Good to the last Drop! – President Kenyatta?

Every marketer knows a rallying call - or brand slogan, is very useful in positioning a product or service in the minds of the customers. President Kenyatta has said his biggest challenge is uniting Kenyans. Given the huge tribal, political, economic and cultural divisions currently existing in the Kenyan society, this is not going to be an easy task. Almost everyone however agrees with Mr. Kenyatta that his priority is right on.

Former presidents have branded their presidencies differently – with varying degrees of success. As one who gained political maturity under President Moi, I would imagine the Nyayo philosophy of “Peace, Love and Unity” had the greatest brand recognition. I am not sure Mr. Kibaki’s “Working Nation” or was it “Kazi Iendelee” gained much traction. Perhaps 1^st Kenyatta had success with the “Uhuru na Kazi” – the fact that we still remember it so poignantly, does indicate its success.

Time is certainly running out on Mr. Kenyatta to position his “Presidency.” I think Kenyatta should position his presidency as an E^2 administration. E^2 is in reference to Efficiency and Effectiveness. The president does not have a lot of resources to play with. Mr. Kibaki started his presidency with a shrinking economy, turned it around and grew it by 7%. By doing this, the economy had a small debt to GDP ratio, which then gave him opportunity to borrow heavily to finance the huge infrastructural projects that became the hallmark of his presidency.

Kenyatta needs to work on a diminished financial basket given top heavy administrative structure and devolved governments. He cannot increase taxes without negatively impacting on growth prospects nor can he bring any new tax payers given huge poverty rates in the country. What he can however ensure that he derives more value for every shilling spent in the country by improving on efficiency and proper targeting of government services.

The E^2 positioning would enable Mr Kenyatta deliver more government services and products even with the same amount of resources or maintain similar outcomes from reduced resources. This he would have to do by identifying optimal service and product mix with capacity to retain or increase the impact of government services. Mr Kenyatta then would also seek to cut out wasteful programs and have empirical justification for their nixing and redirect resources to high-impact programs.

President Kenyatta may have missed the opportunity to position his presidency during the proverbial first 100 days but he can use the sad event of the fire at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to reclaim this positioning opportunity. The E^2 motif is topical, memorable and catchy enough, yet at the same motivating Kenyans into action. Of course it would also hold government officials to account on the use of public resources.

It would also bring about an opportunity to develop a National culture – tribalism leads to allocation of resources on grounds other than E^2. It would also be necessary to integrate this positioning with the National values as outlined in the Kenya constitution.