EU to Deepen Mediterranean Tragedies

Nizar Visram

More than 800 migrants died on April 19 this year when their overcrowded boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast. The tragedy sent soaring this year’s Mediterranean death toll which was by then around 1,500 – 10 times the deaths during the same period last year.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), between 23,000 and 24,000 migrants had tried to cross over to Italy since the beginning of the year, while just under 21,000 migrants made the same journey between January and April 2014. While the number of migrants rose to some extent, migrants perishing at sea have hit the roof.

Things are bound to get worse before getting better. It is estimated that in 2015, between 500,000 and one million refugees will cross the Mediterranean and land in the European Union. So far some 1,600 people have died during crossing. These figures are the known cases, many more having died in undetected vessels. The numbers are on the rise. In 2011, 58,000 people tried to enter the EU across the waters, while the figure grew to 218,000 in 2014.

Most of the migrants crossing the Mediterranean in fact are not Libyans. They come from as far as the Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Eritrea, Somalia, Senegal and Ghana, running for their lives due to either sectarian conflicts at home or pervasive poverty.

They scraped together US$ 2,000 for the trip across the sea on wobbly vessels, run by gangs of human traffickers. Many more come from Syria. These are the countries that face serious internal crises intensified by western military interference.

Italy, Malta and Greece coastguards have rescued thousands of such migrants from the hazard of Mediterranean Sea. They have been feeling isolated and left alone to deal with what they termed “the cemetery of the Mediterranean Sea.”

European Union (EU) put forward a proposal to rescue the African migrants, but the suggestion went under with a deadlock as to who is going to “share the burden”. The proposals included joint search-and-rescue patrols, establishing resettlement quotas.

Some EU members such as France, Spain, and Britain rejected the idea of quotas for sharing migrants among them, while others suggested deploying military forces to Libya to keep migrants as far away from Europe as possible.

European Commission reacted to the boat tragedy with plans to set up of offshore camps in Libya and Tunisia, to lock up and pre-empt asylum seekers before they cross the Mediterranean. It has been described ingenuously as “outsourcing border control and containment mechanisms to prevent departures.”

Italy’s foreign minister even called for airstrikes in Libya against ISIL positions there.

The general agreement among EU is that something needs to be done and their first proposal was to send more ships to the Mediterranean so as to ensure that fewer people die due to unseaworthy vessels crammed with their human cargo.

On the other hand, some European bureaucrats are toying with the idea of military strikes to destroy smuggling vessels before they leave Libya. However, they have been cautioned by activists that the last thing the African refugees need is more assaults and bombing—especially coming from the very countries that they expect to beg for asylum.

EU ministers sanctioned a plan for a new naval force to intercept smugglers before their boats reach Europe. It was reported that the EU parliament was drafting a United Nations resolution to authorize the deployment of military off the coast of Libya in order to “capture” and “destroy” the boats.

The problem is that two rival ‘governments’ in Libya have indicated their rejection to the plan, saying any deployment of troops to Libyan waters would be a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

Meanwhile, some European political parties have embarked on their anti-immigrant and xenophobic tendencies to obstruct immigrants from entering their countries while deporting those who managed to sneak in. Italy’s ultra-nationalist Northern League called on the authorities to stop “by any means” any accommodation of further refugees. The party said it ‘was ready’ to take steps to prevent their arrival.

Similarly, Germany refugee centers have been targeted with fire bombings, while ultra-right groups such as Pegida have conducted racist campaigns, attacking immigrants as ‘social spongers’.

Such right-wing ultra nationalist groups have even received implicit sympathy from governing parties such as Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Meanwhile, it is revealed that EU is planning military strategy against the refugee transport networks in the Mediterranean. Documents disseminated by WikiLeaks say the operation contains “detailed plans to conduct military operations to destroy boats used for transporting migrants and refugees in Libyan territory, thereby preventing them from reaching Europe,”

The whistleblower website exposed two classified documents, with the plan being approved by delegates of all 28 EU member states on May 18. The project has no well-defined “political end state” which means they are looking at a sweeping military operation without an unambiguous end goal.

In reaction to this, more than 300 European migration academics and scholars have condemned the EU’s envisioned use of military might against migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean. They have come out against the EU’s plan of military intervention against the boats crossing the Mediterranean.

The academics argued that any attempt to justify military intervention by comparing the Mediterranean boats with the 18th century clampdown on the slave trade is “entirely self-serving” and based on “a parody of history”.

It is widely believed that military option will do nothing to curtail the flow of immigrants escaping conflicts in their destabilized countries or looking for jobs. For them the long-term solution lies in social development of the countries they come from.

What is needed is a total prohibition on the sale of weaponry to these countries. EU countries have to criminalize the arms trade, thus abolishing wars in countries such as Syria. It means investment in sustainable development, an end to plundering of resources. It means better education systems, better medical system and better shelters.

Europe and NATO countries have to take responsibility because they have in one way or another created the current turmoil. They can find money for global warfare yet they can’t find the money to rescue the refugees running away from the war zones.

Apart from the influx of migrants from Africa, we have also to look at those coming from the Middle East. This is the direct result of the military invasion carried out by the US, and its NATO allies.

They have sustained and shared the military operations in Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Yemen. As a result the Middle East and large portion of Africa has plunged into disarray and disorder. By 2014, it is estimated that two million of the six million inhabitants of Libya fled the country, as a result of US-French-British bombardments.

The current US-led drive at regime change in Syria has immersed the country into total disarray, disorder and deaths, with subsequent exit of estimated four million refugees. Most of them fled to the neighboring countries, while many others take the difficult and deadly path to Europe.

A new theater is unfolding with the US and Saudi Arabia embarking on a new battlefront in Yemen. This is bound to lead to a great number of refugees seeking asylum.

Meanwhile, as increasing number of distressed citizens seek sanctuary in Europe, the EU is converting the Mediterranean into a graveyard, hoping that this will serve as deterrent to others.

Obama’s “Failed State” Policy in Africa

Thomas C. Mountain

The Obama regime must be held responsible for a series of failed or nearly failed states on the African continent. Recently Burundi has been in the news but it could just as easily be Nigeria, Mali or the Central African Republic. Whether the calamities that have befallen these neocolonialist constructions have been intentional or not, the ruination and depredations inflicted on large swaths of Africa amount to what can only be described as a failed state policy.

While Libya, and before that Somalia, are overt examples of the western implementation of the failed state policy in Africa an honest appraisal of what has happened in South Sudan can only add it to this list. It has been almost a year and a half since the civil war broke out there and not one western “expert” has tried to explain where the so called “rebels” led by Reik Machar are getting the funds needed to pay for the salaries of their fighters let alone the fuel, ammunition and other expenses maintaining such a large conflagration requires.

Of course, the only winner so far has been the USA which has succeed in protecting its national interests by once again having the Chinese expelled from the only African oil fields they control.

Many of the other neocolonialist entities created by the western colonialists upon their retreat from direct rule in Africa have done so little for their people that in reality they could be described as failed states.

What else can you call a country where the population lives in such abject poverty that a major part of the society lacks such basic human rights as clean drinking water, adequate food and shelter let alone education or health care.

The entire country of Liberia lacks electricity and running water. Kenya, often touted as  one of Africa’s success stories, provides electricity to only 26% of its people and running water to even fewer.

If one compares the lives of the people of Cuba, who have suffered under onerous sanctions by the USA since their liberation to the lives of almost all Africans the differences are stark, and appalling.

“Crisis Management” is what Pax Americana has implemented in Africa for decades past, as in create a crisis and then manage the ensuing chaos to better loot and plunder more of Africa’s wealth.

The failed state policy comes into play when the pressure the USA applies directly, or through its proxies, can cause prosperous, let alone already failing societies to begin to disintegrate filling our screens with ever more scenes of death and destruction.

When it comes to the number and magnitude of the crimes committed in Africa under Obama one looks back on the much less dangerous days of the idiots of the Bush Jr. regime. The list of failed, or nearly so, states in Africa under the rule of “Barry O’Bomber”, BHO’s nickname during his formative teenage years, has taken a great leap forward.

A nightmare scenario is another Clinton seems next to succeed to the throne and the thought of the rabidly vindictive Hillary wreaking havoc in Africa as Commander in Chief does not make for a pleasant nights sleep.

Iran’s Nuclear Deal: Threat to Nigeria’s Security

Christopher Okonkwo

Last month, a framework deal was announced that saw Iran agreeing to significantly restrict its nuclear facilities and submit to international inspections. The landmark deal came after months of contentious negotiations with the United States and its five negotiating partners. The deal, while allowing Iran to retain a massively reduced level of uranium enrichment for the next 15 years and reduce its operating centrifuge by more than two-thirds, would allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) extensive access to all the country’s nuclear sites, including uranium mines and supply chains, centrifuge storage facilities, procurement transactions related to the nuclear programme and any sites deemed suspicious.

The tradeoff for this great concession from Iran is that the international sanctions, which have battered Iran’s economy, would be lifted. So, depending on the outcome of June 30, when the details of the deal would be nailed down, Iran is expected to be re-admitted into the global economy.

Since the toughest U.S. sanctions were imposed in mid-2012, Iran’s currency and oil exports have both plummeted by some 60 percent. (The country loses about $1.6 billion a month in oil revenue alone.) In addition, Iran will be aiming to gain access to about $100 billion of its reserve frozen in foreign banks.

While there is no gainsaying the enormous impact the lifting of sanctions would have on an ailing Iranian economy, it’s the activities of a resurgent, inveterately meddlesome Iran around the globe that should be a source of worry.

Iran is a theocracy established against a backdrop of anti-Western sentiments in 1979. Its last monarch, Mohamed Reza Shah Pahlavi, was a western-style dictator whose White Revolution – a series of economic, social and political reforms that gave more freedom to women and increased secular education at the expense of religious education – was seen as an attack on the moral authority and power of the Islamic leaders in the country. Coupled with other domestic grievances, an uprising was launched against the Pahlavi dynasty.

The revolution, generally regarded as the Islamic Revolution of Iran, was hijacked by Sayyid Ruhollah al-Musavi al-Khomeini, a relatively unknown, firebrand ayatollah (Shia religious leader), who was able to parlay Shia Islam into a mass ideology that primarily appealed to the groundswell of animosity against Western influences in his country. Ayatollah Khomeini, as the religious leader was known around the world, had delivered a series of 19 lectures which were compiled into a book known as velayat-e-faqih in 1970. Khomeini used velayat-e-faqih to espouse his theory that government should be run in accordance with traditional Islamic Sharia, and for this to happen a leading Islamic jurist (faqih) must provide political "guardianship" (velayat) over the people. With the Shah ousted from power, a modified version of velayat-e-faqih went into the making of the constitution of the emergent Islamic Republic of Iran.

Though Ayatollah Khomeini was successful in instituting a theocratic state, the mullah-led Islamic Republic battled for domestic legitimacy, and the country became isolated from the rest of the world when 64 American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in Tehran in November 1979. The subversive mix of questions over the legitimacy of the velayat-e-faqih regime and isolation from the global community ostensibly fuelled Khomeini’s resolve to see the ideals of the revolution exported around the globe. “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry “There is no God but God” resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle,” Khomeini famously said.

Isolated from the global community, unpopular in its country, the velayat-e-faqih regime sought alliances outside the Iranian borders. It is noteworthy that the echoes of the Iranian revolution had reverberated in neighbouring Iraq, whose Shia-majority population felt excited by the prospect of staging a similar revolution against the Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein’s. Khomeini had been on exile in Iraq before the revolution, and it was the religious leader’s influence on the local Shias that led to his eviction from the country. The eight-year Iran-Iraq war that followed was majorly as a result of the meddling of Tehran in Iraq’s domestic affairs rather than a long-standing border dispute that was given as the reason for Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980.

Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, but his vision is being vigorously pursued by his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei’s regime uses the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its regional proxy groups to implement foreign policy goals and provide cover for intelligence operations. The IRGC-QF is the regime’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad. Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran has consistently been linked with terrorist-related activities. Iran allowed Al-Qaeda facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling the terrorist organisation to move funds and fighters to South Asia and also to Syria.

Iran’s quest for dominance in the Middle East has seen it continuously engage Saudi Arabia in proxy battles in which the two nations have supported opposing political parties, funded opposing armies, and directly waged war against one another's proxies in Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. While they did not create the crises in these countries, they have escalated them considerably.

A sanction-free, financially resurgent Iran would have dire implications beyond even the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has been evangelising the Muslim world, using the billions of riyals at its disposal through the religious tax – zakat – to construct hundreds of mosques and colleges and thousands of religious schools around the globe, staffed with Wahhabi Imams and teachers. At a point, Saudi Arabia, which constitutes roughly one percent of the world Muslim population, supported 90 percent of the expenses of the faith, overriding other traditions of Islam. (Little wonder that Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative form of Islam predominantly practiced in Saudi Arabia, was identified as the major source of global Islamic terrorism by the European parliament in 2013.)

Given Iran’s vision to spread its revolutionary ideals around the globe, its deepening ideological warfare with Saudi Arabia, there’s the likelihood that Iran will deploy more resources to challenge the dominance of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabist influence outside the Middle East. A rich-again Iran will have billions in petrodollars to conveniently pursue its velayat-e-faqih agenda, constructing its own brand of Shia mosques, colleges and religious schools around the globe. In spite of the numerous sanctions, the country’s influence is still massively felt across Africa.

Two recent reports show the extent of the influence in the continent. In January this year, a weapons research institute in Britain said in a report that it has evidence indicating that Iran has sent weapons to Muslim militias operating in the Central African Republic. Also, the results of a six-year investigation published in the New York Times in 2013 showed the origin of every firearm cartridge used in Africa can be traced back to Iran. These cartridges were distributed to a long list of combatants, including in regions under United Nations arms embargo.

But nowhere in Africa – or any place outside the Middle East, for that matter – has the Iranian influence had as great an impact as in Nigeria.  Iran’s major advocate in Nigeria is a Zaria-based Islamic cleric known as Sheik Ibrahim al-Zakzaky. Al-Zakzaky’s movement, the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), is a radical movement that agitates for an Iran-style revolution in the country. According to a former Iranian diplomat Adel Assadinia, the IMN was set up with the financial support of the Iranian government and is modeled on the Lebanese Hezbollah. Assadinia said that Iran provides IMN with training “in guerrilla warfare: bomb-making, use of arms such as handguns, rifles and RPGs, and the manufacturing of bombs and hand grenades.

With a population conservatively given at three million, the IMN is the largest Shia movement in Africa. For more than 3 decades of its existence, its members have continually averred that the only government they recognise is the one chosen by God. The Movement’s confrontational style, inevitably, brings it in direct clashes with the law, with members constantly the subjects of human rights abuses and, in some cases, extrajudicial killings. But the killings of July last year could be a major tipping point. A UK-based group, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, conducted a research and released a detailed report on the killings – which it titled: The Zaria Massacres and the Role of the Military – that claimed Nigerian soldiers opened fire on IMN members who peacefully gathered for the annual Quds’ day procession. The next day, according to the report, three truckloads of soldiers approached Husainiyyah Baqiyyatullah, headquarters of the IMN, and opened fire on people standing outside; thirty-three people died in the two attacks, including three of Zakzaky’s sons.

More recent stories of more abuses and, in one case, death, show that hostilities between security operatives and the IMN are far from thawing. But the Nigerian government must know that employing strong-arm tactics will further radicalise the group. Boko Haram should serve as a deterrent; the IMN is more sophisticated, its members more educated. An IMN that openly takes up arms against the Nigerian government will have dire implications for a country still grappling to come to terms with the reality of a Boko Haram insurgency. Thrown into the mix is the Iran factor. The Islamic Republic has a “fraternal commitment to all Muslims, and unsparing support to the mustad'afiin (the downtrodden) of the world,” as enshrined in article three of its constitution.

Iran will be monitoring the treatment of its proxy in Nigeria closely; Nigeria should be monitoring its Persian counterpart more closely.

Arts: Crucial for Africa’s Development

 HE Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma

We commemorate and celebrate the founding, 52 years ago, of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union. 32 Independent African states gathered to sign the Organisation’s founding Charter in Addis Ababa and accelerated actions to secure and safeguard the hard won independence and integrity of African States with a view of ridding our continent of all forms of racism, colonialism and discrimination. From the onset Africa’s leaders identified the need to coordinate and harmonize policies in several fields, including in education and cultural cooperation.

A great deal has been accomplished by Africa since then, often in the face of considerable challenges. The arts have immensely contributed to these accomplishments, who can forget the seminal speech of Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba when she addressed the United Nations 52 years ago,

I quote: “I ask you and all the leaders of the world, would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights in your own country because the color of your skin is different from that of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there.”

Indeed the capacities and talents of artists and cultural workers to create help give expression to our experiences and to our aspirations, in good and bad times.

It is our hope that this generation of artists and cultural workers will continue to inspire towards the realization of the goals and objectives of Agenda 2063. Through Agenda 2063, the Africa we Want, we aspire to address urgent priorities in education, skills development, especially in science technology, engineering and mathematics. Africa must have a skills revolution, since we intend to modernize agriculture, add value to our natural resources and minerals; and develop our infrastructure mainly in the energy, transport, and ICT sectors.

For these priorities to find expression they will require contributions from the arts, since the arts embody what our great African writer, Ben Okri meant when he said: The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and be greater than our suffering.

The arts are very important for our development, but equally important is our mindset, believing in ourselves and in our capacity to achieve the goals we set for ourselves. This is where culture and arts play such an important role. In readjusting our mindsets we must bear in mind the words of Ben Okri in his book Ways of Being Free where he says:

They tell me that nature is the survival of the fittest. And yet look at how wondrous gold and yellow fishes prosper amongst silent stones of the ocean beds, while sharks continuously prowl the waters in their impossible dreams of oceanic domination and while whales become extinct…how many butterflies and iguanas thrive, while elephants turn into endangered species, and while even lions growl in their dwindling solitude. There is no such thing as a powerless people. There are only those who have not seen and have not used their power and will. It would seem a miraculous feat, but it is possible for the under-valued to help create a beautiful new era in human history. New vision should come from those who suffer most and who love life the most.

We therefore greatly appreciate the initiative taken by the cultural sector, as we were consulting on Agenda 2063, to insist that we help them to convene a meeting of the cultural and creative sector from across the continent.

The inputs from the African Re-imagined Creative Hub held at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa on 25 May 2014 helped to inform Aspiration 5, which is about An Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, shared values 
and ethics. Amongst many of its objectives the aspiration seeks to promote: Pan-African ideals [so that they are] fully embedded in all school curricula and Pan-African cultural assets (heritage, folklore, languages, film, music, theatre, literature, festivals, religions and spirituality) will all be enhanced.

In re-crafting our Pan African ideals we must recall the words of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba who in 1960 said:“We all know, and the whole world knows it, that Algeria is not French, that Angola is not Portuguese, that Kenya is not English, that Ruanda-Urundi is not Belgian. We know that Africa is neither French, nor British, nor American, nor Russian, ... that it is African.”

Through the fulfillment of Aspiration 5 we aim that the African creative arts and industries be celebrated throughout the continent, as well as, in the diaspora so as to contribute significantly to self-awareness, well-being, peace and prosperity, and to world culture and heritage.

It is also our desire that African languages be the basis for administration and integration with special attention being paid to African shared values such as family, community, hard work, merit, mutual respect and social cohesion.

Since this is the Year of Women, the arts and cultural sector should also pay attention to the issues of women’s empowerment and building a non-sexist continent. The issues here range from how we break the cycle of gender-based violence to ensuring effective economic participation of women.

The idea of unity in diversity is so critical to the tasks and mission that we set for ourselves in Agenda 2063. Africa is a diverse continent, in religion, cultures, languages, heritage and arts. This diversity has co-existed and combined in a melting pot over the centuries. It forms the bedrock of our common destiny, expressed through Pan Africanism.  It is a unity in diversity that we must nurture. We must manage this diversity in an inclusive manner, so that no one feels left out.

It is no coincidence that the oldest political movement on the continent, the African National Congress, is named the AFRICAN and not just South African. The founding fathers of the ANC had a Pan African outlook because they understood that the destinies of all Africans are intertwined and that the liberation and development of South Africa required the contributions of Africa and vice-versa.

It is also no coincidence that the Anthem for the liberation movement and South Africa is NkosiSikelelaiAfrica, God Bless Africa!!! The song is not only sung and celebrated in South Africa it is also the national anthem for a number of African countries including Zambia and Tanzania.

It is also no coincidence that the Freedom Charter says, “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white” and it envisages that “the doors of learning and culture shall be opened.”

Allow me to conclude, with more wise words from Ben Okri: When you can imagine, you begin to create, and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world that you prefer to live in, rather than a world that you are suffering in. We must therefore imagine and create the Africa we want.

Affordable Housing Crisis in Nairobi: A Review

Kosta Kioleoglou

Kenya is a country of big contradictions. Its capital city, Nairobi, consists of an impressive urban environment. Within a few minutes, one can get completely contradictory views of the city. It is a mixture of extreme luxury and extreme poverty. Karen is one of the high end areas of Nairobi but to get there, one has to drive through a giant slum “Kibera.” Separation between people living in shanties and people living in multimillion dollar houses is just a few hundred meters. Kenya’s housing development situation has been skewed in favor of the high income earners as most developers and housing financiers always target high income population. Their perception is that this group of people can rent houses or take up mortgages of which they can repay comfortably. The result is the isolation of low income population who form the majority. This scenario has been depicted across the Kenyan economy.

Provision of adequate, affordable and decent housing for low income households is clearly in short supply.  As a result of the constraints on both the supply and demand sides, Kenya’s low-income urban population is forced to live in informal settlements. They have no security of tenure. They have limited access to water, sewage and power systems, and a myriad of security issues.

Although the real estate development industry has shown an impressive growth over the last years in terms of commercial buildings and medium to high income houses, there seems to be a minimal interest in providing low income housing units by other developers in private sector. Their success in the middle and high income housing markets implies that they may have the capacity and skill set to supply the low-income housing required to alleviate, at least partly, the housing shortfall in the country.

Developers have shied away from the low income market mainly because the profitability margins are lower compared to housing developments for the other markets. There are also other factors affecting the supply of housing from private sector housing developers which demoralize them. The cost of production and the opportunity cost to the developer’s finite funds in either providing middle income housing or high income segment housing are key negative factors. Developers have to consider the rate of return to their investment and how fast they’ll realize this. Provision of low cost housing to the increasing number of lower and middle income classes in the country has also been hugely affected by the cost of land and inadequate infrastructure.

The reality though is that the “low income” segment of the market is very interesting from several aspects. Everyone has the right to have access to buy, rent and use a house in an environment that is providing at least some minimum standards of living.

Kenya’s housing challenge is extreme. The average price for an apartment in the capital city of Nairobi is currently above 10 million shillings having quadrupled its value in the last few years. There is no home on the formal market below KES 2 million, a level that is still completely unaffordable to low-income populations which form the majority of Kenya citizens. Access to finance and mortgages is still very difficult.  Interest rates are very high and a huge number of the applications have been declined. In reality, only 8 percent of urban Kenyans have access to housing finance with only 22,000 active mortgages in the whole country according to the available data. This is not because Kenyans lack the desire to own a home, homeownership is a central part of the culture. Instead, it is because of a nascent mortgage market that equals only 2.5 percent of GDP (compared to 70 percent in other countries) and a financial market that suffers from a lack of long-term capital to on-lend as mortgages. At the same time, property prices in Kenya continue to rise at a rapid rate in several cases. As a result, over 60 percent of urban residents live in sprawling slums.

Another interesting fact is that the population growth of Kenya is one of the fastest growing in the world. By 2030, the population is estimated to reach 65 million people. With simple mathematics, anyone can understand that this will lead to a huge problem. To avoid this, the country must face the housing problem head on and create a long term sustainable housing environment.

Many people argue with the fact that in a free market the private sector is not there to cover the social needs of a country but to make profits. On the other hand, the government is the one who has to apply social policies in order to achieve basic standards of living for its citizens.

I cannot disagree with the above argument but I would like to add that in a free economy and a free market, smart entrepreneurs should be open minded and sometimes think out of the box. Targeting the medium and high income class looks like the easy way to make money in this industry. Demographics and macroeconomics have their own important role when it comes to long-term success of a business. Africa and Kenya have to show a completely different profile in comparison with the west where the majority of the population is spread between the medium and upper class. These groups provide the main target market for developers and property investors.

In Kenya, over 80% of the population belongs to the low income class with a huge demand for housing due to a big shortage of supply. This shortage has been a major contributing factor to the rise in property prices. Recently though, an unbalanced supply across market segments has been observed. There is a broad supply to the upper middle income and high end market compared to the insufficient supply on lower middle income segments.

Formal housing supply is undermined by a number of factors. Limited availability of serviced plots in urban centers is a problem affecting housing delivery across all income bands. It is largely affecting affordability for lower income developments because of the added cost of servicing plots. There are also major question marks over the capacity of local government to ensure good quality residential development.

Most of the population cannot afford housing built by formal developers, and as a result, the majority addresses their housing needs independently and often informally. This contributes to the growth in slum dwellings and poor quality housing. The housing backlog is estimated to be two million units. Research by a slum dwellers umbrella body, Muungano Wa Wanavijiji, (http://www.mustkenya.or.ke/) found out that 70 percent of Nairobi’s housing stock comprises single 10m² shacks made of wood, mud, tin galvanized sheets or wattle. Recreational spaces in Nairobi have a bigger total landmass than the slum settlements.

Many people like to say that this is a problem without a solution as the country does not have the money to support a massive social housing program. It cannot provide affordable housing to millions of families but on the other hand, developers are making a killing out of the situation.

Indeed the above sounds very reasonable but I prefer to see the glass half full than half empty. Thinking out of the box may create an opportunity for the society to achieve better living standards and make profits as well.

According to Knight Frank, which reports on the high end residential market, a lethargic prime residential market has resulted in developers shifting focus to smaller residential apartments. It has recorded a notable reduction in activity in the second quarter of 2014 after a historic high in the first. Further, according to the report, developers in the Nairobi prime apartment market are shifting focus from three and four bedroom apartments to smaller units such as studio, one and two bedroom apartments due to oversupply in the former. Recently, a new trend has made its entry in the market, “Bed sitters.”

So what is actually happening? The market can support a specific amount of high end and rather expensive properties. Developers are facing challenges today as selling a property in Nairobi is becoming more difficult. Trying to find alternative options, developers are looking into different types of investments and maybe this is the best time to change completely the direction as well as the target group.

According to the World Bank’s 2014 Doing Business Report, Kenya’s rapid urbanization, demographics and the under supply of housing points to a consistent need for middle and low cost housing. This is in the range of US$10 000 to US$40 000, (1 to 4 million KES) where demand is at its highest and supply at its least. Research published in 2012 by the World Bank estimates that the potential size of the mortgage market is about Ksh800 billion (about US$9.9 billion) – that is about 13 times its current size.

Given this dynamic, any developer offering homes at less than KES 4M (USD 40,000) is likely to have rapid uptake from the market as long as the homes are in an easily accessible location. It is all about the way a business can make money. One can focus on margins or go after the volumes.

For example, selling an apartment for KES. 20M will give a developer around KES. 4M in profits. For it to sell, the developer will require about 10-12 months as the target group is constrained to the small high income class and only focuses on big margins. On the other hand, targeting the medium to lower income group of potential buyers, a developer can sell 10 units for KES. 2.5M using the same initial capital. This can be off plan and if not, maybe in a couple of months, with lower risk and bigger profits both in the short term as well as long term.   

The use of appropriate building technologies and alternative materials by the private sector is a must in order to achieve lower costs. This should be done while keeping at least minimum standards of quality and improve on the number of housing units provided in the market to the poor citizens. It is critical to understand that achieving lower building costs requires more than just talks. The country has a huge need to start manufacturing and producing building materials. This will provide lower costs as well as will create sustainable jobs for the lower income while helping the economy by reducing the imports. The more sustainable jobs created in the country, affordability becomes a reality and more people gain access to the housing market. There are many things that can help towards getting a solution to this major problem but we have to understand that nothing can change in a day, it takes time to see results.

At this point, I would like to comment that it is critical for everyone to understand that the housing problem isn’t just physical infrastructure, it is also community infrastructure. A healthy and vibrant community is much more than just houses. It includes schools, clinics, places of worship, parks, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of ownership. It is essential for developers to think holistically, include the physical spaces and social mechanisms that will foster a sense of community. This will determine the sustainability of the projects and keep it from devolving into a slum or a ghost town. The cooperation between the private sector, local authorities and the government is essential in order to achieve this goal.

Trying to analyze the housing crisis is not easy. Unfortunately, the problem of affordable housing cannot be isolated in a country and it is not only African or Kenyan. Rapid urbanization has created immense challenges for cities in emerging economies all over the world. They are unable to deal with the influx of people. Close to 1 billion people around the world live in slums or in other inadequate housing with this number projected to triple by 2050 if the problem remains unaddressed. Considering the enormous need and substantial size of the low-income housing market, which  by the way is worth more than $300bn globally, very few market-based approaches exist to provide housing solutions for poor people and financing for various real estate projects.

In order to find a solution to the problem, a more holistic approach is clearly needed. The private sector's active participation and incorporation of the base of the pyramid housing market is needed not only in Kenya but globally. This approach goes beyond simply constructing houses but addresses lack of financing, infrastructural deficiencies such as links to transportation, water, sanitation, electricity and of course law-enforcement challenges.

Opportunities for private sector companies and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to enter the market are abundant and range from material manufacturing to retail, distribution, urban planning, developing, investing and financing. Innovative market-based approaches have a huge potential for propelling systematic change and delivering an adequate standard of living to all, but they also have limitations and cannot be implemented in isolation.

Summarizing in a few paragraphs, I consider the following to be essential in order to start working for a solution to this very sensitive matter. Below are the key points according to my opinion.

Leveraging the private sector: Mobilizing capital to overcome challenges in the provision of low-income housing must involve private sector actors in a range of fields, including construction, materials manufacturing, retail, distribution, development, investment and finance.

Ensuring community infrastructure: Ensuring that housing construction incorporates social infrastructure and services such as access to water, sanitation and electricity. This is critical to the economic and social empowerment of poor people.

Making self-construction safe and affordable: Private companies, civil society and policymakers can work together to ensure that guidelines for safe self-construction practices are created and enforced given that low-income residents perform over 70% of incremental improvements on their homes.

Supporting and using the full potential of micro-mortgages and home improvement loans: Micro-loans for home improvements and self-construction are not only critical for improving living conditions, health and productivity, but for income generation and asset creation as bottom-of-the-pyramid micro-enterprises often operate from a family's home.

The importance of tenure and land titling: Streamlined, peaceful and non-discriminatory processes of resolving land title disputes help homeowners to receive the full benefits of loans build safer better homes, which can lead to improved credit and participation in the market.

Reaching the poorest of the poor: Serving the poorest of the poor requires innovative approaches, such as well-targeted subsidies. Working with low-income communities to develop innovative approaches that give consumers a stake in adopting goods and services they may not be accustomed to paying for.

Scaling up public-private partnerships in creating integrated solutions for consumers: Innovative solutions such as combining the sale of construction materials, technical assistance with self-building, assistance with mortgage equity and financial education are essential. Combining technical assistance with finance increases quality and decreases the costs and time it takes to self-build. Through partnerships and innovative business models, companies can offer these much-needed products and services to the consumers at the bottom of the pyramid while improving their bottom lines.

Hoping that all interested parties will eventually start to take action in order to provide a better environment with better living standards for all, not only in Kenya but around the world, I would like to end this article by reminding everyone that this is a problem that affects all of us. Although many people like to think that this has nothing to do with them, the truth is that, in modern societies everything that is happening has direct or indirect effect to all members of the society. This is the reason why we should all be alerted, take action and stand up against all the social problems that surround us. 

Archaic Policing Negates Security in Kenya

Collins Wanderi

On 14th May, 2015 Nairobians woke up to find sections of Parliament Road and Harambee Avenue closed to vehicular traffic in what the Ministry of Interior termed as enhanced security measures to protect Parliament Buildings and key public offices such as Harambee House and its Annex, KICC, the Treasury, Central Bank, Times Towers (KRA HQs), Nairobi County Hall and Nyayo House, inter alia. Police officers manning roadblocks turned away motorists who were driving into Parliament and adjacent buildings. This measure was implemented without notice and occasioned great inconvenience to motorists who had to seek alternative routes to access public offices. Incidentally, pedestrians were and are still allowed to access these areas with minimal and/or very casual physical checks. It is not clear whether the recent arrest and arraignment in court of a Senate staffer suspected of links with Al Shabaab or the impeding visit by US President Barack Obama prompted this enhanced security measure.

This knee-jerk reaction to security matters by police is not new. It is symptomatic of a police service that is oriented to protect a minority political elite at the expense of the majority tax-payers. In June 2008, police used disproportionate force to keep away citizens from the precincts of Parliament during that year’s Budget speech. Since then it has become a tradition during the reading of every annual budget speech to see armed police on horse-back and in riot gear or with menacing police dogs take over roads and lanes adjacent to Parliament. They close the entire area to human and vehicular traffic; reduce it to a mini-combat zone creating a real mess.

Judging by comments in social media, it is obvious that ordinary citizens do not get amused by these antics of the police. This outdated method of policing only serves to create a false sense of security for politicians. During election campaigns, these same politicians, including the President and his Deputy move all over the country mingling with the common folk in search of votes. Mwananchi is king then and all of them need his nod to get power. Tables turn after elections and voters become irrelevant. Politicians become venerable and perhaps invincible too. Whenever they assemble in the House of Parliament, mwananchi has to be kept away from them, using the most vicious method.

For starters, physical barriers such as road blocks, walls and security fences are the first and outmost level of security. They cannot prevent any attacks and only serve to slow down or discourage a hesitant intruder. If anything, physical barriers only help in isolating a potential target. A determined attacker or a militant dedicated to martyrdom cannot be deterred by such archaic methods of policing. Anybody who has basic training in the protection of terrestrial installations and corporeal entities knows that isolation of a probable target creates more insecurity than security. An isolated target is easier to hit and exterminate. Isolating politicians from the masses does not make them any safer, if anything, the seclusion emphasizes the social gap between the two groups and becomes a source of anger and contempt in the long run. It is never in the interest of any political leadership to elicit disdain from its following but the current leadership of Parliament and police is doing exactly that. It is politicians who need mwananchi more than he needs them! Ironically, neither the leadership of Parliament nor any of the national security agencies raised a finger when Kenyan youth took to social media to express support for Al Shabaab when the militants threatened to blow up the House of Parliament a few weeks ago.

The Kenya police service has for a long time maintained countless road blocks and vehicular barriers along every major highway in the country but this has hardly helped in detecting or preventing serious transnational crimes like terrorism, poaching or trafficking in humans, weapons and narcotic drugs. An integrated security system which incorporates physical access controls and video surveillance cameras placed discreetly in places hard to tamper with or disable is the best anecdote against terror attacks or unwarranted intrusions into sensitive installations. Inspector General Joseph Boinet should therefore order his officers to remove vehicular barriers from Harambee Avenue and Parliament Road once the Integrated Public Safety Communications and Surveillance System which Safaricom was contracted to implement on behalf of the government is officially launched at the end of this month.

African Union Aspirations On Track

HE.R. G. Mugabe

As we celebrate the 52nd Anniversary of our organisation, it is indeed a great opportunity for us, the African continent, to pay solemn homage and tribute to the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union. On 25 May 1963, these great visionaries took the historic stride and formed an institution that would be the vanguard of the African people’s aspirations for freedom, unity and solidarity. This Day would not have been possible without the sacrifices of the the founding fathers and those of the African heroes and heroines who fought to liberate our continent from the vestiges of colonialism, racism and apartheid. Today, we are free because of the sacrifices they made.

It is necessary to reflect on this year’s African Union theme, aptly coined as “Year of Women Empowerment and Development towards Africa’s Agenda 2063.” The choice of the theme is quite deliberate and revealing. The African Union has taken a great leap in gender equality, specifically on women empowerment and development, out of the realisation that, women, the world over, are the cornerstone of stability and social progress. While women have made tremendous achievements, they sadly often remain unsung heroines. Women have left indelible marks in the history of the struggle against slavery, in the struggle for civil rights and in our wars of liberation.

In recognition of the role of women as a driving force for change and development, most Member States have therefore moved to mainstream gender issues into their national laws and development programmes. The instruments and frameworks that have been put in place for the empowerment and elevation of women cover various spheres of social interaction and development, ranging from governance, politics, and access to justice, education, health and ownership of the means of production.

Informing these transformative decisions is the realisation that Women of Africa are a formidable asset in achieving sustainable, social and economic development, as well as the eradication of poverty, hunger and disease. It is for this reason that African leaders chose this Theme in order to acknowledge the central role of women in implementing Agenda 2063 as well as to reinforce gains already made, and chart new frontiers for women, with the African Union playing an enabling role.

The efforts we have exerted are bearing fruit as we have recently seen women occupying important leadership positions. We have had women elected Presidents. Our continental body is being led by a woman, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. These are achievements which other regions still aspire to. While we appreciate these achievements, we must also accept that we need to do much more in the area of woman empowerment and development.

It is heartening to note that the African Union has made great strides both politically and economically to create an environment that safeguards the future of Africa. Through the African Peace and Security architecture, the Union continues to work tirelessly, in collaboration with our partners, to foster peace and security across the continent. The establishment of the African Stand by Force, intended to guarantee peace and security on the continent, becomes more urgent and imperative. It is heartening and encouraging that some of our regional standby forces have now reached full operational capability. We urge those who have not yet done so, to redouble their efforts so that the African-Stand-By Force is operationalised without further delay.

In the economic sphere, the African Union remains focused on attaining economic integration of the continent, as defined in the Abuja Treaty of 1991. The Treaty remains relevant, as it recognises the efficacy of economic integration as a necessary strategy for sustainable socio-economic development in Africa.

Africa is richly endowed with vast natural resources which, if harnessed in accordance with our vision, Agenda 2063, will improve the livelihoods of the peoples of Africa, through the rapid eradication of hunger, poverty and disease. As Africans, we must leverage these abundant and diverse resources for our benefit. Time has come for us to industrialise our economies and move away from the continued exportation of our raw materials at very low prices for beneficiation and value addition in other continents, only to return to Africa as finished goods at very high prices.

Early this year, Africa adopted its Economic Blue Print, Agenda 2063, which will be implemented in Five Ten-Year Plans. Africa will, next month, adopt the first Ten-Year-Plan under Agenda 2063. The AU Summit to be held in South Africa, is a watershed Summit in the sense that Africa will henceforth proceed in an integrated and planned manner. The regional groups have already started to draw their development plans aligned to Agenda 2063. This is a welcome development.

As a Union, we must build an Africa that is prosperous, an Africa that is economically integrated, and politically guided by the ideals of Pan Africanism, an Africa that subscribes to democracy, respects human rights, and respects the rule of law. We must have a peaceful and secure Africa, an Africa with its own cultural identity, common heritage and shared values, an Africa whose development is based on the creativity of its people, particularly its youth and women.

We have to devise collective strategies and measures to overcome conflict, insecurity and terrorism. We must work tirelessly to end conflict and insecurity. We welcome the recent peace agreement in Mali and urge other conflict areas to lay down their arms and settle their differences through dialogue and negotiation. This is the only way to make lasting peace which is the essential ingredient to development and prosperity.

Early this year, Africa addressed the issues of the AU’s over-dependence on its international cooperating partners. The AU Summit decided that this was neither desirable nor sustainable. It was therefore decided that new and innovative ways of generating revenue be found so that within five years, the African Union should be able to fund 100% of its operational budget, 75% of programme budget and at least, 25% for its peace keeping operations. These are targets that AU Member States have committed themselves to achieving so as to give themselves greater ownership of their organisation.

While the liberation agenda of OAU/AU has largely been achieved, let us not forget our brothers and sisters in Western Sahara, who are still fighting for their independence and self-determination. Theirs is the last outpost of colonial occupation in Africa which has to be dismantled in fulfilment of the vision of our founding fathers, to fight for a fully independent and sovereign Africa.

In conclusion, let me reiterate that during this year of empowerment of women, benchmarks must be set and measures taken to ensure that we lay an irreversible roadmap towards the full empowerment of women, and with it, the total empowerment of our nations, our regions, and our continent.

New discoveries illuminate early human physical and technological evolution

Philip Guelpa

Two recently announced discoveries push back the known dates of both the earliest stone tools and the earliest remains likely to represent the genus Homo, reinforcing the link between technology and human evolution.

The first find, unveiled at a conference organized by the Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco last month, and published in the journal Nature, included the discovery of stone tools, including flakes, cores, hammers, and anvils, dating to 3.3 million years ago. The assemblage has been called Lomekwian, after the location of its discovery. The find was made in Kenya by a team from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led by Sonia Harmand.

Previously, the oldest known stone tools dated to 2.6 million years ago and were thought to have been produced by the earliest identified members of the genus Homo—Homo habilis. These artifacts were found in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Oldowan tools, as they are known, include flakes of stone and the cores from which they were struck. The flakes and some of the cores as well were used for a variety of tasks, such as cutting, scraping, and chopping. Their manufacture demonstrates a level of skill, both physical and intellectual, not possessed by non-human primates, including the closest human relatives, chimpanzees.

Because no older stone tools were known, prior to this latest discovery, it was postulated that the earlier members of the hominin lineage, consisting of various species of the genus Australopithecus, beginning at between 2.4 and 2.3 million years ago, and the earlier Ardipithicus, had only a more primitive technological capability. The term “hominin” refers to all human ancestors following the evolutionary split with chimpanzee ancestors, thought to have taken place sometime between 5 and 7 million years ago, based on genetic evidence.

According to the available evidence, sophisticated stone tool making, as represented by the Oldowan industry, and the emergence of the genusHomo were thought to have been contemporaneous. However, the fact that modern chimpanzees do make some tools, including modifying sticks to catch termites, and use stone hammers and anvils to crack open nuts, meant that at least this level of skill likely existed in the common ancestor of hominins and chimpanzees. Hence, australopithecines would have had this capability, or better.

Because of their age and the lack of any known contemporaneous fossil evidence of the genus Homo, the newly discovered Lomekwian tools raise the possibility that some form of australopithecine had already achieved a level of technological development well on the way to that achieved in the Oldowan.

The Lomekwi tools, first discovered in 2011, are larger than those characteristic of Oldowan technology and, therefore, are thought to represent a distinct culture, perhaps ancestral to Oldowan. Well over one hundred Lomekwian tools have so far been recovered. Their generally larger size could indicate a less well-developed manufacturing technique and/or different functions.

The researchers observe that the Lomekwian toolmakers employed a hammer and anvil or bipolar production technique (the raw material being placed on an anvil then struck with a hand-held hammer) reminiscent of chimpanzee nut-cracking, as opposed to the more sophisticated direct freehand percussion method (both the hammer and the core are hand-held) used to produce Oldowan tools. Nonetheless, the Lomekwian technology indicates a much greater physical and intellectual capacity than that exhibited by chimps. Furthermore, the variety of Lomekwian tools implies that they were used for a range of tasks, representing a relatively sophisticated organization of labor.

Until this recent find, the pattern of development from chimpanzee-level technology to that represented by Oldowan tools remained unknown. An earlier discovery of apparent cut marks on animal bone, found in Ethiopia, dating to 3.4 million years ago, suggested that early hominins were using sharp implements, presumably made of stone, in animal butchery. However, the evidence was not definitive.

The earliest known australopithecine species—Australopithecus afarensis(which includes the famous Lucy specimen)—ranges between approximately 4 and 3 million years ago, overlapping the age of the Lomekwi tools. By contrast, the earliest known Homo habilis fossils date to only 2.3 million years ago. No hominin fossil remains were discovered at the Lomekwi site, so a definitive identification of the toolmaker could not be made.

The second recently announced discovery sheds even more light on this as yet little understood period in human evolution. The fossil jaw, reported in Science, was recovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia by a team from University of Nevada Las Vegas led by Brian Villmoare, and dates to 2.8 million years ago. Its physical characteristics, including smaller teeth and a parabolic outline of the jaw, resemble those of genus Homo more than those of australopithecines, suggesting that it is the earliest specimen of Homo yet discovered. The researchers will search for more of the skeleton to provide a fuller view of the individual’s morphology. This would, it is hoped, yield clues regarding the evolutionary steps in the emergence of the genus Homo.

If indeed this fossil is from an early member of our genus, that would push its origins back at least a half million years, but still a half million years younger than the newly discovered stone tools, leaving open the question of who made those tools. Regardless of whether the fossil is ultimately judged to represent an early example of Homo or an advanced Australopithecus, it appears to illustrate an evolutionary step in the transition between the two genera.

The evolution of the hominin lineage is intimately connected with the development of technology. As one author put it a few years ago, we are the “artificial ape.” Our ancestors’ adaptation to the drying climate and expanding open savannas of Africa during the Pliocene geological epoch, roughly 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago, an environment unsuitable to the apes of the time, was only possible through the increasing reliance on technology as well as a more sophisticated social organization.

Those apes who stayed within the shrinking forests gave rise to chimpanzees and gorillas. Those who ventured out into the savanna, the hominins, were put under tremendous selective pressure to find some way of adapting to this harsh environment. That adaptation included the qualitative expansion of the incipient tool-making capabilities of the ancestral apes. Both our physical and mental evolutions were profoundly shaped by this process. However, the details are as yet largely undocumented in the current paleontological and archaeological record. These two new discoveries help to fill that void.

Australian budget targets working-class households

Mike Head

Two analyses of the May 12 federal budget have shed some light on its severe impact on the incomes of working-class households, as well as the cutting of billions of dollars from the welfare, health, education and other basic social services on which millions of people depend.

Released in the past few days, the two reports examine the outcomes if all the austerity measures in the 2015 budget, and last year’s, were passed by the Senate. Several key cuts were blocked by Labor, the Greens and independents last year, but only because of the groundswell of public opposition to the naked assault on welfare and social spending contained in the 2014 budget.

The reports demonstrate that the majority of households—the bottom 60 percent—will lose between about $2,000 and $6,000 a year by 2018-19. The poorest 20 percent of families will lose the most—up to 8 percent of their disposable income. Those on middle incomes will also suffer badly, while the wealthiest households will actually gain.

This disparity further highlights the fraud of the “fairness” gloss thrown over this year’s budget by the Liberal-National government and the mass media. Neither report, however, refers to the deep cuts to welfare and social spending inflicted by the previous Labor government, which established the framework for the Abbott government’s measures.

In fact, the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) calculations were commissioned by the Labor opposition, which is posturing as a defender of working-class families. NATSEM’s models are restricted to comparing the impact of the Abbott government’s planned cuts to the supposed trajectory of Labor’s proposals in its last budget, in 2013.

As an example of a poor household, a couple on a single income of $40,000 with children (one in primary, one in high school) would lose $110.45 a week by 2018–19, or $5,743.14 annually—a total of $19,521.54 over four years. That is more than 7 percent of disposable income.

It is not just the poorest households that would suffer. Many sections of the working class would lose substantial amounts. According to the modelling, a dual-income family on $120,000 with two high-school children could lose up to $62.92 a week in 2018–19—a total of $11,575 worse off over four years.

Yet families on annual incomes of more than $120,000 (approximately the top 30 percent of families) would receive a small 0.2 percent increase in their income. Some of that redistribution would result from cutting family tax benefits, which mostly go to lower-income households, in order to purportedly fund larger childcare subsidies from 2017, which will typically help better-off families.

From what has been reported by NATSEM, its calculations underestimate the effect on working-class households. That is because the modelling is based on families with two children, whereas many families are larger, multiplying the results of the stripping away of tax benefits.

The modelling included the government’s plan to stop Family Tax Benefit Part B when the youngest child turns six. This move was blocked in the Senate last year, and Labor is still vowing to oppose it, claiming to reject the government’s “trade-off” of better childcare payments.

Yesterday’s NATSEM findings came two days after an Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) report showing that, taken together, the two Abbott government budgets would cut about $15 billion over four years from basic services and welfare if all the measures were passed.

The estimate included $6 billion in cuts to family payments, a $1 billion decrease in health spending, $126 million cut from child dental programs and $674 million from affordable housing and homelessness programs. Another $1 billion comes from community services, including $500 million from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services and programs.

These community services are generally for the people in greatest need, such as those experiencing financial crisis or family breakdown, children at risk, vulnerable young people, new mothers and babies, people facing eviction and homelessness, carers in need of respite, those struggling with drug and alcohol addictions, and people with mental health problems.

For pensioners, the cuts include removal of federal funding for state government pension and welfare concession schemes; abolition of the Pensioner Education Supplement, which would result in losses of $40 per week for eligible recipients, including many sole parents; and gradual extension of the retirement pension eligibility age to 70 years by 2035.

Young jobless workers would have to exist on the $30-a-day Youth Allowance until they are 25 (previously 22) before being eligible for the Newstart unemployment benefit, which itself remains at the sub-poverty level of $39 a day.

The NATSEM and ACOSS reports do not factor in the impact of other far-reaching budget measures, such as the freezing of Medicare rebates for doctors, which will force more GPs to charge up-front fees, and harsher assets means testing of aged pensions, which will lead to many pensioners suffering the loss or reduction of payments.

ACOSS supports the winding back of pensions. ACOSS chief executive officer Cassandra Goldie welcomed the “more sensible road to pension reform.” Labor leader Bill Shorten likewise signaled the opposition’s readiness to vote for the measure, which will lay the groundwork for further steps to scrap pensions as an entitlement, to be replaced by “self-funded” retirement.

Nor did NATSEM or ACOSS include the second-biggest cut in this year’s budget, worth $1.7 billion over four years—a “fairness” campaign to clamp down on supposed “welfare fraud.” This measure, also building on previous crackdowns by Labor, will involve intensified harassment of the unemployed, sole parents, the disabled and pensioners, to push them off welfare and into low-paid work.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and senior ministers flatly dismissed the NATSEM findings, and defended the welfare cuts. Social Services Minister Scott Morrison declared: “The best form of welfare is a job.”

This response makes explicit the conscious drive to dismantle welfare entitlements. The purpose is not just to slash government spending and hence provide greater tax concessions to business and the wealthy, but to coerce jobless workers into super-exploited employment.

This is under conditions where about 800,000 people are already out of work, even on the official figures, and the budget itself forecast that the unemployment rate will rise from 6.2 to 6.5 percent by June next year.

In releasing the NATSEM data, Labor leader Shorten claimed to oppose “all the same unfairness and pain for families hidden in the fine print” of the budget. But Labor, together with the Greens, voted for the bulk of the cuts in last year’s budget, in order to prevent a political crisis, and they are preparing to vote for all the main appropriation bills again this year.

Labor’s last budget, in 2013, launched the austerity drive in a bid to satisfy the demands of the financial elite as Australia’s mining boom began to unravel. The 2013 budget set in motion a series of permanent cuts to health, education and social welfare, starting with $43 billion worth of spending cuts and tax increases over the four years, directly aimed at working-class families and low-income earners.

Labor plunged thousands of single parents into poverty by eliminating parenting payments and forcing them onto unemployment benefits. The Rudd and Gillard governments also kept unemployment benefits at below-poverty rates, to ensure that enough workers filled the low-wage, insecure jobs offered by corporate Australia.