This archive report was first published on 6 July 2020.
Kenya: Virus Effects On Economy May Force Relaxation of Controls ¶
Published on July 6, 2020
Dozens of women who wash clothes for a living, popularly known as mama fua, held a solemn demonstration in Nairobi last week, protesting against their loss of jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, their protests went largely unnoticed as the country grapples with its own pain from the health crisis.
President Kenyatta may be forced to relax travel restrictions and measures imposed to deal with the pandemic due to their impact on the economy.
Kenya's economy is projected to take a big hit from the pandemic, bigger than what the post-election violence and the global economic meltdown of 2007 did.
Current projections by various institutions, including the World Bank and the National Treasury, put the economy to grow at best at 2.5 per cent this year, and at worst to shrink to negative one per cent.
Tax collections dropped by Sh20 billion in April, compared to a similar period last year, with the latest numbers showing a 14.46 per cent drop.
Both imports and domestic consumption have slowed down as a result of the impact of Covid-19.
Estimates suggest that the number of Kenyans put out of work could be racing towards the two million mark, with at least one million having been fired by the beginning of June.
The worst hit are firms in the tourism, hospitality, aviation, and horticulture sectors, with hundreds of thousands of teachers in private schools and security guards also affected.
Kenya Airways has also announced a round of retrenchments, citing the economic pain caused by the pandemic.
