Hungry citizens will eat up their government someday

There is one thing every government should know. When the people have nothing to eat, they will eat the government. Every Labour Day, workers gather at Uhuru Park in Nairobi. They come to listen to their leaders and to government representatives. And every year, Kenyans edge closer to eating their government. Although they may not eat it this year, the day gets frightfully closer.

Amidst all the fanfare and drama, the assembly waits to hear about only one thing. They listen out for pay hikes. Indeed, the whole country is riveted on just this one thought. The workers listen with keen anticipation. The employers anticipate with fear. Even the unemployed attend the Labour Day celebrations. Their expectations are unknown. For, nobody represents them, or speaks for them. You cannot help feeling that someday these crowds will refuse to go home. Government beware.

You get the impression that someday these people will only leave these parks after eating someone. According to official state statistics and those of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions, Kenya has just about 2 million formal workers. This is a pittance in a population that has about 12 million people in active working age brackets. It means that the majority are either in the informal sector, unemployed or underemployed. This should worry any government; especially in a country whose leaders are now the poster boys of grand graft.

Little attention, if any, is paid to the unemployed, the underemployed and informal sector workers. It is rather clear that our focus is deficient and possibly entirely unviable. Here is a country that talks about pay rise when it should be talking about creation of new wealth and employment opportunities. Kenya has a youth bulge that has spewed almost 9 million into the brackets of the jobless. What will this country do about these citizens? And each year the number grows.

Of course government officials have told us that they are creating new jobs annually. The latest statistics indicate that they created 800,000 new jobs in 2018. They have also said that the economy grew by 6.3 per cent. It has been suggested that they generated both new wealth and jobs. Could these be what are what are called Comrade Squealer statistics? That is to say State statistics that people cannot feel in their lives and pockets. For, it appears that the country gets increasingly richer without the citizens themselves growing any rich.

When the economy expands, certain things should automatically fall in place. First, there is fresh wealth. Employees can feel it in their pockets and stomachs. The exception is in slave economies. In such cases only the slave owners enjoy the new benefits. Second, growing economies create new jobs. These come upas factors of fresh investment of the new wealth. Again, this is unless the new wealth is kited to some offshore destination for hoarding and allied mischief. Another barrier to new jobs would be an overflow in mechanisation and technology. This may lead to redundancy of human labour.

Each of these possibilities opens up space for a three-way conversation among unions, employers and the government. Dialogue must go beyond salaries to cover welfare, reinvestment, use of technology and redundancy. Technology being inevitable, the State must know what it is going to do with the growing numbers of the unemployed. Government can only ignore these numbers at its own peril. For it is worth reminding the government that when people have nothing to eat they will eat the government. 

The challenge for the Kenya Government is compounded by the grotesque statistics of theft in high places. These go hand in glove with Squealer statistics that tell of a robust economy. Could there be a correlation between the Squealer statistics, the stolen billions and the hopelessness in people’s homes and pockets? In other words, Kenya has actually generated the trillions that Comrades Squealer at the Treasury and the National Bureau of Statistics tell us that we made. The tax collector took his share. Next, Comrade Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves hived off their billions.

We can begin believing the Squealer statistics. We get to understand how the country grew richer without the citizens getting any rich. Yes, the economy grew by 6.3 per cent. However, instead of the benefits spreading out, Comrade Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves scooped of their billions. Everybody else is the worse for it. The private sector cannot do viable business with the government. Either Ali Baba will come for everything they are supposed to pay you, or there is simply no business. The workers cannot get a pay rise, for Ali Baba went with everything. The unemployed cannot get into jobs – again because of Ali Baba.

In the end, the government will have to stop paying lip service to the war against graft. If this thing does not stop, hungry citizens are going to eat up the government someday. When the citizens storm State House in Algiers and Khartoum, those in power elsewhere should know that these happenings are not the preserve of any one country. President Uhuru has been talking of food security for Kenyans. Mister President, if nothing useful happens about the thieves in your government, the government could turn out to be the food security you have been talking about. Take care.

- The writer is a strategic public communications adviser.  www.barrackmuluka.co.ke