In the last three years, Uhuru’s legacy -the Big 4 agenda - lost traction as Building Bridges Initiative and 2022 succession politics took centre stage.
Apart from the first three years of the President’s second and last term in office being dominated by the quest to amend the 2010 Constitution through BBI, a product of the handshake between Uhuru and ODM leader Raila Odinga, Uhuru’s development agenda was hit hard by the coronavirus.
The President had listed food security, affordable housing, healthcare and industrialisation as the Big 4 agenda to be well underway before he exits State House after the August 9, 2022, general election.
However, the countrywide rollout of Universal Health Coverage, the National Housing Development Fund and the Nairobi Commuter Railway project have run into headwinds.
On Monday during a joint interview with a section of local television stations, the President acknowledged that his development agenda was way behind schedule due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
However, he said projects such as the construction of roads, electricity connection and provision of clean water to homes, reforms in the tea and coffee farming sectors among others have been rolling smoothly.
The President said BBI that was annulled by the High Court and the Court of Appeal carried some of the good policies.
“Therefore, I must admit that I am not where I would have preferred to be under normal circumstances had we been in a position to continue our agenda because we had started to see our tourism, agriculture and financial sector picking up,” he said.
“We had started putting in a lot of money into all these small and medium enterprises with a view of trying to ensure they become proper job creators and stable the Jua Kali sector. We are working on how to formalize it. Covid-19 has hit us but we are still keeping an eye on the ball.”
Uhuru said he took over power in 2013 when the homes connected to electricity stood at 32 per cent but his Jubilee administration has increased it to now 78 per cent.
“We are getting power to the people to be able to do their cottage industries, do their Jua Kali businesses in their respective areas,” he said.
Deputy President William Ruto who holds the view that the Jubilee government has performed dismally in its second term which started in 2017 has said the monies that had been set aside to conduct referendum should be re-allocated for development programmes.
Ruto who has fallen out with Uhuru said the Judiciary's ruling halting BBI had given the country a golden chance to re-evaluate Kenya’s development priorities.
“Now, let us agree to embark on the plans that we had like the Big Four that had been stalled by BBI,” Ruto said on Monday in Nairobi.
He said the mass vaccination of Kenyans and the re-engineering of the National Health Insurance Fund ought to be the country's top priorities amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has battered the economy almost to its knees.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
