The poor going hungry to meet daily expenses #kenya

MAJORITY of the poor in Kenya are forced to forgo
important expenditures such as food, education and medical
care due to unstable monthly incomes, a new survey
shows.
A Financial Sector Deepening report dubbed Kenya
Financial Diaries which focuses on the lives of the poor
people in the country; shows that income for this group
drops by an average of over 50 per cent month to month
despite these households having about 10 revenue sources
per home.
The report released yesterday in Nairobi based on a sample
of 300 poor households whose financial habits were studied
for over a year indicates that 38 per cent of the respondents
had foregone medical care at least once while 11 per cent
had done so more than three times.
A quarter of the households studied had to forgo food at
least once while nine per cent had to do without food more
than three times.
In terms of education, 57 per cent said their children had
been sent away from school for lack of fees at least once
while 27 per cent said it had happened more than three
times.
To meet their household expenses and basic needs; poor
people, the survey showed, mainly borrowed money from
friends and relatives, took credit at the shop, deferred
payment of rent or fees, borrow from chama, and use of
airtime credit like Safaricom's Okoa Jahazi facility.
Bankable Frontier Associates, which also helped conduct
the FSD report on the poor, said this group comprises of
people who constantly save because they prefer savings to
credit.
"There is a bigger preference for savings than credit," said
BFA's senior associate Julie Zollman during the handover of
the report.
Digital Divide Data MD Amolo Ng'weno added: People
believe money is supposed to work for them. When they
deposit that money they see no interest and perceive as if it
is idle. But in a chama group they someone else even if not
yourself will invest that money and they prefer it."
Central Bank Governor Njuguna Ndung'u said banks have
left a huge portion of the population out because these
people do not understand how they work.
"When the poor have secure savings, it reduces their
vulnerability to periodic economic and social shocks," he
said.
Ninety per cent of the poor, the report said, prefer to save
via mobile phone money channels, 78 per cent in a rotating
savings and credit association, 77 per cent in the house
while 52 per cent also saved via friends and family through
lending them.