Kenya’s problem is not growth, chairperson of President William Ruto’s Economic Council David Ndii has said.
Speaking in an interview with Citizen TV, on Monday, he said that the issue of economic growth in the country is that all the services that Kenyans are in need of, are not included.
“We don’t have a growth problem. If you look at all the reports they will tell you Kenya's economy is one of the fastest-growing economies. We have maintained five to six per cent growth. Those are very high growth rates,” Ndii said.
“There is nothing wrong with numbers. The problem we have is that our growth is not inclusive, it creates inequality. It doesn’t create jobs.
“If you look at the last decade for example, growth has been driven primarily by debt-financed public infrastructure."
The economist, however, avers that the Kenya Kwanza Bottom-Up strategy is set to change the economy and make it more inclusive.
“Our bottom-up strategy is not about changing our growth but it is about the structure of the economy so that growth is actually widely shared. And also there is more participation in generating that growth.”
“We want to shift from growth that is financed by infrastructural public spending to growth which is financed by production, productivity and employment,” Ndii said.
Ndii urged the government to put more systems in place to have more value for money. He noted that automation around procurements could help the state to be more cost-effective.
This comes after he alleged that the government is extremely wasteful in spending.
