If there is one thing that the majority of Kenyans have come to accept today, it is the fact that the country needs reform.

This sense of urgency and the ultimate determination by the majority to change the way the country has been run in the past was driven home only by the huge dose of pain and indignation that a botched up election caused early last year.

So in recent months, reform has been the most used word - be it in the churches, mosques, offices, bars and the media.

There is the grand project of rewriting the country's constitution that mainly aims at changing the power equation among the various arms of government and even vertically by taking some of the powers from Nairobi the capital to the regions.

A lot of fixing is also due to be done in the country's security apparatus, the judiciary and the electoral system whose failure took the entire nation to the brink at the beginning of last year.

What has unfortunately become muted in the reform agenda is the economy.

Yet there can be no denying the fact that a large fraction of the country's major challenges - including negative ethnicity have their roots in the structure of the Kenyan economy.

Often mentioned as the root of all Kenya's woes, tribalism is nothing but a struggle over economic resources.

That is why in a country that is largely agrarian such as Kenya, land and livestock ownership, access to government jobs and contracts is the place where the rubber of ethnicity meets the road.

The few Kenyans who have had a hard look at the dynamics of their country are agreed on one fact.

That nothing short of a grand reorganisation of the economy will cause a lasting peace among its inhabitants - be they people, corporations or the different arms of government.

Predictably because of the entrenched interests, the economic reform agenda is getting only token attention at the reforms table.

The executive has for instance done little to change the structure of the national budget and continues to allocate huge amounts of resources to non-productive sectors of the economy such as the army, the intelligence and State House while starving critical sectors such as agriculture, tourism and irrigation of the money they need to grow.

That is not all. Little is being done to dramatically shift the dynamics of land ownership in Kenya, a resource that remains heavily skewed in the hands of a few who used the advantage of public office to acquire.

Besides, there is nothing to show for all the talk about rooting out nepotism and tribalism from public service employment and award of government contracts.

It must be restated for the umpteenth time that nothing short of an economic system that offers every citizen equal opportunity to prosper will put Kenya on the path to long-term stability and peace.