Uhuru’s priorities
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s prime responsibility to Kenyan people is to provide at least 1 million quality jobs per year, create a low cost economy, and provide security.
In order to support mortgage uptake, he must do a few important things: Facilitate lowering of bank interest rates, build at least 150,000 low cost houses per year for tenant purchase so as to migrate landlord capital to industrial sector, and create employment.
He may also consider it very important to intervene in the budgetary process and work towards 50:50 sharing of development vote to recurrent expenditure in two years. This would stop wastage and corruption among public officers, and align the wage bill with best practice.
Further on job creation, there are certain things that can be done immediately. All foreigners doing jobs Kenyans can do should be told to leave. Industrialists must be persuaded to provide internship to college students. The government can also build industrial parks targeting agricultural value addition.
Additionally, all KTDA factories can be converted into export processing zones. This would create a lot of packaging, design and marketing jobs in the countryside. The same thing can be done for the coffee sub-sector.
KARIUKI MUIRI KARATINA
