General News and Media Monitoring: Africa: Coalition against High Cost of Living

Analysis by Miriam Gathigah*

NAIROBI, May 3 (IPS) – In Burkina Faso, Niger, Kenya, Uganda:
governments are worried by soaring prices – and by newly confident and
enraged civil society. Governments are being challenged to take
decisive action, despite lacking the tools to address rising global
oil prices. Their responses could have important consequences for
their legitimacy and survival.

Uganda's Walk to Work Campaign was launched on Apr. 11 by a group
drawn from various opposition parties and calling itself Activists for
Change. The protest against the rising price of fuel and food was
brilliantly conceived – it was a simple call to walk to work.

Meanwhile, in Burkina Faso, members of the presidential guard caused
chaos in Ouagadougou on Apr. 14, demonstrating for an increase in
their housing allowances and a daily food subsidy. They set fire to a
building in the presidential compound, freed several comrades being
held on rape charges, and targeted shop-owners in a rampage through
the city, carrying off goods and destroying kiosks.

One soldier who took part in the mutiny – he declined to give his name
– told IPS, "Maybe it wasn't the right way to do it, with guns, but
many of us have social problems and don't know where to turn."

Merchants responded by attacking the headquarters of the ruling
Congress for Democracy and Progress party, sacking and burning it, and
doing further damage to the Commerce Ministry and vehicles around
parliament.

The protesters demanded relief in the form of the withdrawal of a
community development tax, tax exemptions for loans, and the rolling
back of new fees for public health care.

The name the ad hoc Burkinabé pressure group chose as it marched to
the CDP headquarters is an awkward formula for the challenge many
African leaders should fear – the Coalition Against the High Cost of
Living and Impunity.

In Kenya, another country under pressure, the outspoken opposition MP
for Gichugu, Martha Karua, said corruption and inefficiency by
regulators were key parts of the crisis in her country. She called on
government "to clean up the National Oil Corporation, the Kenya Power
and Lighting Company and the Energy Regulatory Commission to protect
the common man from these surging prices".

The April/May fuel price review by the country's regulators saw fuel
reach 113 Kenyan shillings per litre ($1.35) for regular petrol – up
more than 20 percent from February/March. The owners of the matatu
buses that dominate public transport immediately adjusted their fares
upwards, in some cases as much as doubling the fares.

Inflation rose for the fifth straight month in March, says Anthony
Thiga, a broker at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. He says the problem is
not just about fuel, "but the ripple effect it has caused in the
economy where practically every commodity that Kenyans need on a daily
basis has gone up."

But what policy options do governments have? Oil is presently at 112
dollars per barrel – up from $82 per barrel in January. All over
Africa the price of fuel is tightly linked to the general cost of
living – a petrol price increase quickly affects the cost of commuting
to work and the retail prices of goods transported by road.

The official unemployment rate is 40 percent, but Thiga says those
with jobs are hardly better off, as inflation chews holes in wages
that – especially for civil servants – have not been reviewed for a
long time.

On Apr. 19, people marched from Uhuru Park through Nairobi's central
business district to protest the rising cost of living. Inflation has
pushed larger and larger sections of the population to the 'kadogo
economy' – consumers forced to buy basic goods like soap, sugar and
oil in tiny quantities, because it is all they can afford.

The government has rushed in to put out the fire with pacifying
promises for an increasingly agitated citizenry. Import duties on
maize, wheat and fuel have all been cut, and free lanterns have been
promised to the poor in addition to a 30 percent reduction in the
price of kerosene.

Labour Minister John Munyes announced a 12.5 percent increase in the
minimum wage at a May Day rally, raising the recommended minimum
salary in Kenya's major urban centres to roughly 90 dollars a month:
workers did not even wait to hear the end of his brief address.

The Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) had demanded a wage
increase of 60 percent – a negotiating posture, to be sure, but
tapping into a dissatisfaction that extends far beyond the minority of
unionised workers and deep into the population. COTU may now make good
on its threat of a general work stoppage.

"All we hear from the government are rhetorics. It's as if the lessons
from the Middle East flew past African countries, because even in
neighboring Uganda, the government is yet to make tangible steps
towards facing the crisis," Thiga said.

April was hot, May could be hotter

Uganda's government has taken the opposite tack. The capital, Kampala,
has now been paralysed for three weeks by the government's violent
reaction to the Walk to Work campaign. Opposition leaders Kizza
Besigye and Nobert Mao were prevented from walking to their offices on
the first day by police and soldiers. The violence that ensued has led
to eight deaths, including a two-year-old child, and at least 250
injured as security forces have used teargas, rubber bullets and live
ammunition to turn protesters back on each day of action.

But the protest in Uganda has survived the crackdown, and is now set
to grow. Activists 4 Change has now been joined by the country's
lawyers – who will launch a three-day protest on May 4 – and the
clergy, who issued a statement condemning government's reaction and
urging the president to instead tackle corruption which they blame for
the failure to address social and economic issues.

Besigye is in hospital after being violently arrested four times, but
other leaders such as the Democratic Party's Mao – he refused to apply
for bail, and was released from jail on May 2 after charges were
dropped – are prepared to continue spearheading the protest.

A latter-day Mao on a long march? Beware.

* Ousseini Issa in Niamey, Rosebell Kagumire in Kampala and Brahima
Ouédraogo in Ouagadougou contributed to this report.

(END/2011)

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