Whither westerns economic trajectory
President Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in on 9th April 2013. It was three years of the Jubilee Government on 9th April 2016.
Between 17th and 22nd March 2016 the Jubilee Government cabinet secretaries hosted a three day Inter- Ministerial Public Symposium at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) where they were tasked to present their ministries performance score card to the people of Kenya in the past three years.
The President on 31st march 2016 gave his Annual State of the Nation Address to parliament, being both the Senate and the National Assembly articulating the Key milestones his Government had achieved and pronouncing the Government’s agenda for the next one year before Kenya holds its next General Elections in August 2017.
The question that the people of western Kenya must ask their elected leaders among others is whether the leaders and more specifically the Senators and Member of the National Assembly did attend the Inter-Ministerial Public Symposium held in March and interrogate the Cabinet Secretaries and what their respective Ministries had budgeted for the region and what was delivered and what was not and why it was not delivered?
What were the total budgetary resources allocated by each Ministry to the region and whether those resources ultimately reached the region and were or were not prudently utilized? For the Cabinet Secretary for transport to answer the question why the Standard Gauge Railway that was during the Grand Coalition Government 2008-2013 was publicly announced to run from Nairobi- Nakuru- Eldoret – Bungoma to Malaba was diverted to Nairobi –Narok- Kisumu and as an afterthought to Malaba.
The elected leaders of the Senate and the National Assembly are obligated to interrogate soberly the Presidents constitutionally mandated Annual State of the Nation Address to Parliament and demonstrate whether it captured any development projects specific to western Kenya or it was making a roll call of projects outside Western Kenya and biased in favor of the Nairobi county and Mombasa county and then mount specific attacks on the inequities inherent in the Jubilee Government allocation of public resources with the connivance of the National Assembly to the detriment and the marginalization of the region.
In the excitement for political ascendance in western Kenya of this or that party, one question that the political elite seems unable to articulate, to sell to their electorate is what is the economic trajectory the region is on whether or not it is in the ruling coalition. It will be foolhardy for the region to buy the balderdash of the political class that western must seek first the political kingdom (read Kenya’s Presidency) and then its economic problems will be resolved instantly thereafter.