- The establishment of the fund which will provide collateral-free credit will be a huge step for Ruto in fulfilling his campaign promises to hustlers across the country.
- To implement the plan, the President has already created the Ministry of Cooperatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development where the fund will be domiciled.
Image: PSCU
President William Ruto is expected to use his Thursday joint address to Parliament to lay down his 'hustler' legislative agenda.
Ruto will rally MPs to back his bottom-up economic model.
The President is scheduled to make his inaugural address to Parliament, marking the official opening of business of the 13th Parliament.
Article 132 (1) (a) of the Constitution requires the President to address the opening of each newly elected Parliament.
As he fulfils the constitutional mandate, Kenyans expect to get a glimpse of his roadmap to realise the bottom-up approach which was his key rallying call during his campaigns across the country.
Expected to feature in his address is a call to the lawmakers to make appropriate legislation to anchor his annual Sh50 billion Hustler’s Fund, a key campaign promise to micro, small and medium enterprises.
The establishment of the fund which will provide collateral-free credit will be a huge step for Ruto in fulfilling his campaign promises to hustlers across the country.
“We shall implement the hustler fund dedicated to the capitalisation of micro, small and medium enterprises through chamas, saccos and cooperatives to make credit available on affordable terms that do not require unnecessary collateral,” Ruto said during his inauguration.
To implement the plan, the President has already created the Ministry of Cooperatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development where the fund will be domiciled.
Nominated MP John Mbadi is cautioning against possible abuse of the fund in the absence of well-thought-out legislation to insulate it.
The former Minority leader said anchoring legislation shorly spells out whether the fund is a grant or loan and who is qualified to benefit from the same.
“I don’t think it is something that is going to work out differently from Uwezo fund, Youth fund, I think that is their thinking, it requires legislation so that it is not abused, we have had funds before which have never helped to improve the living standards of the people so we need legislation,” Mbadi said.
“We need not to encourage a situation where we are giving out money like handouts. Not even a regulation but an Act.”
Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi wondered about the logic behind having the fund as a standalone entity when there exist channels like Youths funds and Women Enterprise Fund which could have been strengthened to serve the purpose.
“The hustler fund would require a legislative anchorage, unfortunately, these are just phrases, in any case, we have Youth funds, Uwezo fund and Women Enterprise Fund all those are funds which would serve the same purpose he wants to achieve,” Osotsi said.
The President is also expected to outline his plan to tackle the high cost of living which has put millions of Kenyans on the edge.
Cost of living has been a concern to many Kenyans and was a cross-cutting campaign issue across the political divide.
Ruto’s administration has ruled subsidies in fuel products and maize something that has made life unbearable to many low-income earners.
Mbadi said the President should use the address to reduce some of the taxes on petroleum products as a way of reducing the cost of fuel.
“I hope he is going to talk a lot about how he is going to lower the cost of living, remember he promised 100 days to reduce the cost of petroleum products whether he is going to have taxes removed from fuel now that he is going not to do with subsidies,” he said.
Osotsi said Ruto should expound on its bottom-up economic model and how it will generate resources to fund the new approach.
“The president passionately talked of changing the historic trickle-down economic model with the bottom up economic that has never been tried and tested anywhere in the world,” he said.
Other issues likely to come out from the President’s speech include addressing the runaway national debt, the two-thirds gender rule and the fight against corruption.
On Wednesday, it was a beehive of activities with final preparations being made ahead of the President's address.
There was heavy deployment of security within and outside Parliament with access restricted to only authorised persons.
Anyone entering and leaving parliament was subjected to thorough frisking by Parliament orderlies.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris