Kenya Kwanza Government full in-tray in new year

To begin with the food insecurity occasioned by climate change is a going concern. However, if it were my government, I would buy in from owners of private land that has faced fragmentation due to immense settlement pressure and consolidate the farms to increase the number of large-scale commercial farms as opposed to our reliance on small-scale agriculture.

The benefits include; lowering input cost of production and mechanisation benefits would be viable in a large-scale setting and upscaling production of crops such as pyrethrum, rice, sunflower, dates, avocadoes and palm trees with the aim of local consumption and the excess for export will sustainably guarantee a steady flow of forex into the country.

Additionally, taking advantage of the rains in terms of large-scale water storage and irrigation projects will result in piped water to our farms hence perennial farming which will put Kenya on the map as food secure.

This large-scale farming strategy will see the youth motivated to be farmers in a country where the average age of a farmer is 65 years old, an occupation classified as old people's livelihood.

Still on employment creation and subsequent revival of the economy, every time something is posted on social media, Kenyans are quick to ask, and how will this lower the cost of unga? Lowering the cost of doing business in this country to encourage competitive manufacturing investment this will rid off a warehouse consumer economy.

These can be done through reversal of contradictory policies that seek to over-regulate and make business nearly impossible. Consequently, fuel which drives our economy is very costly. Why not fast-track production of the Turkana oil: - Tullow and Africa oil have halted the project as they look for a strategic investor for USD 3b.

We can fund our project with money raised from our Petroleum Development levy of Sh5.40 and the taxman collects roughly Sh26.1b as at June 2021. SGR will have more returns if we adopt an Open Access model, where multiple players in the transport sector purchase their rolling stock and utilize the SGR at a fee.

With returns from the Railway Development Levy collection amounted to Sh36.4b in the year ended 30th June 2022. We should maximize what has been built to grow the economy and generate more revenues as we need to grow our exports so that we are not using the SGR to perpetuate the concept of import-dependent warehouse economy.

-Writer is a founder of Inatuhusu Movement.