President William Ruto on Thursday afternoon addressed a joint sitting of parliament, the senate and national assembly.
In his state of the nation address, the head of state addressed several issues in the country amongst them included, education, sugar, sector, tax, affordable housing, and health amongst others.
On education the president said several universities in the country were facing severe challenges of bankruptcy and were facing a possible closure. The institutions included Kenyatta University, Masinde Muliro University, Moi University, Maseno University among others.
To address the issue of shortage of teachers, the president said that the government has already hired 56, 00 teachers and the government plans to hire another 20, 000 teachers by January next year.
He said that the government has also ensured the seamless transition of learners from primary to junior secondary and domiciled grade eight and nine in primary school optimizing the use of infrastructure ensuring the safety of young learners and protecting the parents.
On agriculture, the president said that the country has got 6.4 million registered farmers in 45 counties. He said that this year alone, the government procured through E vouchers managed to distribute seven million bags of both planting and top dressing fertilizers to boost food production across the country.
The head of state said that the intervention will see a projected increase in maize production for example to a record of 74 million of 90 kilogram bags. He said that the government has concluded a long term agreement with 11 suppliers of assorted fertilizers so as to make this commodity available all year round.
He said that at the moment Kenya boasts substantial national stocks of 47 million bags of 90 kilograms bags of maize, 8.8 million bags of beans are the government stores, 10.4 million bags of wheat and 2.1 million bags of rice, adding that that is an indicator of a food secure nation.
On health, the president said that health delivery is not about fulfilling the constitutional obligation on whatever level of government but rather ensuring that health is not a privilege for a few who affords and a pipe dream for many who cannot.
He said our health care system has historically neglected the poor and the vulnerable in society, leaving them with no option. He said that with SHA, the government plans to correct the mess once and for all.
Oh affordable housing program, the head of state made it clear that Kenya has a serious housing deficit and that the cost of housing is beyond the reach of the common majority.
He said that the government plans to give a solution by constructing 200,000 units every year for a period of ten years.
He defended the case by saying that the only way of protecting the land in rural areas that enables the country to yield enough food is by building affordable housing to avoid land fragmentation.
The head of state made the members of the two houses of parliament break loose after announcing the cancellation of the Adani deals.
The president said that according to the information provided to his government by partner’s nations, he had directed the agencies within the Ministry of transport and the ministry of energy and petroleum to immediately cancel the ongoing procurement process for JKIE expansion as well as the recently concluded KETRAC transmission partnership.
