Kenya is on course to achieve Vision 2030 with less than nine years to go, the delivery board and the secretariat say.
Speaking in Mombasa on Friday, the board said the government is undertaking a series of development activities geared towards achieving the vision.
The session with the Kenya Editors Guild was part of the board’s strategy to strengthen public awareness on the progress of Vision 2030 flagship programmes and projects.
Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat director general Kenneth Mwige said the forum presented an opportunity to engage openly, given the critical role the media plays in the development, implementation and oversight of the agenda.
“The achievement of the vision is very much on course. More important for now is that our people and stakeholders are both recipients and participants in this noble enterprise. A constructive partnership with the media is critical to the creation of awareness on Vision 2030,” Mwige said.
The vision is being implemented through five-year national medium term plans and county integrated development plans in all the counties.
The MTPs have been running since 2008, with MTP I running from 2008-12, MTP II (2013 -17) and MTP III (2018-22).
The national government is implementing the third medium-term plan and a second round of CIDPs, which ends in 2022.
According to Mwige, when the Vision 2030 was adopted in 2008, some 93 flagship projects were identified for implementation.
However, with the coming of the county governments in 2013 following the promulgation of the Constitution, the projects increased to 216 countywide.
“Everything that the government is doing is in tandem with Vision 2030. The national government planning and budgeting gives priority to the Vision 2030 projects before all the 25 sectors of the economy propose what is to be done in the next medium term plan,” he said.
He, however, admitted there has been a gap in communicating what has been done towards attaining the goal.
Mwige said there has been a lot of development transformation in terms of infrastructure since 2008 when Vision 2030 began to be implemented.
“People can see changes in the country since 2008, from education, agriculture, health, sports, transport and other sectors. The SGR, Thika superhighway, Nairobi expressway are just some of the few road infrastructure projects that have transformed our transport industry,” he said.
To fund the capital-intensive infrastructure projects, the government has been borrowing heavily, hence the rising country’s debt ceiling.
But Mwige said given Kenya’s geopolitical positioning, the country is right to continue borrowing to fund the projects to increase her competitiveness in the region.
“The issue with debt is sustainability. We have to borrow to develop our country. Our neighbours are doing the same to develop their nations,” he said.
He noted that attaining the vision had its own share of challenges, including the runaway corruption in government projects, which he said was rampant.
“The vision also envisioned a 10 per cent economic growth yearly, which is yet to be achieved. Growing the economy by double digits every year requires a lot,” he said.
Edited by EKibii
