Why Mama mboga is not going anywhere

A fistful of sukuma wiki rapidly turns into a mass of shreds in a basin under Ms Lucy Kagendo’s highly skilled hands.

With surgical dexterity, Ms Kagendo, commonly known as Mama Stacey, shreds the collard greens with her razor-sharp knife as she discusses something with her customer, a man who appears to be in his 20s.

The customer is soon carrying home the shredded vegetables carefully stuffed in a polythene bag alongside three tomatoes and an onion. Darkness is fast descending in Komarock as he walks away.

Ms Kagendo, 35, has been in her shed for the last five years, during which she has made friends, lost some, seen children grow, written off bad debts in thousands of shillings... all in an effort to earn a living from selling vegetables and fruits.

“It gives me joy to know that I play a role in the well-being of residents in this area,” she says.

Her clients, who she approximates to be more than 100 every day, have varying demands and tastes. One of her services is a credit facility in which she allows people to buy on credit and clear the debt at the end of the month.

This and other offers have made Mama Stacey and others in the same business popular among Kenyans.

All across the country, thousands of women make a living selling vegetables in their neighbourhoods. They are a permanent part of the Kenyan economy.

They rise early and go to wholesale markets where they buy vegetables in bulk, transport them to their kiosks in estates, shopping centres and villages where they sell in small quantities to consumers.

They are so much a part of the Kenyan culture that when it was reported that there were plans to relocate the traders to designated places, there was uproar from many quarters.

The reports said a draft regulation by the Agriculture and Food Authority (Affa) proposed licensing and relocating mama mbogas from estates to places designated by either the national or county governments.

ITS NOT ABOUT STOPPING MAMA MBOGA

But Affa’s acting director-general Alfred Busolo would later clarify that no one selling vegetables and fruits would be affected by the new rules.

Mr Busolo said sale of produce to be regulated by the authority would be cereals like maize, rice and millet; legumes like soya beans; and roots and tubers like Irish potatoes and cassava.

“It is not about stopping the mama mboga; it is about creating an environment that can assure the consumer that the food is safe,” he told NTV, adding that the rules would make it easy to trace food back to the farmer who produced a certain crop.

Views raised as the debate raged underscored how much Kenyans will figt to keep the kadogo economy systems working.

“I like mama mboga’s fresh vegetables as compared to those which last for ages in freezers in a supermarket,” Gatundu resident Gabriel Gatumbi told Sunday Nation.

Mr Kelvin Mitenti from Kisii said: “Mama mboga not only gives us vegetables on credit but also gives us other services like cutting the vegetables for us, services we can’t find in our supermarkets.”

Mr Juvenalis Kisia from Kisumu observed: “We co-exist with mama mboga. I can loan them cash to boost their purchases and get it back with interest; and when times are hard, the mutual trust already developed will put something in my tummy.”

An editorial in Business Daily of May 29 said the kadogo economy should be left alone.

Mr Kiprono Kittony, the chair of the National Chamber of Commerce, told Sunday Nation that the Kenyan economy is driven by small-scale traders and that mama mbogas are a vital section of those traders.

“Regulating them is not bad, but any regulation should bear in mind their role in the economy,” he said.

Mr Mitenti said: “The long and short of it is that mama mbogas are indispensable”.