Ideas & Debate

Time is right to re-envision Project Kenya

JUBILEE

Jubilee Party supporters at Kasarani Stadium, Nairobi, on Tuesday during the Inauguration ceremony of President Uhuru Kenyatta. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL

The coming to an end of the election season has left public attention split between the state of the economy and the state of the nation. 

In the case of the former, concerns around general economic performance, and growing public debt have come to the fore. 

For the latter, the discourse has ranged from calls for greater inclusion to a growing clamour for secession.  This is the tough backdrop that informs Uhuru Kenyatta’s second and final presidential term.

Initial signs suggest the Jubilee administration is keen to complete work remaining from its first term even as it moves to implement the 160 promises made in its 2017 election manifesto. 

Massive infrastructure investment will continue with the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Nairobi to Kisumu and Malaba as well as ongoing and new roads such as the six-lane Mombasa-Nairobi expressway, airports, ports and energy development projects. 

New investment promised over the next five years include 500,000 affordable houses for Kenyans, nine sports stadia, 57 large scale dams, new media city and fishing ports at the Coast, to name a few.

Other promises include free secondary education, free quality primary health care, a doubling in the number of vulnerable citizens covered through cash transfers, a doubling of the fertiliser subsidy initiative, as well as funding to the Higher Education Loans Board and provision of piped water to every household in Nairobi and neighbouring counties. The “flagship” promise offered by the administration is 6.5 million new jobs created by 2022.

As regards national unity, the manifesto promises balanced development, reform of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the use of education, national registration and identification, ICT and language (Kiswahili) as its solutions.

Then there are the financials. A rough calculation puts the potential cost of the aforementioned investments (especially infrastructure) at between Sh3 and 4 trillion (SGR and the 57 dams accounting for 70 to 80 per cent of this total). 

Probably to pay for this, the manifesto promises an almost 50 per cent increase in current tax collection effort from 19 to 27 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). 

On the spending side, Sh1 trillion is targeted in savings over five years. To support growth and job creation goals, national savings will rise by a third from 18 to 25 per cent. The “d” words – deficits and debt – are conspicuously absent.

The trouble with this fiscal picture is that it builds on a recent history of unattainable revenue estimates, profligate recurrent expenditure and overpriced investment (sprinkled with a dose of corruption) leading to budget deficits at a time of interest rate caps, and consequent massive borrowing that crowds out the private sector. 

READ: County politics now threaten to dim Vision 2030

And, because our fiscal “tail” is wagging the economic “dog”, the only way to deliver growth is through massive capital investment rather than through jobs or productivity gains.

Yet, even without testing the foregoing sample of promises for realism or relevance, why is this manifesto information, which we roundly ignored during election campaigns, important today?

For one, it did litter a good part of President Kenyatta’s inauguration speech.  That’s the “PR” part.  Second, as is common practice, these promises are now being factored into the 3rd National Medium-Term Plan (MTP) under Vision 2030 (which covers 2018 to 2022). 

In the context of a country divided by a bitter election, these promises are now national policy, without national dialogue.

Is this not a good time, as was done within the Grand Coalition Government before Vision 2030 was launched in June 2008, to pursue such a dialogue, and what should such a dialogue emphasise? 

To the first, the answer must be in the affirmative.  Rather than rush to amend a Constitution we have not implemented in full, would it not make more sense to hold a dialogue on our national vision, as guided by the Constitution? 

And shouldn’t this visioning be rolled out to counties, since this was never done before? Reports of national and county government conflicts on development priorities are in large part the result of our failure to get counties to do their own long-term visioning before planning.

Second, we need to shift the discussion beyond economic visions, to visions around the future of our society.

Examples abound. Malaysia, from whom we drew much experience in drawing Vision 2030, realised quite early that an economic vision without a corresponding social vision that emphasised tolerance, unity and inclusion, was a sure recipe for future chaos.

The third element of what looks like a potential visioning dialogue must centre on outcomes. A quick reading of most party manifestos ends up with thinking around projects and procurement rather than outcomes, and Jubilee’s project-laden one is a case in point.

Rather than acreage of land tilled, should agriculture not be about food and nutrition security? Instead of counting the number of schools built, shouldn’t we be tracking the ensuing student enrolment (as an output) and workforce skills base (outcome)?

Or job creation as a measure of the productivity of the economy, and investments therein? Which brings us to a final thought. If we think of outcomes as the demand-side of development, then institutions are its supply-side.  Institutional reform, in line with the expectations of the people, was a big part of Agenda 4 of the 2008 National Accord. 

Sadly, we all thought that a new Constitution was the beginning and end of institutional reform. 

The result today? A national government executive that, despite some fine modernising ideas such as Huduma Centres and e-Citizen services, remains largely unreformed in processes, values and culture, especially in policy, planning, budgeting and performance management. 

A collective of county governments that are so weak in capabilities and capacity that they struggle to formulate policy, develop plans and budgets, deliver services efficiently, track and monitor performance and involve the public. 

Duplication of roles between national government county administrators and actual county administrators. Further duplication between regional development authorities “owned” by national government and regional economic blocs “owned” by county governments.

A Judiciary that has made great transformational strides, as contrasted with a Parliament that, like the national executive, has modernised rather than reformed.

Simply, until we reform our institutions, we cannot possibly expect to transform the economy in a way that strengthens our fiscal framework, regardless of how much we collect in taxes.

Back to where we started. The Jubilee administration begins its second term facing tough questions around the state of the economy, as well as the state of the nation.

There is a fast growing consensus that national dialogue is necessary if Kenya is to move forward as one unified, not uniform, nation. 

While calls for constitutional change are not unwarranted, one suspects that we could build a simpler, and more practical dialogue around visioning.

For counties and for the nation. Both economic and societal visions.  Driven by outcomes, not projects. Underpinned by institutions, as the constitution envisaged. 

With the National MTP and County Integrated Development Plans currently under preparation in readiness for the coming five years, this is as good a time as any to re-envision Project Kenya.