Susan Kibe

Miss Susan Kibe, a lecturer in the School of Accountancy (SOA) was the best student in the United States International University MBA class this year. The Director of SOA, Mr George Kairu says her achievement is testament to the high quality of SOA's faculty.

Miss Kibe's areas of scholarly interest are public finance and economic development. Her MBA research paper was titled "Fallacy of development measurement: a case of the gini co-efficient."

The gini co-efficient is one of the measures the government uses in determining the allocation of Constituency Development Funds (CDF). Miss Kibe argues that the mechanical use of this method could be misleading.

"Take the case of Kabete constituency in Central Province which according to the 2005 Central Bureau of Statistics of Kenya report: Geographical Dimensions of Well-Being in Kenya was singled out to be the least poor while Ganze constituency in Kilifi District was identified as the poorest. The gini co-efficient as a measure used in the disbursement of the constituency fund is blind to income disparities within Kabete constituency where a location like Karai has very little to show as far as the development brought about by the CDF is concerned," Miss Kibe said.

"One other aspect that needed emphasis is that Kabete has the most skewed income distribution in the country and some of the poorest people," Miss Kibe added.

"On the other hand, Ganze's constituents are at more or less at the same level of poverty. This means nobody steals from the other. The case is different in Kabete where great income disparities have very apparent adverse implications on the security in the constituency," Miss Kibe said.

"One of my recommendations is that disbursement of funds should be more specific as the constituency level is too generic," she added.

Miss Kibe intends to pursue this area of research further. "I intend to study two more constituencies – the poorest and another that has lies in the middle of the two extremes in terms of income disparities," she revealed.

Miss Kibe holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics and Economics from Kenyatta University. She is also a certified Public Accountant (CPA) finalist.

She was awarded a 25% scholarship while pursuing her MBA owing to her high GMAT score. A condition for the scholarship was to maintain a GPA of 3.2 or higher throughout the course which she did.