A story is told how Cord leader Raila Odinga met and got impressed with Andrew Toboso, the Butere MP, at the first sight. This was shown in the way that whenever Raila met with a group of ODM MPs, he would seek out Toboso and would often ask about him even when he was not present. To this day, it is not clear why. “Maybe Raila saw the freshness I brought to the team,” the MP says, “I don’t jump and comment on an issue before thinking through. Raila must have picked that aspect up,” says the 45-year old legislator.
An MBA graduate from Moi University, Toboso regrets that the Kenyans have over politicised the society. “Politics takes centre stage in any kind of conversion, even if it is religious,” he observes, good-naturedly. The consequence of this politicisation, he says, is that to much expectations have been placed on the shoulders of members of parliament.
“Kenyans rely on MPs to drive the economic agenda but the ideal situation should be a robust private sector and proper policies being the key economic drivers.” Add the foregoing to endemic corruption and you have a cocktail of economic slump the country has experienced in the past, he says. “We lack a strong national value system that has defined economies like Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan,” he explains.
“These nations are constructed on a firm foundation of patriotism. They protect their products, they aggressively look for market for their products and only sign those agreements that advance the interests of their nations.” The MP says that even in capitalist economies like the UK, US or Japan you can easily define their national values by the fierce patriotism they attach to their products.
From a strategic perspective, the MP argues, one of the major drawback to the growth of the Kenyan state is the inability implementers to translate national plans into action and our obsession with the short term plans. He says there has been an interest in what he describes “as brick and mortar“ projects because they confer higher returns to specific individuals “Vision 2030 is a perfect example of a long term economic planning, but unfortunately it has been abandoned by the Jubilee leadership”.
He cites, the example of the Standard Gauge Railways which he said is being implemented because of its high value of returns to some powerful individuals within Jubilee. An ardent sports fan, the MP is a member of Bunge football team and a martial artist.
IN FIVE MINUTES: From strategic management to politics
1971: Born in Shiatsala Village of Butere sub-county.
1990: Joined Kenyatta University for his undergraduate studies and graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.
2003-2005: Moi University, Master of Business Administration (MBA), Planning and Strategy. 2005-2006: Deputy Director, Business Development, Sports Stadia Management Board.
2006-2008: Head of Business, Strategy and Marketing, Kenya Wildlife Service.
2009-2012: Director of Strategy, Vision 2030.
2013: Elected Butere MP on ODM ticket. 2015: Elected Secretary, ODM Kakamega county.
QOUTES
2013: “When you look at sectors like tourism, industry and commerce, these are the sectors that need to get further investment so that our economy can grow and we can have a bigger cake which we can share”.
2014: ”Most of the public health facilities in this country are in pathetic state. That is not only the rural health facilities but even if we took a walk to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) today, which is the biggest public facility in Kenya, you will be shocked at the kind of situation that most of the patients, particularly in the general wards, are actually staying in”.
2015: “As much as we are talking about the preservation of the wetlands, we must also ask ourselves what we are doing with the catchment areas, particularly the water towers. We realise that both in urban and rural settlements, people are moving to settle in lower areas and, as a result, when we have rains like the El Nino, there are landslides and mudslides and settlements are washed away. That is because people have settled in areas that are ideally not fit for human settlement, namely, the riparian areas”.