By Kenfrey Kiberenge and Charles Njeru

http://dm.nationmedia.com/DM/DM/2009/03/16/
ArticleHtmls/16_03_2009_001_004.shtml

THOUSANDS of Kenyans are returning home every month broke and jobless as the effects of the global financial crisis continue to spread.

Records from the Ministry of Immigration show that about 14,000 Kenyans are opting for home instead of languishing in foreign countries where the economic recession has led to massive job layoffs.

“We have over 14,000 people jetting into the country each month,” said Kenneth Buhere, the Public Relations Officer at the immigration ministry.

As a result of the layoffs billions of shillings pumped into the local economy every year by Kenyans in the diaspora could be lost. In 2007, the Government put the level of remittances at Sh80 billion per year, a figure based on data provided by banks and money transfer agencies such as Western Union and MoneyGram.

This excludes data from other non-official channels of transfer, which are widely used by illegal immigrants. In 2008, the remittance declined by nearly half to just Sh49 billion, according to an official report released last week by the Central Bank of Kenya.

“The value of remittances received from Kenyans abroad through the banking system was estimated at US$611 million (Sh48.8 billion),” says the CBK monthly economic review for January.

Most of the money is said to come from the United States, Europe and the Middle East. But this is fast dwinding as the immigration ministry tries to keep track of Kenyans returning home.

Movements “I cannot tell you which specific countries these Kenyans are returning from since we do not have a system that tracks down their govements at immigration,” says Buhere.

“Although we merely stamp their passports at the airport upon arrival, we know the number of those returning home is 14,000,” he said.

In the US, most Kenyans are employed as blue-collar workers, and even those who have not lost their jobs have had to accept pay cuts, leaving them with very little to save, or send home.

The consumerist US economy allows individuals to live on credit rather than disposable income and, average indebtedness is 137 per cent of incomes.

That means Kenyans have been sucked into a system whose population has borrowed an unprecedented $8,565 (Sh685,200) each.

High cost Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Africa and Asia have returned from Britain and the US where some 4.4 million jobs have been lost in the last two years. One Kenyan who was forced to pack his bags and leave the US says he could not cope with the high cost of living.

“I think I am here to stay,” says John Karanja, back from Cleveland, Ohio.

“When I was in the US, life was very expensive,” he told the Daily Metro In February, reports indicated that an unknown number of Kenyan workers in Dubai could be headed home as the global financial crunch took its toll on the United Arab Emirates. And the bad news is that the global recession is expected to continue for the next two years before it stabilises.

Analysts estimate that this is the worst global crisis since the stock market crash in 1932 in the United States, and say it is likely to trigger other social events.

Also see http://dm.nationmedia.com/DM/DM/2009/03/16/INDEX.SHTML

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Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:00:44 +0000 [03/28/2009 10:00:44 AM CDT]
From: Mundia Kamau
Subject: KENYANS RETURN BROKE, JOBLESS