "mini-budgets"!
Kibaki only did this because he was a wimp (still is,by the way) and followed everything 'Nyayo' said. I don't believe it was his call.
Kibaki (like any person with a hint of basic economics) knows the adverse effects of price controls.
Now he's the one calling the shots. He'll do what he wants and no one will tell him anything (as the swearing in at night shows)
And his 'buddies' won't let him sign this thing
Some history will help here: Kibaki was minister for finance from 1969 to 1982. He served for in that ministry much longer under Kenyatta [9years] than under Moi [only 4 years].
During that 13-year tenure, price controls were the main theme of budget speeches!
But, all the same, people do change and 28years since 1982 are enough time to change anyone.... look what happened to Mandela after 28 years...
Nothing is real unless it can be named; nothing has value unless it can be sold; money is worthless unless you spend it.