There is no reason Kenyans should pay tolls to foreign private equity firms or repay Chinese loans for decades.
Many pension administrators worry they do not have the experience or tools to manage complex investments.
Recently, I had an eye-opening exchange with a group of pension fund trustees from Africa. Like many others across the continent, their investment strategy is heavily skewed towards land, property development and government treasuries. These are considered safe bets, but in a world rapidly shifting towards knowledge-intensive and innovation-driven economies, they are also stagnant bets.
Pension funds in East Africa manage billions of shillings in assets. Yet most of that capital sits in low-risk, low-impact instruments, while our governments borrow heavily, often recklessly, to fund infrastructure. Many of these projects become debt traps, with taxpayers carrying the burden while political elites enrich themselves. But perhaps there is another way. What if pension funds didn’t just lend to governments, but co-owned infrastructure projects?
