By The Weekly Vision
The ongoing demonstrations in Kenya and the associated negative economic impact have forced the United States of America and the United Kingdom to call for a truce between Raila Odinga and President William Ruto. Sources reveal that top American and UK companies based in Kenya have been badly affected by the demonstrations hence the need to call them off through bipartisan talks by politicians.
Although the two superpowers are equally concerned by deaths as a result of police brutality, sources say the effects the demos have had on their business interest is immense and cannot be allowed to continue. A keen look at the US and UK-based companies in Kenya which have suffered huge losses are the major employers in the private sector and should they make good their threats of withdrawing from Kenya then it will hurt Kenya’s economy and loss of jobs.
The two superpowers have revealed their concerns that the current political situation in the county has negative effects on doing business as it disrupts trade as well as investments. It is against such fears that the US and the UK have forced the two leaders to come to a round table and iron out their political differences and call off the planned demos.
Locally, political and religious leaders across the political divide are also said to be pushing for a Raila-Ruto meeting to call off the planned demos arguing that Raila’s persistent demonstrations are causing economic sabotage and should be stopped.
The US firms based in Nairobi whose operations have been disrupted by the unstable political situation include Dupre Investments, Coca-Cola, IBM, Ormat Technologies, Alternate Systems, Mars, Mastercard, and Microsoft. Others are Everstrong Capital, BAT, Uber, Price Water Coopers (PwC), Deloitte, Nestle Kenya, KPMG, Netflix, Google, Amazon, Uber, and YouTube.
The UK firms doing business in Kenya include Barclays Bank, British Airways, BAT, Standard Chartered Bank, Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, De La Rue, Finlays, G4S, Tullow Oil, and BG Group.
