An effective civil service enables growth

Vision 2030, Kenya’s national interest, identifies an efficient, motivated, and citizen-focused public service is a major enabler.

Therefore, the public services, both at national and county level are expected to implement results-based management, strengthen accountability and transparency, and enhance strategic planning. The convention was a timing reflection on how we are doing.

In the theory of democratic governance, leaders are elected on the basis of a platform, which we typically call manifesto. At the county level, that manifesto informs the County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP).

Thereafter, an annual slice of CIDP becomes the annual development plan, which when funded becomes the budget, and appropriation act.

New revenue measures are enacted with a finance bill, and where borrowing is necessary, this must be approved in the debt management plan.

The CIDPs must be anchored in longer term development plans, currently the Vision 2030. In this way, government action at both levels can have coherence. The civil service is at the heart of preparing, and once approved implementing, that annual plans.

To be effective its leadership must ensure proper performance management.

The constitution provides a variety of institutions to aid in that regard, including those providing assurance (Internal Audit, Controller of Budget) and oversight (Auditor General, County Assembly and Senate). A county secretary therefore, is at the heart of driving performance management.

But how do citizens make their choices? Economists talk about standard preferences, assuming our choices to be stable, well informed, and free of bias. However, they are anything but. They are who we are, and influence our political choices.

And, at home and abroad, citizens are choosing politicians with little to offer beyond ethnic bigotry, racism and division. This may explain why we struggle with ethnic diversity in the public sector. We are all tribalists!

Read: Lack of jobs, poor economy and intolerance

Further, and unfortunately, that various political leaders employ vicious language daily, legitimizes the public expression of views that people probably have, but rarely speak out or act upon.

Vision 2030 has three pillars:- to achieve an average economic growth rate of 10% per annum and sustain it to generate resources for national development (economic), achieve an issue-based, people-centered, results-oriented, and accountable democratic system (political) and to build a just and cohesive society with social equity in a clean and secure environment (social).

To get there requires enablers. First, macroeconomic stability with consistent fiscal and monetary policies to attract investment and fostering sustainable growth.

Second, intensified application of science and technology to increase productivity and efficiency across all sectors of the economy. This includes ICT infrastructure such as National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) and, the Konza Technopolis.

To create a globally competitive workforce, education and training must be enhanced to provide citizens with the skills needed for a rapidly industrialising economy.

This involves focusing on skills development, technical training, and fostering a knowledge-based society. That was the reasoning behind the introduction of the competency-based curriculum (CBC).

Infrastructure and energy are vital for the expansion opportunities and wealth creation for all. So the vision relies heavily on deploying world-class infrastructure.

This includes expanding and modernising roads, railways, airports, seaports, and water and sanitation facilities to increase connectivity and lower the cost of doing business.

The vision requires that we generate more energy at lower costs and increase efficiency in energy consumption to meet the demands of a growing economy. This includes exploiting renewables like geothermal, solar and wind power.

To deliver that infrastructure, Kenya has relied on debt financing. This has come at a cost. The public sector has crowded out the private in the credit market. This coincided with high interest rates.

That is why growth in credit to private sector is a critical policy question at this time.

When producers sell across county lines, they are faced with additional licensing costs.

Economists believe that the benefits of trade are more than the costs. An example is the CEREB region who estimated that these benefits would be sufficient for counties to reimburse each other what they would lose if they removed the single business permit costs of small business from neighboring counties.

@NdirituMuriithi, an economist and partner at Ecocapp Capital, advisory firm