By Adonis Byemelwa
In a quiet but telling moment during a high-profile meeting in Nairobi, two of Kenya’s top leaders—Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and President William Ruto—spoke passionately about the nation’s future. Investment, infrastructure, public housing, digital innovation—everything seemed on the table. The rhetoric was polished, the optimism undeniable.
Yet beneath that surface gleamed a more uncomfortable truth: Kenya, like much of Africa, has mastered the art of vision—but not of execution.
The remark that perhaps captured the essence of this frustration came from Doanh Chau, President of Vietnam Gas and founder of the Energy Science Group, a company with more than two decades of experience developing battery energy storage systems and decentralized power solutions.
“Kenya’s real challenge isn’t a shortage of money or talent,” Chau explained. “It’s the absence of consistent, long-term thinking—and the dominance of short-term gain.”
From the outside, progress in Kenya might seem visible. Highways stretch toward the horizon, foreign investors fly in for summits, and the tech community makes international headlines.
Nonetheless, a deeper look reveals the cracks. Systems stall. Projects fade before they mature. And behind every initiative lies a waiting game—for outside money, outside support, outside validation.
Perhaps no metric illustrates the issue more clearly than electricity. Vietnam, with a population of 100 million, produces over 70 gigawatts of power. Kenya, with half that number, generates only around 4.
In Chau’s words, “This isn’t a side issue—it’s the foundation of economic development.”
Global investors see electricity not as an afterthought, but a dealbreaker. Factories don’t run on speeches. They run on stable, uninterrupted power. Vietnam understood this early on.
Before signing free trade agreements, before building industrial zones, it laid the groundwork—literally—by building reliable energy infrastructure. The result? A transformation from a war-torn nation to a manufacturing powerhouse in a few decades.
Kenya, on the other hand, spent billions on a gleaming expressway linking Nairobi to Mombasa.
“A beautiful road,” Chau acknowledged, “but to what end, if there’s no export industry waiting at the other side?” It’s a haunting question.
While that expressway was being paved, millions of Kenyans were living in informal settlements, in huts and slums, without consistent access to water or electricity.
In Chau’s view, it reflects a pattern across the continent—impressive symbols of progress, but without the systems and industries to sustain them.
Tourism, one of Kenya’s crown jewels, suffers from a similar contradiction. Tourists arrive from all over the world, eager to explore the country’s natural wonders.
Yet many find themselves bogged down by outdated systems and rigid routines.
“A 90-minute wait just to check into a national park—even with a reservation—isn’t just inefficient, it’s discouraging,” noted Chau. “And after dark, everything shuts down. There’s nothing more for visitors to engage with, nothing else to spend on.”
At the same time, the government rolls out plans for public housing and infrastructure, hoping to attract global partnerships. But many investors hesitate—not because they doubt Kenya’s potential, but because of what Chau calls “petty corruption and legal instability.”
“There are no real guarantees, no credible risk buffers,” he said. “Investors see it all as a gamble.”
In the comments following Chau’s viral post on the matter, African professionals echoed these sentiments with raw honesty. Entrepreneur Victor K. described the message as “a punch to the gut.”
Nash Gajjar, who spent over 15 years in Kenya, wrote, “The people are hardworking, hopeful, and driven—but systems don’t deliver.” The infrastructure may exist, but without power, policy consistency, and long-term planning, it remains disconnected from real productivity.
It would be easy to attribute the problem to politics, corruption, or foreign interference. But Chau takes a different stance. “Africa’s challenge is a mindset one,” he wrote. “Leadership must stop performing for the next donor visit or summit. It must begin building systems that outlast terms, that reward action over appearance.”
And this isn’t just theory. Chau has seen an alternative firsthand. Working in rural Vietnam, Thailand, and China, his company helped build solar microgrids in villages abandoned by the national grid. The result wasn’t just light—it was transformation.
Shops opened, clinics stored vaccines, and kids studied at night.
“Light doesn’t just change the atmosphere,” he reflected, “it changes everything—dignity, opportunity, confidence.”
This is why, instead of waiting for grand policy shifts or new multilateral agreements, Chau is now offering a more grounded kind of partnership: village by village, town by town. “If a local community wants to power itself with solar,” he said, “I’ll show up. I’ll bring panels, batteries, expertise—and we’ll build something real. No red tape. No politics. Just light.”
Such grassroots commitments are rare, especially from international executives. But Chau believes real change often starts outside the capital. “Some of the most powerful transformations I’ve witnessed didn’t begin in parliaments or ministries,” he said. “They began in a village meeting, under a mango tree.”
This philosophy struck a chord. DR Renuka Marley, a leadership strategist, responded with a question: “How do we transform these incompetencies into a ripple effect of vision-driven missions?” For Chau, the answer lies not in top-down fixes but bottom-up leadership—what he calls “compassion, commitment, and community.”
Even as global aid continues to pour into African nations, many are asking why development still lags. The comparison with Eastern Europe and Asia is especially stark. Despite their colonial histories, wars, and poverty, countries like Poland, Vietnam, and South Korea have climbed out of hardship within a single generation.
So why not Africa? Chau suggests the difference is not about capability, but clarity. “In Asia, leaders get up at 5 a.m. to execute, not to perform. Policies are consistent, incentives are linked to performance, and data drives decisions. There’s no confusion about what needs to be done, only a commitment to doing it.”
In Africa, by contrast, the performance is often the product. Speeches substitute for planning. Projects are launched with no follow-through. And political cycles dictate investment timelines, rather than long-term national goals.
Still, Chau’s message is not one of blame, but of belief. “Africa doesn’t need to be saved. It needs to be built. Not in five years, not after the next summit. Now.”
As the world races ahead, especially in energy, manufacturing, and digital economies, the window is narrowing. Asia isn’t slowing down to wait. And, Chau warns, the longer Africa delays, the harder it will be to catch up.
“But there’s still time,” he said. “If communities take the first step, if they choose to act rather than wait, everything changes. That’s how it started in Vietnam. That’s how it can start in Kenya.”
From his post at the helm of a global energy company, Chau doesn’t just see Africa’s potential—he’s ready to invest in it, one solar panel, one microgrid, one community at a time. And maybe, just maybe, that’s how the lights finally come on.
