Covid-19: The citizen’s pain of a government learning on the job
What you need to know:
- Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has issued a number of decrees on public behaviour, many of which are not well thought through.
- This has exposed the ineptitude of the leadership and exposed the citizens to Covid-19 and the wrath of the police.
In a recent directive, the Ministry of Health, said that all Kenyans are required to wear masks in public.
But they have not said where Kenyans are supposed to get these masks.
This was followed by a very clear strategy of fining and arresting, where anyone not wearing a mask must pay a fine.
The irony here, of course, is that if you cannot afford the mask, you definitely cannot afford the fine.
On top of this, private cars are not allowed to carry more than 50 per cent of their capacity, which means only the driver and a passenger for five-seaters which are the majority.
But if you are quarantined with your family, then you are three or more people in the house, no?
It baffles me as to why, with all these incredibly talented and smart doctors, in and outside of the ministry, the president’s advisors, the doctors and health staff speaking out loudly, the government is still operating like a five-year old in a playpen.
How is it that the government can be unclear about getting the masks and yet crystal clear about what punishments we will get if we don’t wear them? Is this health crisis a chance to make everyone criminals? Are we the ones who are somehow supposed to be in charge of public health while Kagwe yells at us from his podium?
NO ADVISORS
Who is actually thinking this through? Because either there are no advisors, or the powers that be are not listening, or the advisors are slow. How is it that a man can read something from a podium, all the way to the end, and not realise how rudimentary this plan is?
I’ve been asking my MP, Jaguar (believe me when I say, he was not my first choice) where people in my constituency can collect masks and food. I see posts on his Facebook talking about reducing food costs – as if people with no jobs with these new curfew regulations can afford even subsidised food – and even if they could, they’re more likely to buy food than masks. I have asked him on social media every day for a week, with no response. But he does continue to talk about the Kenyans stuck in China, which is a noble endeavour. My next question, though, is what about the Kenyans stuck in Kenya?
At what point do we start asking for what we are owed, instead of applauding Joho for what he was supposed to be doing in the first place? Great, there’s a cattle dip structure at the ferry.
We’re all pleased, and forgetting that people died on that ferry from something he had the power to stop – and was responsible for. This is bare minimum. Protection, healthcare, food, shelter, and hygiene for citizens is bare minimum.
VAT
Where are our taxes going, if not to take care of us in crises like this? If the government truly cared about its citizens who are starving (if you don’t think we’re struggling, take a look at what happened when food was being distributed in Kibera last week and caused a stampede), then it would have already had programmes in place for this type of thing, instead of reducing VAT by a paltry two per cent. Who was that for?
In the meantime, I’m waiting to see if Jaguar ever replies my tweets, or my Facebook posts on his page, or my messages, because in this day and age, my MP is about as inaccessible as my president, and just as oblivious.
Twitter: @AbigailArunga
