DIMINISHING INCOME STREAMS
The main reason I see the inescapable reality of the UBI becoming
more mainstream in the coming short years is the fact that the resources
available are constrained and the needs amongst the populace are constant if
not increasing. This is a global fact; not only here in a developing economy
such as Kenya.
WHO QUALIFIES
So far the metric used in determining the person(s) eligible
for such a scheme is the poverty threshold determined over a country or locale
and every citizen living within it gets support from the scheme. Another
variation is the social security unemployment benefits that developed economies
use to support people who have fallen on hard times. We'll have te equity and equality discussion later.
It is also important to note that in Kenya, this has already
been tried out by an NGO in the Bomet and Siaya counties, with a sample size of
14,474 households and the study started in 2018 to see if the beneficiaries
would lead sustainable lifestyles and not end up using the money to fund
tobacco and alcohol abuse.
WHAT WOULD MAKE IT POSSIBLE
For such a program to work, an authority – government/global
organization needs to come up with set standards to ensure the transparency and
security of funds being transferred.
Two ways to do this is to set up the necessary structures of
digital inclusivity and here we’re talking universality in digital ID systems
and accessibility to mobile telephony even in the most remote regions of a
country so that no one gets left out.
This would require robust investments in the digital
infrastructures especially in Sub-Saharan African nations.
THE POSSIBLE BENEFITS
Well, that’s pretty straight forward. In a nutshell, Thanos’
dream of full bellies will be achieved without having to wipe out half of the
global population and we just might achieve utopia to a certain degree.
Another benefit we’d hit is having that Universal Health
Care easily implementable with a synergistic database attained via the
universal digital ID.
Another key goal we’d achieve is eliminating corruption
through the traceability of the transactions done and ensuring the money ends
up in the hands of those who need it most.
HOW IT WOULD AFFECT EMPLOYMENT
We need to face the reality here and admit that in an
economy like Kenya’s many manufacturing modes of employment will not be
available in the not so distant future. The truth is we as Kenya-and many world
nations with the exception of China, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Taiwan and
maybe few countries which you can count with your fingers – are a service and
information economy.
There are many of us millennials who will never get jobs in
the manufacturing sector of our economy. Many of us will start rambling online
like I am with this blog of mine hoping to someday make some cash off of our
ramblings through vlogs and podcasts as well to bee proud of the content we’ve created and somehow get a shred
of dignity in it other being dependent on a capped cash allocation over a set
period. There are some others who’d be content with the UBI whilst others will
just hate it. The best case scenario is
to hope that not most of our population will be wholly dependent on the UBI.
Not that many people would want to seek employment if the comparitive incentive isn't worth their time.
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| We'd end up obese like these humans from that Wall E movie |
HOW OUR ECONOMY IS WORKING TOWARDS THE UBI
Our economy has already started working towards the UBI and
consequently the UHC(Universal Health Care) via The Huduma Namba digital ID and this is
not happening here alone it’s also happening all over the world . The
globalization of such schemes can easily be integrated into the Agenda 21, Agenda 2030 and ID 2020 schemes through one entity being given access seamlessly into
another’s database. We can see this with the Covid 19 Immunity passports.
There’s also a big four agenda which the Kenya government is
working hard to attain as well as its vision 2030 goals which are getting really
easily achievable as technology advances.
As I sign off on this piece just know that there has to be an authority overseeing all this Utopian yumminess and that this was not just a fluff piece.
Some sacrifices to our personal privacies will have to be made. To
whom, I’m not so sure.
