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Many Kenyans cannot afford to eat more than one meal of maize and kale a day
By Katy Migiro
NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Twitter is abuzz with talk of Kenya’s Unga Revolution as labour and consumer groups threaten mass action over the soaring price of unga or maize flour, the staple food of the poor.
“There’s a revolution coming because of the price of unga and the price of oil,” MP Rachel Shebesh warned last week.
Year-on-year inflation has been rising for the last seven months, hitting 13 percent in May.
Many Kenyans cannot afford to eat more than one meal of unga and sukuma (kale) a day.
Joseph Oyugi’s story is typical.
A day’s hard labour earns him 50 shillings (60 U.S .cents), just enough to buy unga, sukuma and cooking fat for one meal, plus kerosene for his children to do their homework by lamplight.
“My family lives without certainty on when the next meal will be available,” he said.
Kenya is the 10th most unequal country in the world in terms of the disparity between rich and poor.
INJUSTICE
The injustice leaps out at you every day.
While thousands of children in the slums of Kenya’s capital city need therapeutic treatment for malnutrition, MP William Ruto shrugged off the impounding of his top-of-the-range 8 million shilling ($92,000) Range Rover “because he has several cars”, according to a Ruto confidant quoted in Thursday’s The Star newspaper.
Kenya’s streets have not exploded in the same way as those of neighbouring Uganda where “Walk to Work” protests over spiralling prices resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of arrests.
A demonstration outside the offices of the Kenyan president and the prime minister over the eve of Madaraka (Independence) Day on June 1 only attracted a couple of hundred protestors. Despite their paltry numbers, the police still tear-gassed them for trying to stage an overnight sit-in.
One reason for the apathy is that Kenya has no opposition. Both winners and losers were given lucrative government positions to secure peace after the 2007/8 post-election violence, in which 1,300 died.
Protest is left to civil society. The Consumer Federation of Kenya has filed a case in the High Court seeking to compel the government to reduce food and fuel prices. But it is unclear how this can be achieved.
NATIONAL DISASTER
On Monday, the government finally declared drought a national disaster, bowing to months of pressure from parliamentarians representing Kenya’s arid northern lands.
Some 2.4 million starving Kenyans are receiving emergency food aid as the cattle that they herd for a living succumb to drought.
In his Madaraka Day address to the nation, President Mwai Kibaki pledged to increase national grain reserves from 3 to 8 million bags and provide farmers with free seeds and fertiliser.
Last month, the government promised that maize could be imported duty-free to boost stocks. But it hasn’t implemented the waiver yet.
Instead, it is engaged in a war of words with millers over whether a maize shortage exists, leaving observers scratching their heads in confusion.
Last month, millers warned that shelves would be empty within 10 days unless the government removed import duty on maize. But the government refuted the claims.
Some are suspicious that the shortage is artificial, following a bumper harvest in the Rift Valley grain basket last year.
Last week, MP John Mututho asked the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission to investigate millers claiming a shortage, alleging that they are hoarding maize for speculative purposes.
“We have plenty of food in the country but what we lack is the goodwill to prosecute those trying to create a shortage,” The Star reported him saying.
The last time duty-free maize imports were authorised in 2009, politically-connected cartels made a killing out of the suffering of 10 million hungry compatriots.
Briefcase millers, who existed only on paper, were given government permits to import maize minus the usual 50 percent duty. They then offloaded the maize to genuine millers at a vast profit.
Ruto was implicated, along with others in government, although he denied any wrongdoing.
The tragedy is that these perennial crises could be averted with sustained investment in agriculture, as Oxfam is trying to highlight with its new Growing a Better Future campaign.
There are alternatives to maize, which repeatedly fails due to recurring drought in Kenya. As climate change increases the likelihood of extreme weather events, experts are urging investment in hardier crops like cassava and amaranth.
“Making ad hoc declarations about providing food, medical supplies (and) water… is not the solution,” one of Kenya’s biggest newspapers, the Daily Nation, complained in Thursday’s editorial.
“Ending perennial hunger and suffering requires a well thought-out and time-bound programme, complete with a budget and implementation plan, not mere pronouncements.”
It’s unlikely the government will listen, unless the unga revolutionaries do more than tweet about their grievances.
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