Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Nice numbers. Pity we don't care.

With statistics you can say anything. You can tell any story. You can convince yourself that the world is right-side up. The Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning reports that over seven hundred and forty thousand jobs were created in the year 2013 to 2014. It is unclear whether these were long-term salary-paying jobs, or short-term contracts for wages. It is also unclear whether these jobs were created in the private sector or the public sector, or what the spread between the two was and which one came out in the lead. We don't yet know how many of the jobs were in the professions, how many were in the manual labour field, how many in tourism and how many were self-employment opportunities in business or trade.

The National Police Service has also entered the game of leading by statistics, declaring a dramatic fall in violent crime since Operation: Usalama Watch was launched a month ago. It has also thumped its chest because of the dramatic fall in fatalities in road traffic accidents at night since the Ministry of Transport and the National Transport Safety Authority banned night-travel and the police deployed the much-feared Alcoblow to curb incidences of drink-driving.

No matter how many sheets of numbers President Kenyatta's government waves in our faces, Kenyans are experiencing a dark mood at present. Even with the creation of new jobs or the reduction of road traffic fatalities or the growth of the economy, millions of Kenyans, in the numbers bandied about by the World Bank, live in poverty, millions of Kenyans have no access to clean drinking water (or clean water at all); they may have access to free primary education and basic healthcare, but the free primary education and the free basic healthcare they have access to is of the poorest quality that the Government of Kenya can supply.

The National Police may have reduced the number of robberies in the Nairobi Central Business District (kudos), but what they have done is to push it to the suburbs and exurbs. Buru Buru, Langata, Karen, Kiserian, Syokimau, even Runda and Kileleshwa have attracted the attentions of the bandits and carjackers pushed out of the CBD and the areas being patrolled in the name of Operation: Usalama Watch. It is the foolhardy who will be seen out at night if they don't need to be out at night. Businesses that rely on evening and night patrons are suffering, and it is not just bars and night clubs. Those annoying pavement shoe-sellers who rely on the office-bound ladies on tight budgets find that they must bundle up their wares and withdraw lest they fall victim to men who would take away their earnings by the sword or Ceska pistol.

The numbers may make the Government of Kenya look, and its State officers feel good, but the people of Kenya will treat the numbers with suspicion and hostility. The people's reactions will not be logical or rational but they are unlikely to be warm and fuzzy when they experience a persistently high cost of living and the overbearing arm of the law out to prevent them from drowning their sorrows in alcohol or some other fun activity simply because the environment around their homes makes them feel like they are under siege from malevolent forces all the time.

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