Kenyans are tired! The food prices have skyrocketed and people are hungry.
Five years ago, a 2kg packet of maize flour was going for Sh90. Today, it is between Sh110 to Sh120. Cooking gas was Sh600, today it’s at Sh1,600, Sugar was selling at Sh90 today it is Sh125, cooking oil was at Sh160, today it’s Sh360, fertilizer was at Sh2,500, today its Sh6,000.
Kenyans are reeling from bad economic policies of this administration that decided to use the excuse of the handshake in the name of peace to focus on the wrong priorities.
For four years, the country was treated to the shenanigans of the change the constitution movement — the Building Bridges Initiative — simply because it was a pre-determined avenue to help the powers that be in succession politics just like it happened between 1975-78.
Who would have thought that today, President Uhuru Kenyatta would finally come out publicly to support ODM leader Raila Odinga to succeed him? Isn’t this not the same cast just like at independence between Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga?
It’s quite appalling to see that when it suits them, they arrogate themselves the role of prefecting who is capable of becoming president and who isn’t. Isn’t this the preserve of the voter? Is there someone who still imagines that he or she has the capacity to decide on behalf of any Kenyan over 18 years on who to vote for? Isn’t this extending an imagination only too far due to our politics of patronage, privilege and entitlement tat President Kenyatta should be succeeded by the opposition leader, who literary crushed into government using the handshake backdoor?
Does it matters that Deputy President William Ruto literary did 80 per cent of the campaigns under the Jubilee Party, which has since been rebranded to replace the Tuko Pamoja handshake with the TNA dove aptly called Mwewe?
The people of Mt Kenya region feel cheated by a presidency that has done very little to improve on their economic situation. The prices of cash crops remain depressed and the cartels in the industry haven’t been dismantled to give reprieve to farmers.
While it can be argued that a lot infrastructural projects have been done including the expansion of the Thika superhighway to Marua in Nyeri, people have no money in their pockets. This is simply because the roads are transporting goods made by other people, especially from China, who happen to be the ones who have lent us the most money.
So really, the logic of the China Belt and Silk Road initiative was to create pathways to markets at an exorbitant cost paid as high interest commercial loans by Kenyans, as leaders pocketed huge kickbacks. The loans have short term repayment periods using the figures of a fraudulently rebased economy that relied on increased population literary!!
The manufacturing sector is diminished at far much less than what Jubilee promised of being 15 per cent of our GDP. The same roads are bringing in cheap food imports from Uganda and Tanzania, further suppressing the farm prices to the detriment of the local producer.
If a litre of avocado oil costs Sh6,000, isn’t it not wise to empower farmers to value add rather than promising Sh6,000 handouts by a broke government?
Right now, many ministries, departments and agencies haven’t received their third quarter budget because the government is broke. Universities, for example, are receiving only half of what is budgeted for, and they are only able to pay net income without submitting taxes to KRA. Increasing fees to poor students can only hurt parents who are literary not able to afford to take their children to school.
Kenya simply needs to go back to productivity, increase competitiveness and create pathways literary to their own markets and beyond, for what is good for the goose, is good for the gander.
The people of Mt Kenya are very hardworking and they want to do things for themselves. They had great hope that having one of their own at the helm would change things. However, in actual sense, they feel things have gone from bad to worse.
Unemployment remains at an all-time high, and the effects of Covid-19 coupled with poor fiscal management that have led to huge borrowing, especially locally. Most Mt Kenyan entrepreneurs cannot thus access affordable credit to finance their ventures.
President Mwai Kibaki managed to fix the economy and by the time he was leaving office, he was a darling of the region. He cleverly expressed his preferred successor in Musalia Mudavadi, but when the ground openly favored Uhuru Kenyatta, he gave way and endorsed him.
The Anglican Church has actually come out to advise Uhuru to rise above the fray and not engage in partisan succession politics. This way, he will remain a rallying symbol of national unity. What will happen if the mountain revolts against him and most definitely decide to vote for Ruto, who then goes ahead to win the presidency?
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