I cannot claim to be an economic expert. I am a chemical engineer domiciled in energy sector. But I have the privilege of having observed since independence what has worked and failed to work for Kenya by way of socio-economic development.
I believe the country should revert to long-term socio-economic visioning and planning, to avoid disjointed and often hurried short-term development projects based on politically serving five-year electoral manifestos.
Long-term planning permits wider consultation and participation, with opportunities for expert input. It allows leadership to see the wider view of where Kenya should be heading.
In 1960s it was the Ministry of Economic Planning & Development under Tom Mboya that set the stage for long-range socio-economic planning, with implementation by Commerce and Industry minister Mwai Kibaki and Agriculture minister Bruce Mackenzie, among others. Yes, there was the usual politics, but this never interfered with development plans.
Come 1970s, Kenya was heading for economic tiger status. However, in 1980/90s economic looting, bad politics and the infamous IMF-imposed solutions damaged most of what had been achieved. The IMF had prescribed market economies focused on imported consumption at the expense of local production.
When Mr Kibaki became president in 2003, he prioritised re-setting Kenya’s economic path via Vision-2030. The word “roadmap” became a popular vocabulary guiding government and business into the future. However, Vision 2030 was mostly ignored by subsequent governments, as other quickly conceived projects and programmes took precedence.
Vision 2030 had long-term ICT projects, which began with laying of internet cables and digitisation through private players like Safaricom.
The Lapsset masterplan was to open up northern Kenya while enabling trade with northern neighbours. Pathways for long-term revival of agriculture, manufacturing and extractive sectors were detailed and implementation commenced. Skilling and funding of future development were part of Vision 2030.
It is important that Kenya embarks on writing Vision 2050 to define a development strategy for the next 30 years, reflecting emerging global opportunities and challenges.
Guiding principles should be gainful jobs for all working-age Kenyans, national food security and affordable safety nets. It is also timely to assess devolution's effectiveness and its value addition to Kenya’s GDP.
The Ministry of Planning should be strengthened and detached from the Treasury to avoid obvious conflicts.
We should not shy away from benchmarking Tanzania’s success in long-term economic visioning, planning and implementation, which is working well for that country. We should also question ourselves whether intensely competitive politics is helping us.
A conducive political atmosphere under effective leadership always aids sustainable progressive development. President Moi once said “Siasa Mbaya, Maisha Mbaya.”