•He said Ruto's 100 days in office will focus on delivering on the four thematic campaign areas.
•They are reduced cost of living through agriculture, construction of affordable houses, re-engineering of the health NHIF cover, and automating funds to independent institutions are underway.
Deputy secretary general in charge of policy and strategy in Kenya Kwanza Eliud Owalo has asked Kenyans to expect radical changes in the new administration.
In an interview with Spice FM on Wednesday, the economist said Ruto's administration will bring transformative changes and work with stakeholders and the private sector to fulfil promises made.
“There has to be the will to implement some of the issues, there are some radical shifts from the norm and whenever you’re introducing these changes there must be resistance from the government itself. You need to have a transformative leadership to see this through,” he said.
Owalo said committees failed due to bad leadership, frustrating the greatest promise of affordable housing.
In describing the blueprint to which the new administration is set to use to realise its promises, Owalo said interventions are underway to repeal the narrative around the trickle-down economic model by their bottom-up economic model for equitable distribution of resources.
“Since Independence, our economic agenda has been pegged on the trickle-down economic model, where it is assumed that when you have economic growth then there will be a trickle-down effect to lowest level through the way of development and resources to the common mwanchi,” he said.
Owalo said the nation's wealth accumulation from the national government through the trickle-down economic model has not realised any developments since the wealth accumulated is controlled by a few individuals.
“The challenge we have had is that growth or the national wealth ends up in the hands of a few people, 84 per cent hustlers, middle class constituting of 10 per cent, while 5 per cent controlling the resources of the economy,” he said.
He said there is a need for a paradigm shift to ensure the government priorities are met in the right formulation to grow the economy and ensure equitable resource distribution to every part of the country.
“For us to grow the economy and ensure equitable growth there is need for change in paradigm and that is why we went for the bottom up,” he said.
He said Ruto's 100 days in office will focus on delivering on the four thematic campaign areas.
They are reduced cost of living through agriculture, construction of affordable houses, re-engineering of NHIF, and automating funds to independent institutions.
The economist said Kenya Kwanza had the presidential campaign steering council to coordinate all the activities of all the campaign units and execute advisory measures as a way of strategising for the future.
“Instead of deciding what is good for the people by way of planning, we went to the people and asked what their priorities were, informed by their comparative advantages in their regions,” he said.
Owalo said the Kenya Kwanza government in realisation of its 100 days in office promises to the people, opts to rationalise expenditure to widen the tax base and win the goodwill of foreign investors, hence, reducing inflation.
“We are going to stabilise the budget by rationalising the expenditure by removing money from capital intensive expenditure with long-term effects and put money into productive sectors of the economy. This would expand the tax base to reduce the inflation on prices,” he said.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in his speech during the swearing-in hinted that Kenya’s economy has been crippled through excessive borrowing.
“The treasury is empty. We will have to start from scratch to realise a future for the nation,” he said
“We have inherited a dilapidated economy that is almost facing an economic shutdown. We have Sh10 billion public debt, six million unemployed Kenyans and a demoralised public service.”
Edited by Kiilu Damaris