Going a long way for a little bit of money

It is amazing what you hear when you stop minding your own business. Discussing the Covid-19 relief ka money recently with some people in my hood got me thinking about how the lists of the vulnerable have been generated. 

Some people trying to get on the local chairman’s list practically offered to show me the ropes if I did not know how to register for this government money. I did not protest too much because that would have blown my cover before I could hear more about the scheme, successful or not. 

I also did not advise them that I was not feeling particularly vulnerable at that moment. I wondered idly how I would have presented myself; as a hairdresser perhaps? This was one of the categories eligible for assistance targeted at vulnerable persons during this 42-day Covid-19 lockdown. A detour on an evening walk ended in an encounter with the owner of a local food business. 

He was doing relatively well compared to some of his neighbours although he too confessed business had slowed down and he did not much care for the early closing hours. Between two people trading lockdown stories, he told me about a taxi driver selling vegetables out of his vehicle, using it as a shopfront.

The stories of vulnerability are everywhere; from the young man making chapatti meals at the Rolex stand in the neighbourhood whose sales have declined because his large clientele of boda boda cyclists do not have as much work during the lockdown and spend less so he struggles to make a fraction of his previous earnings, from which he was paying his university tuition by the way.

The truth is that the real count of those rendered vulnerable by the Covid-19 lockdown overshoots the number on the government list by far. People are vulnerable at so many levels that sending cash aid is an uphill task only very brave government officials could dare to attempt.

When I did development and social work, one of the trickiest areas was delivering relief aid. It involved going through the paces all the way from assessing the needs of the vulnerable which then informed decisions on what type of aid to deliver. Finally, systems were developed to ensure that distribution day did not turn into a riot. 

People can be touchy and aggressive when they are vulnerable, hungry or feeling left out of something they feel entitled to. Perhaps now with the introduction of mobile money and to some extent processing of identification for the citizenry, distribution of aid is less of a logistical nightmare than it would have been a few years ago. 

Still, giving out cash is not for the fainthearted. So when the announcement was made that this time around the government was distributing cash, it was hard to see how this was not going to turn into a nail-biting affair for the senders and the recipients.  

The residents in my hood trying to recruit me as a vulnerable person reminded me of the sugar distribution of the 80s when households tried to maximise their portions by sending different family members to line up at the village chairman’s house.

Call it conditioning, poverty and desperation, lack of morals or whatever you will, increasingly, more people are devising schemes to rig the system. 

At least with the posho distribution you stood by your house and it could be seen that you had received something. With this cash distribution, even ghosts from the last century are going to make an appearance. God help PM Nabbanja and her team!

Ms Nampewo is a writer, editor and communications consultant     
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