A crisis is gathering pace in Kenya as a series of strikes and protests bring to the fore the effects of the nation's dwindling economy and administrative ineptitude.

Now that the economic reality can no longer be overshadowed by politics, 2002 looks set to be an annis horribilis for the government. Air traffic controllers are on strike over a pay dispute and teachers are threatening to take similar action. Maize farmers have rejected a weird barter payment deal suggested by the National Cereals and Produce Board for their grain harvest. This is all happening in an election year.

But it is the teachers' strike that the government takes most seriously. The teachers are to down tools by June 30 unless the government implements the remaining phases of a 1997 pay deal with the giant Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) by April 30.

The 1997 agreement was reached after an 11-day nationwide teachers' strike in October 1997, which paralysed learning and examinations. Teachers resumed teaching after the government agreed to their demand for a 150-200 per cent pay rise in four phases, the last one being this year. However, only the first phase – involving 35 and 45 per cent respectively – was implemented in 1998. That alone pushed the annual wage bill from Ksh23.5 billion ($294 million) to Ksh34.6 billion ($432.5 million)

Now, as the clock ticks towards the June 30 deadline, Education Minister Mr Henry Kosgey is already rubbing the teachers the wrong way. On April 3, he told parliament that that government had no money to pay the teachers. 

Courting further disaster last week, the minister unilaterally appointed a 10-member committee – comprising five government and five Knut officials – without first consulting with the trade union, ostensibly to renegotiate the 1997 pay deal. 

The indignation was predictable as Knut, on Wednesday, refused to take part in the review. The minister, said Knut secretary-general Mr Francis Ng'ang'a, was "required to ask for nominations from the union, but not to appoint them without consultation." 

Matters were not made any better for the government when the Kenya National Association of Parents supported the planned strike, saying the government should have no problem in paying the teachers the Ksh20 billion ($250 million) from its Ksh268 billion (3.43 billion) annual income. [The government's figure for the wage bill is Ksh48 billion ($600 million).

The strike by air traffic controllers is now in its third week. They are demanding to be delinked from the civil service and a hefty pay hike to at least Ksh100,000 ($1,250) from the current Ksh7,500 ($94). No planes are flying into and out of Moi International Airport, Mombasa at night, while flights to Kisumu, Eldoret and Lokichoggio airports have been suspended. Airlines are also complaining of losses because they have to use extra fuel to circle the airports in view of landing delays, paying workers for extra shifts, refunds for cancelled flights and hotel bills for stranded passengers. Kenya's tourism, which has been recovering from a slump, is taking a bad hit from the aviation strike.

Nevertheless, 14 of the strikers were arrested on April 13, and charged in court for holding an illegal assembly. They were also ordered to vacate government houses. The same day, the government published a Bill setting up the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority to be responsible for the licensing of air services and the employment of air traffic controllers, among others. This being one of the key demands by the striking workers, it would appear that the government adopted a policy of giving in to their demands, but ensuring that the benefits are reaped by a different lot as the fate of the sacked 76 and the suspended 192 remains unclear.

This became clear on April 6 when President Daniel Moi invited retired air traffic controllers from the civil service, private sector and the military to seek employment with the Directorate of Civil Aviation. Civil aviators say the Civil Aviation Act requires that air navigation officers who have been out of duty for at least 20 days be retrained and that the ones being hired by the government were working illegally because they are not licensed.

Last Wednesday, the Kenya Pilots Association declared Kenya's airspace unsafe. The use of "few and tired workers" to man air controls, said the association's secretary general Mr Gakweli Warrakah, was "a recipe for air disaster." But Permanent Secretary for Transport Mr Sammy Kyungu declared the Kenyan airspace as "safe as ever."

The crisis in the agricultural sector was triggered by the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB), which offered maize farmers fertilisers, fuel, lubricants and seed instead of paying them Ksh1.5 billion ($18,750,000) which it owes.

As was expected, the offer has been rejected. On Wednesday, farmers used commandeered NCPB trucks and their own tractors and trucks to block the streets of Eldoret, an agricultural town in western Kenya. Police broke up the protest, the second in a week.

Last month, Agriculture Minister Dr Bonaya Godana was forced to slap a 60 per cent excise duty on imported milk and milk products after similar protests by farmers, but not before admitting that the Treasury had allowed 400 tonnes of powder milk into the country against his advice. That was happening when dairy farmers were producing seven million litres of milk daily while Kenya's 26 milk processors can handle a mere 600,000 litres daily.

How the government handles these mini crises – including others in the sugar sector [where Dr Godana says he has been forced to publish a faulty Sugar Act] and labour unrest in the Kenya Railways Corporation and the health sector – will show if it has the ability to view governance beyond politics.