Today is one of those difficult moments when this column has to critique a report done by one of the most distinguished leaders around town.
Further, at least one of the acknowledged technical team members is a former comrade from my college days. Despite these conflicts from within, we must raise above the crowd to relook at the promised road to our First World.
Right from the outset, I must confess that I was curious to find out what is new from the 56-page report. This is because in the course of researching for articles of this column, I have interacted with almost all the documented development plans for this country since independence. So far, the most consequential development agenda that has ever been implemented well is the Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS) for wealth and employment creation.
Coincidently, Anyang Nyong’o, the man tasked with the duty of crafting the road map to First World for the country, was at the centre of the drafting and implementation of the ERS.
Conceptually, ERS is considered as the first Medium Term Plan (MTP) under the outgoing 30-year economic blue print, Vision 2030. Casting a long term developmental blue print was a key activity under ERS.
Based on this background, it is therefore not surprising that the report submitted to the President does not fundamentally differ from the core principles of Vision 2030. Simply put, Prof Nyong’o has simply told the President to retrace the Vision and implement it. While Nyongo’s report unambiguously declares that their mandate was not to develop the successor plan to Vision 2030, this column avers that in its current form, his submissions are enough to steer the nation for the next 50 years.
The only thing we will probably need to edit in the report is to remove an impression created that the ideas crystalizes the vision of the sitting President. If anything, President William Ruto is among the highest duty bearers when it comes to the collapse of Vision 2030.
According to the report, the singular reason why Kenya’s transformation journey has suffered consistent false starts is because of lack of sustained political support over successive administrations.
Take for instance the recommended required institutional support to deliver a First World in the next 30 to 40 years. It is an exact copy paste of the Vision 2030 institutional framework that had the President as the political figure head, a National Economic and Social Council (NESC) as the steering board and a secretariat to coordinate and provide administrative coherence in the implementation of the transformation agenda.
To the best of my knowledge, this structure is to this date part of the programmes funded under the presidency.
In addition, we have the Vision 2030 Delivery Board incorporated as a State agency under the National Treasury and Economic Planning ministry. In truth, NESC was killed by UhuRuto administration. Former President Uhuru Kenyatta never convened a single meeting as its chair for his entire 10 years in office. President Ruto convened it as soon as he took office, but seemed to pass his obligations to NESC to his chief economic advisor.
Both NESC and Vision 2030 Delivery Boards lost steam as soon as the late former President Kibaki handed over the baton to his successor. Kibaki dutifully convened NESC each quarter without fail.
It is thus a humorous irony that the good professor recommends the very institution that Rutohas buried in his backyard as exactly what he needs to achieve his First World dream for the country.
As expected, Nyong’o has done a great job saying what we all know in a more cogent way. It is the considered view of this column that the country does not need to waste any more billions purporting to craft a successor to Vision 2030. What we need is to address are the problems the report cites as the primary reason for all the false starts in our economic reforms journey.
These includes political failure, institutional capture, low investments on human capital development and plunder of public resources.
For example, according to the report, none of the country’s that have developed without good higher education and research institutions. Yet, in under four years in office, the President himself has shifted goalposts on university funding at least three times.
Even on his directive this week, his economic advisor seems to suggest the interpretation is totally different from the implied full government funding for university education.
Other important pillars to achieve a First World are good healthcare systems and policy coherence across different administration.
Again, from various public comments this week, the President seems to have gone back to healthcare programmes he abandoned on assumption of office like Linda Mama for political survival. The tragedy is that the harm already suffered by folks cannot be undone and what he promises before crowds is the exact opposite of the lived realities by the people.
In part of the dailies this week, the business community now ranks policy incoherence as the largest impediment to investors in the country. The current administrations lead the pack on policy incoherence and abandonment of projects they found ongoing.
What is left unsaid, however, are the true motives behind this developmental adultery. The primary reason why ongoing projects are abandoned after regime changes at both the national and county levels is because of the looting component in-built in them. For those who understand the inside workings of the looting networks of public coffers, all kickbacks are pre-loaded into either the preliminary activities of the project or at the contract signing point.
Implicitly, that means public officials of successor administration that takes up an ongoing project have nothing left to eat. Thus, the only options left is either to cancel the contract to retender afresh or abandon the project all together and start a similar new one from which they can collect their loot too. In other cases, contractors will be cajoled to pay bribes to incoming officials to unlock continuation of their contracts.
That explains the many multibillion contracts variations for majority of big public contracts, sometimes way beyond the permissible 25 per cent contract variation under the Public Procurrent and Asset Disposal Act.
From a technical point of view, savvy investors would factor these risks in their project and contract designs. It is the very reason why the publics continue to bear legitimate obligations to contractors long declared bankrupt or ghosts like in the case of Arror and Kimwarer dams and Anglo-leasing related contracts.
In many other instances, the looters will stop at nothing including paying billions in damages to contractors if that is what is necessary to open fresh valves for them to loot.
Good cases in point here are the controversial Greenfields airport expansion project, the ongoing Rironi-Mau Summit Road and the false starts for the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway.
According to Nyong’o’s comparative analyses, no country in the world grew into first world by accident.
Whether democracies or benevolent dictatorship, there have been visionary leaders, functional institutions, rule of law and a citizenry committed to integrity and ethical values to achieve first world status.
Kleptocrats like the one we have within our political and bureaucratic systems can never deliver such a feat.
