- The troops have hit the road running, with politicians embarking on tours as the ministries document key development projects undertaken by the government.
- The leaders said they have hit the road to ensure Kenyans understand the government has been working despite the criticisms.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s allies, including Cabinet Secretaries, have moved to showcase his legacy projects with only eleven months left to the end of his tenure.
The troops have hit the road running, with politicians embarking on tours as the ministries document key development projects undertaken by the government.
The move comes amid heightened criticism by Deputy President William Ruto that Jubilee has nothing to show for the past four years.
But Kieni MP Kanini Kega and Muranga Women Representative Sabina Chege said Uhuru has been working in silence and it's high time they laid bare his achievements.
“We have reached a point where we remember that a cow can support the entire clan silently but when a hen lays an egg, it shouts for all to know,” Kieni MP Kanini Kega, an ally of the President, said.
Kega and Chege spoke when they accompanied Transport CS James Macharia during a tour of the Kenol-Sagana-Marua dual carriage way in Murang’a on Friday.
The leaders said they have hit the road to ensure Kenyans understand the government has been working despite the criticisms.
According to ministerial achievement reports seen by the Star, the Jubilee administration has implemented several multibillion-shilling projects across the country.
The projects cut across all the sectors of the economy among them transport, land, water and agriculture.
The projects and reforms, the government estimates, have pulled about 10 million Kenyans out of poverty since the Jubilee administration took over in 2013.
Roads and airports
The ministerial performance reports reveal the Jubilee government has constructed about 1,000km of tarmacked roads every year.
This is more than four times what the first three administrations including that of President Mwai Kibaki built collectively per year.
The major roads include the 21km Kibwezi-Kitui-Migwani road that has opened up the area.
Initially, they journey took five hours, but has reduced to just one hour.
The government is also implementing the Sh60 billion JKIA-Westlands expressway. The 27.1km expressway runs from Mlolongo to James Gichuru.
The road will ease gridlock traffic in Nairobi, which costs the economy Sh100 billion per year in lost productivity.
KeNHA estimates that completion of the road will reduce the time motorists take, from two hours during rush hour to between 10 and 15 minutes, a reduction of over 83 per cent.
The expressway is part of the Nairobi Rapid Bus Transit system that seeks to decongest the city roads through mass transport.
The Transport ministry is also constructing the 135km Garsen-Witu-Lamu road. The Sh10.88 billion road will help operationalise the LAPSSET project.
Jubilee also boasts of constructing airports and airstrips to boost air transport.
Today, there are 58 airports in Kenya, close to 10 times the number of airports and airstrips the country had in 1978.
Among the airstrips being constructed is Tseikuru in Kitui, the first of its kind in the county.
The Sh85 million project was initially proposed in 2010 and officially began under the tenure of Jubilee administration.
Infrastructural development at the JKIA has seen the number of passengers and cargo handled at the port increase sharply.
About 10 million passengers travel through the airport annually compared to 1.08 million in 1972, while cargo increased from 23,800 tons to 330, 000 tons over the same period.
Dams and ports
Jubilee is implementing a number of dam projects to improve water accessibility, boost irrigation and control floods.
The projects include the Sh42 billion Thwake dam in Makueni. It will supply water to 1.3 million residents of the three counties in the Lower Eastern region – Machakos, Kitui and Makueni.
In May, Uhuru launched the Sh310 billion new Lamu port, becoming the first head of state to start and complete construction of a port within his term.
It is the first port to be built in Kenya since the Port of Mombasa in 1896. For 115 years, no government has built a deep-sea port on the East Africa Coast of the Indian Ocean.
In addition, the government has revived the Kisumu port as part of opening up Kenya to East Africa region to boost the regional economy.
“We are opening up Lamu port to create a huge special economic zones and we already have a number of countries highly interested in coming now to set up factories in Lamu,” the President said during a recent interview with editors.
Jubilee has also delivered Sh1.9 billion Likoni Floating Bridge. The 1.2km bridge connects Mombasa and Kwale counties. It has reduced congestion on the ferry.
The Jubilee administration boasts of delivering 592km of the standard gauge railway – 472 km from Mombasa to Nairobi - and 120 km from Nairobi to Naivasha.
The government aims to increase Kenya’s total length of SGR, once all the phases are complete, to 3,800km. This will make Kenya the third country in Sub-Saharan African in terms of railway length.
South Africa, Egypt and Sudan have the longest railway length at 22,051km, 6,700km, and 5,844km respectively.
Electricity
The Ministry of Energy reports that the population of Kenyans connected to electricity has increased from 39 per cent in 2013 to 69.7 per cent, or about seven million people.
Only 10 per cent of the rural population had access to electricity in 2003.
In 2013, the number had more than doubled to 29 per cent before shooting to 61 per cent in 2019.
Kenya aims to grow rural electricity access to 40 per cent by 2024.
Health
Through the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, the President's team say they fixed the indignity in informal settlements in Nairobi by building 25 hospitals in a mere 100 days.
The hospitals that are recording high patient turnout have decongested Kenyatta National Hospital, leaving it as a referral facility.
NMS has been doing several roads and sewer lines in the slums that Uhuru says are meant to make such places "havens of hope and not despair".
According to the Ministry of Health, between 1963 and 1978, Kenya had only one renal unit and one dialysis machine.
President Daniel Moi added one more while four were added under President Kibaki.
However, the Jubilee administration says from the six renal units, Kenya today has 54 renal units with 360 state-of-the-art dialysis machines distributed among all 47 counties.
A performance report by the Devolution ministry indicates that devolution has empowered the counties to manage their own health infrastructure.
This has improved services. The number of births that occur in a hospital has increased significantly.
“Now, 62 per cent of births in Kenya are conducted by skilled providers, a marked increase from only 44 per cent in 2009,” the report states.
Land
The Jubilee administration has issued over 5.1 million titles through rapid national titling programme since 2013. This is compared to six million issued since Independence to that year.
The programme aims to resolve long-standing land ownership disputes and uncertainties that have locked out landowners and businesses from accessing credit from financial institutions.
The ministry has also embarked on digitising land registries across the country which have been keeping manual records since 1895.
So far, Nairobi, Trans Nzoia and Lamu registries have been fully digitised.
The ministry has also launched the National Land Information Management System.
“This system is designed to enhance the security of land records, improve accessibility, and cut down the cost of land transactions,” the document says.
Ardhi House has also introduced Ardhi Sasa - an online platform that allows citizens and other stakeholders to interact with land information held and processes undertaken by Government.
Agriculture
The Ministry of Agriculture reports that it has introduced legal and policy reforms to protect farmers and stop cartels from benefiting at their expense.
As a result of the reforms, production of tea increased by 98,506.9 tones in the last seven years.
The export value of tea also rose by Sh12.10 billion although the export price of tea per kilogram fell by Sh26.2 between 2012 and 2019.
The government also introduced the Tea Bill 2018 to ensure timely payment of farmers and less exploitation by go-betweens.
The President issued an executive order on the Revitalization of the Tea Sub-Sector.
He directed the Attorney General to conduct an inquiry into allegations of statutory and regulatory breaches committed by KTDA among other instructions.
The documents by the ministry also report that coffee exports rose by Sh3.98 billion between 2012 and 2019.
This was despite coffee production dropping from 51,713 tons to 48,735 tons over the period.
As of July, the price of coffee was Sh540 per kilo. “The prices of tea are improving. Why? Because of the reforms. And these are reforms that we have done despite all the noises people are making,” Uhuru said.
Social inclusion
The government introduced Uwezo Fund to empower the youth, women and persons with disability through affirmative funds.
Cumulatively, over Sh6.8 billion has been disbursed since inception. It has funded more than one million individuals and over 70,000 groups.
More than two million youths have benefitted from Sh13.5 billion loans advanced to them by the government through Youth Development Enterprise Fund.
The Women Enterprise Fund has disbursed over Sh26 billion to more than 1.6 million beneficiaries countrywide
More than 500,000 households are receiving cash transfers under National Safety Net Programme. Some one million old people have also received over Sh151 billion through Inua Jami programme.