Safety nets needed to ease economic pain

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s new and enhanced drastic measures to contain Covid-19 portend more pain for the citizens.

Contrary to expectations that the President would relax the regulations, he not only extended the dusk-to-dawn curfew and lockdown of movements in and out Nairobi and three coastal counties for another 21 days, but also closed Kenya’s borders with Tanzania and Somalia.

The argument is that the situation is still dicey and easing the regulations would open a Pandora’s box.

Another argument is that countries that had lifted the regulations such as Singapore, Germany and Ghana had recorded a spike in new infection cases, confirming the folly of hurried responses to the pandemic.

For Kenya, it will now be three months of closure, with painful ramifications. Schools, worship places, markets and clubs remain closed.

Aviation, transport, hospitality and tourism as well as foreign trade are practically grounded. Productivity has drastically fallen across all sectors.

Working from home, which has become the new reality, is a major disruption with grave impact on labour productivity.

At the social level, there are increased cases of domestic violence that underscore deep psychological and economic challenges.

President Kenyatta has legitimate concerns. Left without regulations, the country would be thrown into chaos and numbers would spike to unmanageable levels.

Yet the country’s health system is generally defective. Increased infections would outstretch the health system with catastrophic consequences.

The situation in advanced countries such as the US, France, Spain and Italy has demonstrated that the pandemic can wreak havoc even on big economies. That means the impact would be worse for developing economies.

Even so, as the President announced the containment actions, he ought to provide safety nets to cushion the citizens from the negative impacts.

With various sectors of the economy brought down by the virus, thousands of workers and families have been thrown into desolation.

Massive layoffs, stalled businesses and lost contracts means suffering for many. Some of the welfare packages rolled out - such as tax waivers and cash transfers to the vulnerable - may have helped to alleviate the distress, but just a little bit.

There is agony all round. It is not lost that after the President announced tax waivers last month, National Treasury later made fresh proposals to introduce new levies that would eat into workers’ incomes, hence rolling back gains on the tax relief.

After issuing the directives, President Kenya should now enhance reliefs to cushion citizens. Importantly, he should spell out the roadmap towards post covid-19 recovery.