ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the transition from one presidency to another, that is, that of Jomo Kenyatta to that of Moi, and life under Daniel arap Moi. Initial post-independence conditions in Kenya were reported as difficult: "low income, low human development indicators, and a rather uneven distribution of income" with a significant distribution in who owned what: 40 percent of the population controlled about 10 percent of wealth while the top 10 percent owned 46 percent of the wealth by the 1970s, and spending on social services averaged about 8 percent. Politically, the government introduced the one-party state with the Kenya African National Union (KANU) as the only legal party. The genesis of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) dates as far back as the 1950s, but given the global geopolitical conditions prevailing in the world highlighted previously, political considerations, rather than economic ones, dominated the financiers' interests.
