One year on: Taking cash crunch pain with a pinch of salt

How far those changes also explain the groaning at the economic level is one thing, and whether there is a solution to the disquiet via those measures is a different matter. Yet it is far from being fully established that there is a crisis, as often those in pain shout, but the relaxed ones are often silent.

So, the reality of what the country is doing through at an economic level can’t be gauged substantially enough by trying to balance the two sides, as those who would say we are doing fine will not be shouting their sentiments, while the affected ones or the otherwise disturbed sections will do so.

At the same time there are elements of political opportunism about the issue, when those who have been touched by governance clean up, and may have made some private vows about the new state of affairs, may get an opening into the limelight. Former State House aspirants will snuggle close.

What is partially being illustrated is that ‘nature hates a vacuum,’ in which case a lapse of good feeling, where it touches most as bread and butter questions, shall also affect sentiments on the presidency.

When that feeling is broadly ignited, it will generate intense expressions of patent disaffection among a breadth of stakeholders, with a view to fronting themselves as the solution to the state of affairs, which is by and large inaccurate.

For if the incumbent was the best person for the job just a while ago it is likely he is also the best to take stock of issues, to solve them.

It is unclear to say the least what current ‘front runners’ in the hypothetical presidential run of 2020 are offering as solutions, but with just one year into the fifth phase, chances are that they wish to go back to the past.

They may grudgingly accept there were some genuine problems with how the government was being run, but inwardly lust the habits igniting widespread disaffection and seeking solutions, not for a general ‘cash crunch’ as it is being insisted upon at present, but a ‘class crunch.’ Some felt the pain of levies, fines, contributions etc and others enjoyed the levies.

There is at least one truism that underlines the current malaise, and perhaps it is the only thing that is valid in the sentiment, that it isn’t those who used to get illicit cash who are complaining but a wide section of society have seen their fortunes changing, all of a sudden.

That is true even if it doesn’t unmake the preliminary reason, in the sense that faulty public expenditure, tax evasion etc would have become a channel for using a significant amount of goods and services, or using installed capacity for instance in hotels, or even in privately run secondary schools, etc.

A breadth of the buyers of goods or users of services had illicit cash but can a hotel server see it?

Precisely because it isn’t possible to tell how much of the pain arises from curbing illicit cash flows and how much of it can be said to be genuine, it follows that the demand for goods and services at a certain level had become structurally integrated, anchored activity of a breadth of society.

The government has no option of telling them to go back to the land because the goods they are producing or services they offer depended don ill gotten money and thus have no future. If illicit cash is curbed, doors must be opened to deepen economic activity, widen credit, buying.

We often pride ourselves of having economic security for nearly everyone as most urban residents have their rural bases where they can revert to in case the going gets tough in urban areas.

Scholars will have to sort out how far it is possible to ensure that poverty is removed for a large peasant population and jobs are found for a large urban population, without breaking the Bamboo Wall that separates credit from land.

Peasants now demand Sh12m/- per acre to leave it to an investor and the government is advised to let peasants get market value for land, so that they can branch off into crafts or horticulture.

Those purchasing land ought to be given long leaseholds so they can obtain bank credit to start modern industries and thus create jobs.