KENYA: Businesses Suffering in Election’s Wake

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kwamboka Oyaro

KISII, Kenya, Jan 17 2008 (IPS) - Joseph Ombui, standing in his barely stocked shop, looks anxiously at his customers every time he responds, "Out of stock. Please try next week."

That has been the situation in Kisii town – about 380 km west of the capital Nairobi – since Dec. 30 when the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) chairman declared President Mwai Kibaki winner of the controversial presidential elections.

That Sunday evening, hell descended on the small town. Some youths barricaded roads and stoned vehicles, while others set ablaze businesses to express their anger about what they felt was a stolen election.

The protests led to the closure of main roads into the town – shutting out any supplies.

"We get potatoes and other fresh produce from the Kericho route [in the neighbouring Kalenjin community], but that is closed. Fish came from Kisumu [the main town in the region], but that road is also closed. Now we are just hoping that things will be normal soon," explains a sad Ombui.

Not far from Ombui’s shop, Mary Moraa stands next to the shell of what used to be the kiosk where she had spent her days selling clothes, soft drinks, and telephone airtime to customers.

Moraa just like many Kenyans had voted for candidates of their choice and expected things to move on smoothly as they always did during previous elections. That is why when she went home on Dec. 29, she closed her shop with the merchandise inside, knowing it would be business as usual on the following Monday when she next opened the shop. She does not work on Sundays.

"But issues with presidential vote tallying and the chaos that ensued had different plans for me," she told IPS in Kisii.

Observers during the elections, the ECK chairman, and some of ECK commissioners have said the presidential vote tallying was fraudulent.

Amos Ongige, a hardware merchant in Kisii, has been driving his trucks either to the safety of the police station in town or to his home every evening for fear of arsonists setting them ablaze or thugs taking advantage of the situation and plundering them. Before now, he left them at his business yard and went home at the end of the day, with just two watchmen keeping guard.

Life is no longer that simple in this town. "The very fear of what will happen to me or my business gives me nightmares," Ongige told IPS. "I don’t know what tomorrow has for us – my workers, family and I. If this instability and uncertainty goes on in the country, then we will all be reduced to paupers," he said.

Hopelessness seems to be the mood in the town. Most business people have taken a wait-and-see attitude. Their workers have not been asked to report back to work after the Christmas holidays.

Although the town did not suffer the intensity of destruction of businesses and looting witnessed in other towns, business people lost millions of shillings in the few days following the announcement of results in the election.

The town ran out of fuel for about five days, and when finally companies started bringing it in from depots in Kisumu – a neighbouring town also in western Kenya – under police escort, merchants doubled the price of fuel at the pump.

Furious public transport drivers asked those unwilling to pay the new fares to alight from their vehicles, but because there were few vehicles on the roads passengers often paid without complaining.

Joseph Makori, one of these drivers, explained to IPS: "Just three days ago we were buying diesel at 71 shillings [about 1 dollar] per litre, but today I bought at three times that price. What then am I expected to do to remain in business?"

Jennifer Mokeira, a vegetable seller who commutes to Kisii town every day to sell vegetables – especially to those travelling to Nairobi – complained that she had to pay three times the fare she normally paid.

"This eats into my profit. To make business sense, I have had to double the cost of vegetables. But customers are not buying, and since many people are not travelling to Nairobi, most of my vegetables get spoilt." Mokeira told IPS. "Until things get better, I am not going to do this business any more," she said.

The town also ran out of telephone airtime within hours of the post-election violence. Without proper communication, panic struck business people and their customers. "We were relying on rumours, and fear gripped us," wholesaler in the town told IPS. "From what I gathered, I was certain arsonists were coming any time to raze down my shop," the wholesaler said.

The shortage of telephone airtime was so serious that the three operators in the country – Safaricom, Celtel Kenya, and Telkom Kenya – reported a combined loss of 15 million dollars due to distribution breakdowns following the post-election unrest around the country.

In Kisii town, residents may for now have to adjust their diets as fish, potatoes, and other basic commodities do not reach them.

If the roads to the town are not opened, "the thriving town may soon give way to destruction, starvation and hopelessness," said Faith Kenanda, an hotelier whose customers do not fight for seats to sample her dishes any more.