The Jubilee administration is committed to delivering its Big Four agenda in the next five years, in line with Vision 2030. To actualize the delivery of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s legacy, the Executive will rely heavily on relevant ministries to drive the agenda to all Kenyans. For a long time, these sectors, despite the fact that they are pivotal in driving the economy, have either been ignored or underfunded. That is why the Jubilee administration and particularly President Uhuru Kenyatta, has put in place massive budget allocations to fund ambitious projects under the relevant departments in the next five years.
What Parliament will do, as per the Constitution, is to provide the frameworks to anchor the government’s projects and also appropriate enough resources to fund the programmes expected to drive the economy. We are happy that we have the President and Deputy President William Ruto working in sync to guide the government on where they feel resources should be pumped in.
This term will be a critical moment for the country, 55 years since Independence. This is because, for the first time since Independence, the State, under the Jubilee administration, has prioritised crucial and pivotal projects critical for economic takeoff. Our opponents who were in government for many years failed to empower these sectors, but instead chose to allocate money to non-priority areas that ended up contributing nothing to the country’s much-needed economic growth. The Jubilee administration devised strategies to turnaround the economy. We will now focus heavily on the initially and largely ignored housing, which is among the Big Four delivery pillars that also have food security, affordable healthcare, and manufacturing.
Under the housing pillar, Jubilee will build 500,000 social housing units and 800,000 affordable units by 2023 at a cost of Sh2.6 trillion. Under the Big Four, we will also focus on universal healthcare, a 10-fold exports increase, irrigation of 1.2 million acres of land, and millions of new jobs. We hope that the National Treasury will play a key role in mobilising funds to finance these projects; the ministry of Interior to provide the conducive and peaceful environment to ensure such capital-intensive programmes are secured.
Under President Uhuru Kenyatta’s leadership, and especially this second term, we intend to talk less but do more about that which seeks to alleviate poverty, diseases and ignorance.
The writer is the National Assembly Majority Whip and Mumias East MP