‘Hard times’ are the words on the lips of nearly every Kenyan. While Covid-19 is largely to blame, the truth that nobody wants to face, especially those in the the Executive, is that even without the pandemic we were not going to fare well.
We defy well established truth of how major businesses blossomed to mammoth industries by condemning the small activities people do to earn a living simply because they are supported or formed by people we don’t like.
The government seems rudderless on the best approach to deploy in dealing with the daily needs of millions of hungry citizens. It thinks big projects. Incidentally, the big projects favoured by the bureaucrats are largely for their rent-earning streaks. While a section of government is disparaging wheelbarrownomics, the same are championing kazi mtaani, which entails the use of brooms, pangas, forks and rakes.
If you asked them whether the two approaches are complimentary or diametrically opposite, the casigators-in-chief will give a long hollow lecture on how theirs is from superior thinking while wheelbarrownomics is pedestrian, archaic and backward.
We need to objectively interrogate what works for us starting with an honest assessment of what our problems are. It will be the height of immorality for a government tasked with looking after people’s welfare to condemn individuals’ legitimate and legal efforts aimed at filling the void left by it simply because the solutions are simple and coming from those they dislike.
It is the work of government to roll out well-thought-out economic programmes to holistically deal with the problems. Voters must change their mindset and put the government to task.
Economic and political analyst
