In starts and fits, government has been distributing maize flour and beans to the vulnerable populations of Kampala and Wakiso.
The program that has been in motion since the beginning of April is still ongoing, despite earlier plans to complete in two weeks.
Apart from a few questions of quality, most recipients seem to have been grateful for the handout.
As the government slowly lifts the lock down, it will have to contend with the economic debris left behind.
The lock down, the restriction of movement and congregation, was intended to slow the rate of infection, which for all intents and purposes we have done very well.
At the time of writing this the number of recorded infections was shy of 300, about two months since we recorded our first case. Going by the rate of infection elsewhere we should have crossed the 1000-mark by now.
The lock down’s secondary reason was to allow government improve its capacity to test, track and treat eventual infections that will occur.
" With the lifting of the lock down infections will rise and time will tell whether government was ready enough...
The lock down also brought economic activity to a near standstill, the net effect of this is that many businesses will shut down and jobs will be lost as we try to come to terms with the after effects of the lock down.
We are opening up to world where there is a lot of idle capacity but little demand to take this up.
So the New Vision for instance has seen its sales fall to below 20,000 copies a day, but the machinery and people to produce the paper are still largely in place.
Ideally what should happen is that as soon as people get back on the streets our sales jump back to pre-covid-19 levels immediately. That is unlikely to happen.
This scenario is being replicated across the economy, across all industries (except the telecommunications companies maybe).
During the global financial crisis that happened about a decade ago, western economies grappled with how to handle the situation.
The US sought to bail out its giant companies in industry and finance, the argument being they were too big to fail. That if they did fail, the ripple effect across the economy of lost productivity and job losses would be catastrophic.
Europe did a bit of that but emphasised more shoring up the social security net for its people.
The result,
while the US on paper came out of the slump faster, wealth inequalities widened and the most vulnerable people in that society were badly affected...
Europe was still in recovery mode by the time the Corona crisis came around, but recovery was more spread out among the population.
Given the experience of the western economies, it seems obvious that Uganda will have to thing deeper about social security if it is to come out of this crisis with some hope of future prosperity.
This week the US, through their USAID office here announced it will be handing out cash – sh92,000 a month for three months to a few thousand people around the country.
The money is supposed to help these vulnerable people get back on their feet during these hard times.
From a purely humanitarian standpoint it is hard to argue against helping the least of our brothers.
However, plans to do this have come against two roadblocks. One, isn’t this a sure way to encourage dependency among our people. And secondly, how long can such programs be sustained.
Thankfully we need not go on guess work. The government has been running a pilot unconditional cash grant to the elderly, SAGE (Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment) for the last decade.
The government gave people over 65 were being given sh25,000 monthly in a program that expanded to 57 districts from less than 20.
A study done by UNICEF showed that these grants had had far reaching benefits not only to the recipients but their respective communities as well.
The benefits included more employment, improved school enrollment and better feeding.
Its an expensive endevour to carry out all year around, that’s why government has raised the age requirement to 80 to spread the initiative across the country.
Beyond the feel good factor of helping the most vulnerable members of the society there is some hard economic sense for government to be making these handouts, especially now.
"Most welfare programs in the western economies took off after the second world war. It was a way not only to aid the people but also to jump start industry, what is the point of manufacturing all those bicycles or shoes or plates if there is no one to buy them?....
So by helping the common man back on their feet they were creating a market for industry.
The spillover into economic growth is quite obvious. There are studies which show such grants have a comparable return on investment as infrastructure.
Thankfully the tools to make direct payments have already been tested and explored under SAGE so delivery shouldn’t be a problem if we committed to the program tomorrow.
So instead of a handful of people benefitting from government relief aid more people will benefit.
You are giving me maize and beans, thank you very much but I might need soap or charcoal or medicine more urgently now. If you give me money I will make those decisions for myself much more efficiently.
The question though, how is government going to afford it? Given the anaemic state of our coffers now there is no doubt that government would have to borrow to support such a program, but given that these monies will be used to support local business it would have to be considered a good spending of tax payers money.
