MAKING ECONOMIC SENSE OUT OF THE FIGURES: THE GOVERNMENT DID NOT CREATE JOBS AND RAIN OR LACK OF IT...

The screaming headline from most of our media and more particularly The-Star news papers is: WE CREATED 742,000 JOBS, SAYS WAIGURU. Below it is yet another eye catcher:TheUhuru administration yesterday said it had helped created 740,000 jobs last year, ……………planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru blamed the below target performance on depressed rains that reduced agricultural production, highinterest rates that limited borrowing by private sector and reduction in public expenditure during the transition year. – In theShort story Anthology: Half a day and other Stories,there is a story titled:On the Market Day, where the governmentthrough its radio station blames lack of rain on God.Well here our government is now blaming the very rain itself for not creating jobs that they so shouted about in 2013. Then you ask yourself how the private sector managed to create 84.4% of the total jobs created both y the government and private sectors! Of the three reasons above, I would not accept that rain or lack of it is to blame. I am also tempted to vouch here that the government is lying through the teeth by taking credit for the 625,900 jobs created by the private sector in the year 2013. When the government claims it ‘helped’ creates, it means, they provided among other things, good environment, security and policies that enhanced job creation and investor confidence, reduced the cost of living and tamed inflation. Any attribution to that effect should be made to the new constitution and not what the government is trying to say that they participated in devolution process to the counties thus creating the said jobs. From a lay man point of view this may be so but looked at critically you get the answer from the government’s own share of job creation in 2013, a paltry2.63% (26,300 jobs for direct government input))based on their target of one million jobs, a whopping 97.37% gap! If it were to be a class performance by a pupil/ student, the teacher would have written either, ‘Very poor,’ ‘Stop Sleeping in Class’or‘Pull your Sock!’ First the poor would say Jubilee set itself for failure.They were very overambitious, buoyed by the 6 million votes gotten the last elections, thus over predicted capacity to match the talk and set a limit for themselves to 5.6% to10% subsequent growths. That was being naive given that they had to do a lot in setting up their foundation for smooth operations from the previous coalition government. So by attaining 4.7%, it gives one a poignant lesson: too much talk and a false air of bravado without action are bad for economic sense of growth. Ruling is not as easy as campaigning. Let’s start with the cost of living and inflation for the two are correlated and intertwined like conjoined twins. Ever since the jubilee government came to power I am yet to be provided with factual statistics to shows any slowdown in the rate of inflation or reduction in the cost of living.The inflation rate for the month of April 2014 alone is up by some 0.31% to6.41% from the previous month of March 6.27 % and it has been oscillating at that very level of between 5-7% since March 203 elections with no signs of slowing down. All this they attributed to the increase in the cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks by 1.6%, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels increased by 0.33 per cent. Looking at thePurchasing Managers Index Survey 2013/14 by a respectedprivate Poll body which has been accurately reflected by the statistic released by Planning Cabinet Secretary ,the private sector did far much better in the face of very many changes that the Jubilee government failed to tackle of providing conducive environment for doing business. Security being among the key elements the government failed in completely. I need not belabor what others have said about insecurity situation in Kenya where even the security officers themselves have become targets of carjackers and other criminals. The facts are all out there for anyone to see. It is so insecure in Kenya today that you even don’t know whether you are safe in the house, streets or at place of work. We just live each day by chance; fate!