When President Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in for his second and (hopefully) final term, he gave the nation his four-pronged legacy agenda: Affordable housing, manufacturing, universal healthcare and food security.
So far Huduma Namba has been shoved down our throats, it’s supposed to help realise the Big Four, we are told. How? Only government knows. My Huduma Namba card will not stop the people in government offices from asking for bribes, or being obnoxious, when I go seeking services.
Kenyatta National Hospital has been closed to walk-ins because 24 other hospitals have been built. That’s in Nairobi, what about the rest of the country? Plus, we still need to pay for the services, no UHC. In fact, no one seems to be talking about UHC anymore.
New roads are coming up in many parts of the country. This is meant to attract investment, we are told. But we’re sinking in debt in the meantime with nary an investment in sight.
We’re still talking about job creation and the best the government can come up with is kazi kwa vijana. We can’t do better?
As for food security, all it takes is for the rains to act erratic as they have done this year and in a few months sections of the population will be starving (and the government in denial) while the rest will be paying through the nose for food. Meanwhile the prices of bread, milk, fuel, etc, are about to skyrocket, just as soon as Parliament, which seems to be the Executive’s stooge, approves the 2021 finance bill.
Affordable housing is likely to be a mess, this is Kenya after all.
And all the while government’s focus is on BBI. This seems to be Uhuru’s most pressing legacy project. How I wish he would gather the country’s best brains to get us out of this quagmire he’s gotten us in, just like he’s gathered an army of lawyers to defend the BBI Bill at the Court of Appeal.
But it remains just that, a wish.
