One Million! One Million!… and Now an Investment Bank for the Youth!

East Africa is still buzzing with football fever. Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania are co-hosting the African Championship, and the region’s leaders have been opening their wallets like they just discovered a treasure chest. In Kenya, the Harambee Stars bagged KSh 2.5 million each — that’s 42 players and staff members now walking around with a little extra spring in their step (and maybe new cars in their dreams). Uganda Cranes and Tanzania’s national team? Equally showered with promises worth billions.

The stadiums are roaring, fans are chanting “One Million! One Million! One Million!” and somewhere, a national accountant is wondering whether to clap or cry.

But just as I was finishing this blog, the Kenyan President added another twist to the plot — the creation of a Youth Enterprise Investment Bank, backed by a whopping KSh 9.65 billion, supposedly ready before the end of the year. The goal? To boost youth enterprise development. On paper, this is commendable — after all, who wouldn’t want a government that actually invests in young people’s ideas? It sounds like the dream: access to capital, business growth, prosperity… and maybe fewer memes about “hustling” with zero start-up cash.

However — and here’s where history taps us on the shoulder — we’ve been down this road before. Remember the Youth Enterprise Fund? The Hustler Fund? Countless other “affirmative action” initiatives? Many began with fireworks and ended in smoke. The problem isn’t just poor design — it’s a system that often feels captured by an oligarch-like network, enabled by a debt and guarantee framework that favors only the visible, politically connected youth. The rest? They get motivational speeches and training manuals with “success stories” from people they’ve never met.

The danger is that the Youth Enterprise Investment Bank could follow the same script — a big launch, glowing headlines, high-profile beneficiaries… and then, a few years later, a quiet audit revealing billions lost to bad debt, questionable guarantees, and loans that were more about connections than capacity.

If we want this bank to be different, it must be built on transparency, fairness, and accessibility — not as another elite ATM. Let’s ensure that it funds the grassroots innovator, the rural agripreneur, the community-based social enterprise — not just the already-privileged with a cousin in the right ministry.

Until then, we can keep chanting “One Million! One Million! One Million!” in the stadiums. But for the youth on the sidelines of opportunity, the real chant might be: “One Chance! One Chance! One Chance!”

About Author: Kevin Makova