A boy was stung by a Nettle. He ran home and told his mother saying, “Although it hurts me very much, I only touched it gently.”
“That was just why it stung you,” said his mother.” The next time you touch a Nettle, grasp it boldly, and it will be soft as silk to your hand, and not in the least hurt you.”
The short story above teaches us that whatever we do, we have to do it with all our might.
Last week, I took drive from Ruaka to Kikuyu town in Kiambu county. I was pleasantly surprised at the state of the new roads between the two towns, and it took me a short time to get to my destination.
These infrastructure projects have been replicated around the country. For many years, a journey to Northern Kenya would take days to cover but today, the new roads allow you to cover hundreds of kilometres in just a few hours.
Residents of areas such as Tharaka Nithi and Kitui can tell you they used to suffer because of poor roads. Today, it is easy to commute between the two counties. In fact, a trip to Western Kenya will show you how roads have helped the communities there.
When President Mwai Kibaki was leaving office, the standard gauge railway was just an idea on paper but we have seen President Uhuru Kenyatta complete it. It used to take nine to 12 hours to travel on rail from Nairobi to Mombasa but it now only takes less than five hours.
The Uhuru government has also renovated the old metre-gauge railway, which is also working alongside the SGR. This has helped the country open up further just like the roads, including the newly built expressway in Nairobi, have done.
According to the latest data, President Kenyatta’s regime has built 80,000km of roads between 2013-18, taking Kenya's road network to 246,757km. The Kenyan road network is now more than double what was built by the previous three regimes.
While Kenya is facing economic difficulties like the rest of the world, especially after the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the size of the economy is double what it was when Kibaki left office.
Kenya was worth $98.84 billion in 2020, according to official data by the World Bank. By the time President Daniel Moi was leaving office in 2002, the economy was less than $20 billion.
Jomo Kenyatta is remembered for his role in driving Kenya into a republic, Mzee Moi is remembered for his focus on education, while Kibaki is remembered for the infrastructure development.
In his nine years in office, President Kenyatta has stayed focused on the key areas of unity, economy, openness, food security, housing, manufacturing and healthcare and all their enablers to ensure Kenyans benefit from shared prosperity. And as a result, other than the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, the economy has maintained a consistent growth of between four and six per cent each year.
Uhuru has overseen comprehensive reforms in the lands sector through transformative interventions such as the national titling programme that has seen the government issue over five million titles in eight years. This is more than the previous administrations issued combined since independence.
In healthcare, Uhuru has led the equipping of hospitals across the country as well as staffing and training. Nairobi alone has gotten 24 new health centres to serve residents across all the informal settlements of the city.
In education, we have seen the rise of intake to schools as well as transition to the higher levels. Universities have increased in the country while those who cannot join them have the choice of the hundreds of technical institutes that have been established by this administration.
Without a doubt, Uhuru’s administration has worked and outperformed his predecessors. In the same way, Kibaki’s achievements were applauded after he retired, it is the same way Uhuru’s work will be appreciated after he retires in August.
No other president was able to deliver this during their time in office.
@MachelWaikenda
