YVONNE'S TAKE: Kenya vs. Singapore - Why talk can’t do the work

“Only tough decisions will get us to the Singapore league.”

“If our leaders worked as hard as our citizens, we’d be the Singapore of Africa.”

“If Singapore made it to the first world, we too can make it.”

We have heard these lines time and again from our leaders. Apparently, they want Kenya to be like Singapore.

Well, let’s compare.

First, the hard numbers. In 2024, Kenya’s GDP per capita was about US$2,206 (Ksh.285,677). Singapore’s was roughly US$88,500 (Ksh.11.4 million). That’s around forty times higher.

Population? We’re a nation of 53–54 million; Singapore is just over 6 million. Size didn’t save us, but smallness didn’t limit them. On debt, we strain to service our loans, but while Singapore owes much more on paper, they hold state assets and savings to back it up.

Income from work? The “typical” full-time worker in Singapore took home a median of about S$5,500 a month in 2024, that’s about Ksh.710,000 Kenya.

Here in Kenya, official data shows average earnings are 10 times less at about Ksh.74,000 a month, with entry-level jobs being at an average Ksh.30,000 a month. Many more Kenyans are still waiting for their first payslip.

Education and skills? Singapore topped the latest PISA rankings, a global assessment of 15-year-olds from different countries to gauge their knowledge and understanding of Maths, Science and Reading. Kenya is not even ranked by PISA.

So, just how did Singapore do it? Well, they certainly didn’t just talk their way into prosperity. They built clean, predictable institutions. Let me explain:

Fiscal honesty before fiscal heroics: a credible medium-term plan that matches revenue to realistic spending, ringfencing development outlays from the daily political seasons.

They formulated industrial policy that picks problems, not pet projects: that picks the bottlenecks such as power costs, logistics, port clearance, standards, and removes them with deadlines. They basically make exports boringly reliable.

They have schools that teach for the economy we actually want. Formal jobs, not formal slogans. They cut the costs of formality, e-registration, one-stop tax and compliance. They reward firms that grow payrolls, exports, and training hours. Not those that can afford the longest motorcades.

And on anti-corruption? That’s administrative, not acrimonious. Digital tenders by default; public contracts and beneficial ownership online; penalties that arrive swiftly enough to deter the next deal.

They have cities that cut friction, minutes saved from port to factory to airport. If a permit takes weeks here in Kenya, it takes hours there.

And now, permission to be blunt: none of what they have done was developed by speeches. We can’t talk our way to progress; we have to work through it.

If words alone were enough, we’ve talked much more than Singapore ever has. So, what’s the point of departure?

Singapore chose competence over clientelism, measurement over megalomania, and discipline over drama. It chose to count, then to do. We, chose too often to announce.

Economies do not transform by rhetoric. They transform when the boring things get done. On time, on budget, without kickbacks. So often, that it becomes culture.

So, while we endlessly promise, proclaim, and predict, Singapore chose consistency, competence, and consequence. While we chose, too often, announcements.

So, hope we can settle this debate once and for all. No, Kenya is not like Singapore