The government’s strategy to fight poverty seems to be making more people poor.
When the first president of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, took his oath of office 56 years ago, he vowed to eradicate poverty, disease and ignorance.
Successive governments have unsuccessfully battled with the three scourges. And the current government has had it worse, with the arrival of a new disease that not even the developed countries have managed to find a cure for.
And as Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration focuses all its energy on fighting this disease, it is their strategy of fighting poverty that has caught us unawares.
Given the current government’s treatment of poor Kenyans, one would not be mistaken to assume that one of the key strategies of fighting poverty by this government is by creating more poor.
This has been clear from the first day when the president announced measures that his government was taking to deal with the coronavirus.
Out of the 11 measures given, the ones affecting the poor were the curfew, lockdowns, cessation of movement and threats.
When the government officials saw people scrambling for food, they sent a warning to the food charities to channel it through them.
As we grapple with the loss of jobs, locusts and flooding, which are killing us daily, and which our government doesn’t seem aware of or bothered by, our houses are being demolished by the same government.
On Monday, some residents of Kariobangi in Nairobi found themselves homeless as government bulldozers crushed their few possessions.
Again, one would be forgiven to assume that another of the government’s strategy to fight poverty is to eradicate poor people.
It is in these circumstances that we realise that to be a poor Kenyan is a tragedy.
It is to go to the voting booth thrice to vote in the wealthiest man in your country, with the hope that on top of not stealing from the country’s coffers, he will lift you out of poverty, only for the wealthy man to oversee the most corrupt government since his father’s.
But the worst bit of being poor is to have no voice. They say that democracy is when a people are led by the choice of the majority but, observing and listening to these leaders, one would think that all Kenyans are wealthy, employed drunks.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe mentioned that some Kenyans were ordering sausages and beers in the re-opened restaurants.
He doesn’t seem to know that the majority of us cannot afford the sausages, let alone beer.
It is now that we realise that our interaction with the government, as poor people, starts and ends with elections. In between, only the tragedies affecting the rich and brought by the rich, will be focused on.
Floods have killed more people than the coronavirus pandemic, yet we have not heard how this government is planning to cushion us. I guess it is because floods are a poor and rural man’s problem.
We, poor Kenyans, are clearly on our own.
Ms Mwende comments on social issues
