It’s now 2 years after information warfare against the Kenyan economy was orchestrated. To date, the Kenyan economy is bullish and admirably robust. It hasn’t crashed rather growing steadily. According to James, a lead analyst at SIS, specific actors conducted information warfare against the Kenyan economy with hope it’d crash.
“The free flow of information within and between nation states is essential to business, international relations and social cohesion, as much as information is essential to a military force’s ability to fight. Actors look up to this vulnerability to conduct attacks against the economy. To the state, this is a threat to Nairobi’s national security” Argues James (*1).
Decline of both bank interest rates and inflation besides the strengthening of the shilling against foreign currencies has remained constant. The shilling remains one of the few global currencies that have weathered currency value-decline. What was the objective of the information war against the Kenyan economy?
There are vulnerabilities in how Kenya protects itself from the free flow information. This means there are no safeguards on country’s financial information infrastructure besides other vital sectors particularly security and geopolitics. As such, the load of information flowing freely through mainstream media both print and online besides political and activists biased version of events overwhelms austerity of actual state of events; in this case the economy.
- Kenya’s Eurobond (a sovereign and highly profitable external bond/investment loaned to the European bloc of economies with a certain interest rate for a certain period of time) was subjected to information warfare. The objective was to make it lose value at the European markets thus factor a decline in interest/earnings/proceeds often wired to the parent country (Kenya).
- The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR Project), a government-to-government business infrastructure project was subjected to both biased scrutiny and disinformation with the objective of making the Kenyan stock markets shake and cause investor panic besides devalue the Kenya shilling thus make the loan expensive (eventually making the loan by the Chinese bank unaffordable and subsequently force the SGR financier develop cold feet on paying out the construction firms contracted to build the SGR).
- Corruption Disinformation campaigns by politicians and their financiers nearly de-popularized the government and caused a ripple effect on the stock market. According to James, the economy is about price and value. If you factor loss of value, the prices value shifts either in volume size or value (i.e. exchange rates).
SIS assessment of political influence in Kenya has for the most part focused on the process by which interest groups (past cartels & new ones) affect the content of legislation, public policy, political environment (to achieve edge over regime hostility towards cartel). Numerous empirical studies demonstrate that corruption reduces investment and/or slows growth. Purveyors of corruption will hold governments at ransom by exposing flaws in laws and procurement processes and subsequently use these flaws to point out contracts under such laws then brand them corrupt deals.
As such past corruption cartels become whistleblowers of corruption in an attempt to hit back at regimes (politicization of corruption). Empirical research shows that the obstructive corruption politics focus on blackmailing the regime to meet narrow, particularistic demands, often through the patronage, favors, and more corruption; failure to which these interest groups/cartels use exposes & litigation to delay & derail development programs (demoralize the regime and hurt economic growth).
The actors/perpetrators of the information warfare aimed at degrading the well-being of the nation’s citizens by spreading false information (such as each Kenyan and his generations owe the Chinese over $800.00), rumor, and fear through social media and mainstream media since these mediums allows populations to be instantly connected and easily misinformed.
All these affronts on the Kenyan economy didn’t make sense to most middle class in Kenya. In fact, the events only made the country more resilient and unified against dis-information. 2 and half years since the beginning of the war against Nairobi’s geopolitical and economic largesse, there are no outcomes as the enemy hoped. Instead, we’ve noted significant economic growth, positive global ratings, and decline of the political upheaval. According to economic intelligence officials at the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Kenya’s spy agency; “it’s a pipe dream that Kenya’s economy will crash and that Nairobi will lose its geostrategic value in East and Central Africa”.
