Disaster looms as rains disappear

By Standard TeamA crisis of unpararalled proportions might unfold this year with 2.4 million Kenyans facing starvation due to a poor weather and other factors, experts have warned.
A study by a non-governmental organisation, the Ministry of Agriculture, World Food Programme and United States aid agency (USAID), says the crisis is pulling sections of the population who were once food secure.
This is because inflation (a measurement of the cost of goods and services has doubled but real wages have remained stagnant, and are being taxed at the same rate as when the economy was on an upswing. This has dragged what was once the lower half of the middle class into the poverty bracket as the value of their pay wanes with increased cost of living.
Meanwhile, the National Cereals and Produce Board stores are quickly running out of maize and the Strategic Grain Reserves are severely below the recommended three months worth of maize stocks. The crisis is attributed to bad disaster management planning by the Government, poor or failed long rains, and skyrocketing food and fuel prices that have increased the cost of basic commodities.
The report has called for urgent measures to deal with the crisis before the situation spins out of control, with the possibility of food riots by desperate, hungry Kenyans now a real possibility.
The Parliamentary Committee on the Cost Living, warned of a looming shortage of maize with a paltry 3.2 million bags in the Strategic Grains Reserves. Speaking in Kisumu, committee Chairman Ababu Namwamba, accompanied by MPs Rachael Shebesh and John Mbadi said the cost of a 2kg packet of of maize flour was now retailing at between Sh130-150 in most parts of the country, while schools have been hard-hit by the rising cost of food.
Shebesh said the food situation was worrying and that the committee will make its emergency recommendation to Parliament on Friday. "We have gone down to the people and we understand the real situation. It is getting worse and we must step in as leaders," she said.
Mbadi said the crisis was a time bomb that if left unchecked would explode on the country’s leadership.
And a plenary session organised by lobby group Kenya Alliance of Resident Associations on Monday in Nairobi, described the fuel-induced inflation as a timebomb that must be tackled without delay.
A group of activists plan a protest today outside the Offices of the President and Prime Minister to protest the high cost of living, and demand for measures to cut food and fuel prices.
"The majority of Kenyans are feeling the pain of inflation, but the Government does not seem to be doing enough. We need quick and concrete action now," said Dinah Awuor, President of Bunge La Mwananchi.
Twin evils
The activists want salaries of workers raised by at least 60 per cent and generous subsidies for farmers to boost food production, a demand the Federation of Kenya Employers has dismissed as unworkable, warning that it would lead to mass layoffs as employers would be faced with huge wage bills.
Prof Joseph Kieyah, an economic analyst with Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis said Kenya was facing the "twin evils" of lack of jobs and rising prices of goods and services.
He lamented that lack of healthy competition in many sectors, including the oil industry was responsible for the sharp increase in prices that have hit consumers hardest.
But Prof Kieyah noted that increase in oil prices in the international market was largely responsible for driving up the cost of living, with the Government left helpless.
Kara treasurer, Ephraim Kanake said inflation had doubled in the last three months from 6 to 12 per cent, and was set to rise further in the coming weeks if no action is taken.
Worst hit are pastoral areas and the southeastern and coastal marginal agricultural areas.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said although rains that fell late last month eased drought conditions and improved availability of water and regeneration of pastures in some areas, these resources would be exhausted within the coming two months.
The country should brace for significant crop failure in the southeastern lowlands, warned the report.
It also points out that high prices for essential commodities, limited household food stocks and declining pastoral terms of trade would lead to food security to emergency levels.
Dubbed the Kenya Food Security Outlook Update, the report says overall rainfall deficits suggest that the respite will only be temporary because the rainy season is about to end.
Preliminary results indicate that pastoralists in parts of Wajir, Moyale, and Marsabit districts are losing livestock at an alarming rate, and their food security is deteriorating sharply. These and decreased productivity and conception rates have taken a cruel trend.
The report says the high levels of acute malnutrition, above emergency thresholds in pastoral areas, requires immediate action. Furthermore, significant crop failure is imminent in the coastal and southeastern marginal agricultural areas because cumulative rains are unlikely to be sufficient for crop production.
New measures‘‘Food and non-food assistance programmes are limited by severe resource constraints, and deterioration in food security is therefore likely to be more rapid than in previous years,’’ says the report.On the other hand, it is reported, food insecurity has increased in urban areas after an unprecedented rise in food and fuel prices.
All eyes will be on Central Bank of Kenya today as it strives to come up with new measures to curb accelerating inflation caused by unrelenting rise in food and oil prices. The Bank’s key policy-making organ Monetary Policy Committee meets today during which it is expected to increase its benchmark interest rate for a second consecutive meeting, as it seeks to curb inflation that has exceeded the Government’s target all year.
An International Monetary Fund Mission that was in Nairobi last week for the first review under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement advised CBK to consider pushing interest rates up to tame consumer demand, as one way of curbing inflation.
IMF African Department Advisor Domenico Fanizza said high inflation and decreased rainfall could dent the fund’s projected 5.5 per cent growth this year. The basis of the IMF argument is that relatively low lending rates have fuelled high growth of private sector credit, making the economy to overheat as the supply of goods and services is not in tandem with the demand, pushing up inflation.
According to Mr Stephen Bailey-Smith, Head of Africa Research at the Standard Bank of South Africa — which operates as CFC Stanbic Bank in Kenya — upward inflation is likely to persist and the tightening of the CBK’s monetary policy is inevitable.
He said Kenya’s headline inflation could touch a peak of 18 per cent over the next one year, as a result of the rapid rise in the price of food and as energy power places pressure on the cost of living.
According to the recently released Economic Survey 2011, Kenyan workers lost buying power last year despite being awarded pay increments after a two-year freeze caused by the combination of the 2008 post-election violence and global economic recession.
It said though nominal wages were up by an average of 3.5 per cent, prices of goods and services rose at a higher rate of 4.1 per cent, leaving workers with negative real wages.