Alex La Guma opined that his role in the struggle against apartheid was through pen and paper and with this I choose to emulate him.
I fully understand my role as a deputy president as prescribed in the Constitution. I am alive to Article 147(1), which states that the Deputy President is the principal assistant of the President and shall deputize for the President in the execution of the Presidential functions.
To this end, I bring past political experience having ran for Mavoko MP in 2017 at an early age of 30. This experience has taught me that transformation requires unwavering vision, boundless imagination, constant commitment, persistence, patience and solidarity in addition to strategic people management.
Procurement as a profession gives me greater visibility on Access to Government Procurement Opportunities improvement, knowledge of financial management as well as ensuring efficient and effective utilisation of resources. Age gives me clarity on the real issues affecting the youth and greater urgency in converting them into courageous frontline actors in Kenya’s development agenda.
Having traversed the country the last few weeks on the campaign trail, read through social media on what Kenyans really expect from their government, I can authoritatively say the high cost of living has edged out many Kenyans from business, from mama mbogas, bodaboda riders, owners of hotels, sellers of mitumba clothes, owners of salons to vinyozis, not forgetting lawyers and doctors in private clinics and practices respectively.
We are all crying that there is no money in circulation. But again how can a mwananchi go for any of these services yet they do not know where they will get their next meal? Buying power is low due to the high cost of food. High cost of living coupled with diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer are leaving families poorer due to high cost of medication and there is need to emphasized good nutrition.
To this end, Roots party’s organising principle is our ideology focusses on Economic Upswing. The hearts and minds of Kenyans regardless of tribe, religion and class are wailing that; it is not right that 5.5 million unemployed Kenyans that 1.2 million are living below the poverty line of Sh220, high cost of living occasioned by increasing taxes and the runaway debt that will be Sh8.8 trillion by end of June 2022.
It is also not right that Kenyans are stuck in the Middle East, where they went to seek greener pastures but are subjected to mistreatment yet the government seems to be to looking away.
The Kenyan government should be aggressive in protecting its territory and people. But this cowardice is shunned in our national anthem in the third stanza, "Kenya Istahili Heshima" this is the dignity Roots Party seeks to bolster and instill public confidence to Kenyans at home and the diaspora that the grass is not greener on the other side but we call all come together and water ours.
This ideology seeks to empower everyone making our manifesto different. We are giving an alternative with the solution that we legalize and regulate marijuana for export, for local industries to spur economic growth aimed at exportation rather than importation where our country does not benefit from foreign exchange.
Our control measures in regulating marijuana include using the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service and other government regulatory institutions to strictly regulate THC, the psychoactive ingredient levels of industrial hemp, requiring it to be less than 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent CBB levels that yield the fiber that we need.
Two, register and issue licenses to hemp growers, producers, manufacturers and users as well as use of agricultural officers to inspect plants in the farms as well as recall NYS graduates who have never had he opportunity to be employed.
Industrial hemp is our choice because with the declining global prices of other products such as tea and coffee, hemp is versatile as it is used in nine sectors, among them textiles, bricks for construction, plastic, paper, food and beverage (grains, flour, cooking oil, protein butter), furniture, automobile fiber for body parts as well as headlights, cosmetics and lubricants. These sectors produce over 25,000 products, meaning there is market for local industries aiming at export market.
A Roots party government will create an environment conducive for local industries by working with private stakeholders to create a manufacturing sector that drives economic development and wealth creation.
Our pledge as a party is to support SME development through the provision of affordable credit; increasing the resilience of the manufacturing sector by ensuring long-term policy stability; improving the ease of doing business and development of regional value chains to minimise exposure from external shocks such as the current challenge in accessing US dollars from their bank, which constraints the local money markets.
Our solution to this is availing liquidity in the market, which is critical to allow businesses to focus on their core activities of cost-efficient production and avoid panic buying. With these interventions in place, we shall be able to achieve a 24-hour economy in eight-hour shifts in four working days.
In 2021, China alienated 164,819 acres for hemp and the sales were $1.2 billion. With this in mind, Roots party is practical in aiming to be a profitable government that is innovative in getting alternative sources of funding projects away from increasing taxes and further debt at high interests which accounts for the high cost of living.
We shall utilise government idle land such as Kulalu Galana project. Going by the figures in China, Kenya will earn $6 million in six months, which is five times more of what China earned in 2021 from legalisation of marijuana. This means that when we in Roots party say we shall increase salaries of teachers, doctors, civil servants and the police — the public sector as a whole —by 300 per cent in phases across, we are speaking the truth.
We will also suspend some sections of the Constitution that are not working such as Chapter 11, which states that counties are entitled to least 15 per cent of the total national revenue. Governors say the budgetary allocations need to be increased, but the national government is reluctant to do this.
The national government does not have the funds for this. Our approach is for the counties to organise themselves in the former eight provinces and in caucuses, which most of them have. In this, they will collect revenue in their regions and appropriate accordingly. They will only remit 10 per cent to Roots party national government for purposes of instrumentation and administrative costs.
The positive impact is that county government will fully run their projects and service delivery, pay their suppliers in good time, as well as increase salaries of medical staff which is a devolved function. Other county staff are not left out in this.
Under Roots care, the old and vulnerable, who are also entitled to a monthly stipend, there will also be free healthcare for pregnant mothers.
The stipend will be readily available from earnings from the sale of industrial hemp.
Roots care also seeks to focus on good nutrition, through promoting organic farming and food as well as a ban on importation of High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is also found in the ugali we consume mostly.
The above will result in curbing and reducing cancers, high blood pressure and diabetes. R
The health agenda is cognizant that we cannot lead a sick nation and the healthier our people are, the less we spend on RootsCare and redirect funds to other national building projects such as the implementation of Nairobi solid waste management proposals by JICA, which has been lying on shelves since 2012.
It is interesting to note that Nairobi alone churns out approximately 3,000 metric tonnes of waste on a daily basis. This is a priority area, which will be achieved through cooperation and participation of all stakeholders, including Nairobi County leadership. Who I believe will not have a problem irrespective of party affiliation to partner with Roots Party government in realizing a clean, healthy and wealthy Nairobi and Kenya as a whole? Or will they? Time will tell.
Furthermore, doctors and those who studied biochemistry should not be threatened by this since the focus will be research and development in Kenya’s pharmaceutical sector. This is where snake farming for anti-venom production comes in.
We import anti-venom from South Africa and India. Still, lack of anti-venom accounts to three deaths every week in Kenya.
This agenda seeks to save Kenyans lives, move into the global market by exporting our anti-venom, as well as sell snake meat to markets that consume such as China.
Additionally, snake skin products such as handbags and shoes are a venture for Kenyans who are designers to plug in, thus putting money in the hands of Kenyans. The real Pesa Mfukoni.
Roots Party is simply amplifying this avenue as this activity is anchored in the Wildlife Conservation Act 2013, which in the tenth schedule speaks into snake farming as an alternative source of income.
Our youth are our future and there is need to convert them into frontline actors of Kenya’s development agenda. Justina being a youth and having met the youth leadership on Youth dialogue round table, I committed on behalf of Roots Party to champion the prioritizes of young people. The youth asks where youth economic inclusion-; job creation and youth employment as well as expansion of civic space to enhance good governance.
This will be achieved by ensuring 10 per cent appointive positions in ministries, departments and agencies. Similarly, youths who would want to be investors many are times lack seed capital to start a business or capital to boost an existing business due to collateral constraints.
To this end we shall allocate 200,000 acres of government land for Roots Entrepreneurs Initiative programme. The aim is to run a competition that will yield in 50,000 youths per cohorts, who will be allocated four acres each and going by China’s figures, four acres proceeds will give a youth Sh2.8 million in every six months to be used as seed capital are to boost existing businesses.
Women in Kenya need to be actively involved in Kenya’s development agenda. Sadly, the Kenyan woman is vulnerable as indicated in population situation analysis by UNFPA in the year 2020 is that 18 in every 100 girls aged between 15-19 years become pregnant in Kenya.
This situation can be blamed on lack of financial independence of women who are mothers which translates to mothers not being able to provide secondary needs for their daughters and due to this economic pressures, teenage girls may end up practicing sex to get financial favors. Similarly, women in politics due to lack of financial muscles may end up trading sexual favors for nominations and opportunities hence deterioration of moral fiber not forgetting women who need to yield to their male bosses’ advances for promotions and career growth.
These negative impact on society can only be curbed by financially empowering the women of Kenya. By appealing to the Kenyan man who is a father, grandfather, uncle, brother, husband to allocate at least 1% of land they own for the Kenyan woman. This plea is informed by the fact that in Kenya men are predominately the owners of the factor of production land.
This one per cent, if it is an acre, will give the Kenyan woman Sh702,000 per six months which means women will be actively involved in development of our homes as well as the national agenda. Not to mean that women who own their own land are left out. These women who control their own land will be spoilt for choice on how much of their land to alienate for hemp farming.
Isiolo as a capital city is informed by the need to create significant social and economic improvements for the northern Kenya region so that they to can own Kenya and feel that they are part of Kenya.
Additionally, Nairobi as of now is at a point of diminishing returns as it is congested and polluted and proportionally smaller profits are derived as more money is invested in it: the upside of this is that devolution which is in our agenda will facilitate urban to rural migration hence making this transition easily achievable.
In this regard the issue of many Kenyans who live in informal settlements with no access to water, electricity and sanitation will be a thing of the past. Consequently, opening the Northern Frontier will create other revenue streams such as tourism, direct link to the LAPPSET projects, increase in price of land, opportunity for long distance matatu services as Kenyans explore the untouched fortunes of the Northern frontier.
Education is also at the heart of Roots Party agenda given that our Presidential candidate and I are professionals and are committed to give prominence to our Competency Based Curriculum that is both well written and well thought out curriculum.
This importance can be achieved by successfully facilitating transition of CBC learning to virtual platforms as a counter to negative global exposure such as Covid 19 in which our academic calendars were interrupted and Kenyan schools closed down.
The aforementioned strategy aims at making the process, the procedure and systems easier for parents who want to home school their children. In the long run, these interventions will yield in “internationalized” of our CBC which will be offered outside Kenya like most global curricula such as IB, various variations of the British National Curriculum and various variations of the American Curricula. Still on education, Roots party government aims at transforming Kenyan scholars and researchers from consumers of knowledge to producers of knowledge.
This can be achieved by embracing Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) to move this economy by having our STI under the office of the President from the Ministry of Higher Education, where it is left on the back burner as the Ministry is overwhelmed with education matters. This approach to will result in generating a cadre of graduates who will effectively compete at a global stage.
It is imperative for me to indicate that we shall not force Kenyans to grow industrial hemp rather will give them the choice to carry out a combination of mixed farming; both animal and crops. And how dairy and chicken farming will thrive is that hemp is used to make animal feed that is affordable and this will lower the cost of animal feed resulting in more production of milk, eggs and chicken meat
This gives us a latitude of the return of the school milk programme that will be known as Maziwa Ya Roots as well as introduction of eggs served to Kenyan children in schools which will also be known as Mayai Ya Roots programme. This will boost good nutrition in our children who many are times due to the economic situation are forced to learn on an empty stomach. This is our pledge to the children, learners of this country.
In conclusion, I wish to submit that our manifesto is well thought out and we hope to consolidate the over 22 million votes from Kenyans who are bearing the pain of the harsh economic times irrespective of tribe which has dominated our behavior as voters.
This unfortunate situation, which might result in the sad affairs in Sri Lanka if not controlled, now calls upon Kenyans to move away from tribal politics and embrace leaders who have their interests at heart. These leaders are the Roots Party of Kenya presidential and running mate candidates and I believe I have inspired Kenyans who had planned to vote for our competitors, the undecided or even those who had vowed not to willingly vote for a solution based ticket which is Prof. George Wajackoyah and Justina Wamae.
We are brave enough to shake the status quo as specified in our party slogan "Shake the tree or Tingiza Mti".
This submission, my fellow Kenyans is the why Roots Party is good for the country.
The writer is the Roots Party presidential running mate; [email protected]; @justinawamae
