For once, President's list of nominees is quite impressive

President William Ruto announced the new Principal Secretary nominees on March 20, 2025. [File, Standard]

As at the time of writing this column, there is a raging debate as to whether the youth can hitch their wagon on the benevolence of the political class. This debate has been generated by the new list of Principal Secretary nominees that was announced last week. Young people, whose parties are stakeholders in the broad-based arrangement, have expressed discontent with the appointments. Their cry is that more deserving individuals, the most talented, hardworking party mobilisers were sidelined. But we cannot all be appointed, certainly.

This awakened me most profoundly to the needs of our time. The need to build a functioning economy with a thriving private sector whose primary focus is to become a net exporter. With our population growth rate steadily heading to 60 million in just a couple of years, to rely on state sector jobs is to court disaster. But state sector jobs are the only alternative when we don't build a productive economy.