• According to the team, the private betting industry is leading to hopelessness and greater poverty.
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The much awaited Bulding Bridges Initiative has identified seven areas of major concerns to Kenyans.
The report handed to President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday at State House stated that in the context of consulting on the nine major challenges outlined in the March 9 Joint communique, Kenyans placed greatest emphasis on National ethos and values, Poverty, youth empowerment, inclusive politics and corruption.
Other areas of concerns are devolution and government spending.
The report will officially be made public on Wednesday at the Bomas of Kenya.
With regards to National ethos and values, the report indicates Kenya is an arranged marriage by strangers, not parents.
As a result Kenyans have made it work to a certain extent but now there is great need to build a respectful and cohesive family.
The report reveals that Kenyans lack shared beliefs, ideals and aspirations about what Kenya can become if they all subscribed to a national ethos that builds and reinforces unity.
To change this is bottom-up work, starting in the family and the community, supported by initiatives that embrace the positive cultures, beliefs and ideals of Kenya’s diverse communities and facilitated by civil society, the private sector, and state institutions.
It will become embedded in the formal education system, starting from the earliest age and lasting for a lifetime, religious and cultural institutions, the media, and arts sector.
The report says Kenya must develop real shared prosperity by growing the national cake.
It says it is not enough to merely improve economic output and present rates of investment but there must be an entire transformation of the way the economy operates if it were to deal with the present lack of jobs.
“There is extreme poverty and hunger in parts of the country. Unemployment and underemployment, particularly of the young people, is high. People are living hand to mouth and the future looks tough. The cause is conflict, corruption and bad politics,” read part of the report.
The report says the country should decrease conflict over national resource distribution by treating all Kenyans as equal.
This should take into account population, needed investment in health and agriculture, service provision, and access to natural resources and livelihood opportunities.
“The share of public resources for every Kenyan should be carefully balanced to account for every Kenyan being treated as equal, as the Constitution makes clear, while ensuring that those who have been marginalised in the past, or are being marginalised at present, are given extra help where they need it,” it said.
This the report says must be focused on service delivery to settled and serviced areas, meaning services from the centre to the furthest point in the County rather than land mass.
The report said young Kenyans increasingly feel that their needs and aspirations are not being met by the economic, social, and cultural structures in place today.
“Many yearn for more stability in their income and prospects. They have heard many promises and now no longer believe on promises to merely improve on the status quo. They feel that we must utterly transform how the system works. That is what they expect from this process,” the report read.
As a result the task force says Kenya should nurture and open opportunities for youth to gain from their initiative, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
It should increase employment and livelihoods by making it easier for small businesses to compete and grow at low cost and with minimal constraints.
“The country should minimise taxation of new and small businesses by giving them a tax holiday of at least 7 years as a support to youth entrepreneurship and job creation,” read the report.
With regards to creativity and sports, the team says the country should make serious efforts to coordinate, incentivise and drive the growth of the creative industries and sports, among other sectors in which young Kenyans show enormous potential and interest.
It read, “To help young people form businesses, open an advice desk in every Huduma Centre manned by a business development expert”.
According to the team, the private betting industry is leading to hopelessness and greater poverty.
“The taskforce recommends that the private betting industry be replaced with a Government-run national lottery whose proceeds, as is the case in other countries, are used for activities that uplift the youth, sports, culture and other social activities beneficial to citizens,” it reads.
The report indicates that Kenyan politics is not serving its purpose.
It states elections are too divisive pulling Kenyans apart.
“Too much is lost from the cycle of 3 good years and 2 bad years that increases our poverty and divides us from each other. What often binds all major challenges is siasa mbaya. Bad politics makes problems worse and invents new ones,” the report quotes.
As a result the team says the country should make politics more inclusive and accountable.
It says Kenyans want a home-grown, inclusive system that reflects not only the pre-colonial political structure but also their day-to-day realities.
Kenyans want to see inclusion in the Executive, while also wanting to directly vote for their President.
“Kenyans told the Task force that while they appreciate the increased accountability of the parliamentary model, they also want to vote directly for a President holding executive power to offer decisive leadership. They also told the Taskforce that they want a strong opposition and a Parliament that will hold the Executive accountable through applied checks and balances,” the report says.
Running for and winning the Presidency: The President shall be elected through universal suffrage. For a candidate to be declared the winner of the Presidential election, he or she must win 50% + 1 of the Presidential votes and at least 25% of the votes cast in each of more than half of the Counties, as is now the case.
An Executive President: The President will remain the Head of State and Government and the Commander-in-Chief. He or she shall be the central symbol of National Unity. The President will chair the Cabinet, which compromises the Deputy President, the Prime Minister, and Cabinet Ministers.
The Executive, under the authority of the President, shall have the power to determine the policy of the Government in general, while the Ministers under the leadership of the Prime Minister, shall be collectively responsible in the National Assembly for the execution of the affairs of the Government. This structure executive makes it more accountable in Parliament and to the people.
Term limit: Retain the present two-term limit for the position of President.
Deputy President: The Deputy President is the running mate to the President. The Deputy President shall deputise the President.
Prime Minister: Within a set number of days following the summoning of Parliament after an election, the President shall appoint as Prime Minister, an elected Member of the National Assembly from a political party having a majority of Members in the National Assembly or, if no political party has a majority, one who appears to have the support of a majority of MPs.
The report says corruption is greed and it is hurting Kenyans.
Those who aired their views want the vice stopped.
They commend the moves against it that have been made but they feel that a lot more needs to be done.
“Kenyans appreciate devolution but think that more needs to be done to make it more inclusive and of more benefit to Kenyans,” it reads.
The report says the growing public perception of Kenya having a rigged system that rewards cronyism and corruption is the greatest risk to Kenya’s cohesion and security.
Tackling corruption is the single most important mission Kenya has now and must be attacked through structural and preventive means.
The report reveals that government is spending too much on itself.
Public resources should be used for Kenyans and the burden of government should reduce.
“The Task force found Kenyans with strong feelings against the size of government. They wanted the burden of Government to be less on them by public money being used to serve them, to achieve value for money, the reduction of wastage and cutting down on fraud and corruption,” reads part of recommendations.