Session Paper on Vision 2030

Basically this session paper needs the input of ODM, ODM-K and PNU so that it can attain a national image. With the input of all parliament, this will gain the collective aspirational vision of all Kenyans and be the basis upon which all future ideas will be promoted to the people. As stated elsewhere this is definitive wider roadmap to which we should align other goals and plans to at the ministerial, departmental, district and constituency level.

Science and Innovation Policy

This is most critical for the industrialisation process. What has failed Kenya, and set it back in comparison to the newly industrialised countries has been a failure to innovate, a failure to take up technology and with it craft a future that produces more wealth and creates more employment.

However, it is also critical that any progress in this is accompanied by synergistic efforts in the policies on health, education, government procurement, construction, transport, communication and agriculture. The urgency and centrality of scientific progress and innovation to the development effort make it a central theme of Vision 2030. For both public and private sectors of the economy, a clear strategy for the implementation stages on innovation and the technology transfer from other nations needs to be well though-out. Policies aimed at the commercialisation of these new technologies must be enacted with the business and financial facilities customised to enable their dealing with such start-ups.

Part of this commercialisation effort will require that the inventions are geared towards solving global and domestic challenges, like global warming, peak oil and climate change, to drive satisfy urgent local demand and boost exports. Solutions for renewable energy, biotechnology and healthcare present such opportunities as do applications for mobile commerce. Of critical consideration are Intellectual Property laws that enhance innovation by balancing between protecting and promoting innovators on the one hand and encouraging the sharing of such improvements a would allow cooperation and permit further building on previous effort on the other hand.

Establishment of a Technical Industrial Vocation and Entrepreneurial Training Authority

In tandem with the above, this is an urgent effort that should work a great deal to improve the lives of the Kenyan people. The establishment of this authority should bring about the quality training of tradesmen and build on the previously announced effort by the President that fully equipped polytechnics would be built in every constituency across the country. Looking at the success of this strategy in Singapore one cannot fail to see the potential this has for developing Kenya.

The Singaporean example also provides a hint at those who should be charged with delivering and driving this policy. A combination of industry leaders, entrepreneurs, educationists and policy makers serves to cover the entire spectrum of stakeholders involved in this transformative process.

Kenya needs to urgently revitalise her mid-level tertiary education so that we are producing workers that will serve to boost efficiency and quality of service in tourism, light engineering, electrical, carpentry, construction, information technology, food production, etc. At the same time, such developments must be promoted not just as a means of churning out employees in greater numbers, but also as a means to spurring an entrepreneurial culture of technically qualified men and women who will understand business dynamics and be driven towards creating jobs and opportunities for other Kenyans.

National Construction Company

This is a timely idea with colossal potential for Kenya. Efforts such as the devolution of funds to the regions through CDF and LATF are likely first beneficiaries of this, which will be the first effort at capacity building for local contractors. In addition, it opens up the possibilities of joint-ventures with international companies to create stronger, more capable local contractors that may even end up listed on the Nairobi bourse.

An effort must be made to increase the efficiency and delivery capacity of the Kenyan construction industry. While every care must be taken to ensure that the public are not saddled with sub-standard work from local contractors, efforts must at the same time be made to create such alliances as would aid a transfer of skills and technology from more experienced international contractors to the local ones. It is important that local ownership and capacity are built up, and that no sector of the economy is overly dominated by foreign and external interests.

But this advance will not come easy. To ensure that talent, enterprise and capital are brought together; a fund should be set up to finance contractors' business development initiatives across the board from equipment leasing firms, engineering consulting shops to the actual construction companies.

Kenya has paid a high price for its toleration of the existence of the brief-case contractor who is by his very nature nothing more than a means to corruption and a denying of opportunity to those engineers, architects and contractors who really deserved it. What we were left with were brief-case companies that did not invest in the further training and development of all the talent that was being churned-out by the universities and the national polytechnics. So it was that we find ourselves lamenting a lack of executive capacity while the skills paid for by our taxes are wasted in countless Kenyans who find themselves unable to utilise what they have learned.

Singapore suffered the very same problem in the early 70s and it is important that we take this initiative seriously, use it to impart on the entire nation the dignity of home-grown, home-developed solutions that are every day allowing Kenyan talent to deliver its promise.

Infrastructure development financing through public-private partnerships (PPP)

Last year Finance Minister Amos Kimunya was in London to negotiate the listing of an infrastructure bond. With the global credit market upended, the progress of this bond does not seem entirely promising. Recent reports of a reassessment of Kenya's credit rating by Standard & Poor will serve to allay such fears as were caused by the post-election violence and provide an opportunity for a renegotiation.

But even were that international listing not to work out, we need to encourage greater investment from local investors. The excess liquidity still evident in the monetary system can be directed at infrastructure bonds that would support the much needed revitalisation and expansion of Kenya's roads, ports, railways, energy and housing sectors. Banks ought to diversify into infrastructure funds and take up stakes in certain major infrastructure projects like the intercity rail system, commodity rails linking Kenya to southern Sudan, Rwanda, and even Ethiopia. The idea of a free port of Lamu needs to be put into serious consideration as a possible syndication deal with investment bankers who will develop it and operate it for a stipulated period of time before handing it back to the state. 

Similar initiatives are needed for the rapid and high quality construction of the countries major arteries like the Mombasa-Busia highway.

Synergizing the PNU, ODM and ODM-K manifestos

This would work well to show that all parties are genuine in their desire to provide a government that gives the best to Kenya's people. The traditional means by which the electorate hold a government to account is the consideration of its manifesto. With the parties manifestoes often offering up contradictory positions, the coalition must offer the Kenyan public, investors and business people a document by which our expectations for the next five years can be arrived at and this administration held to account against.

In this effort, the parties will also come to a working arrangement that will dictate the coordination between various ministries goals and targets. It presents an opportunity for the parties to sell their ideas to each other in a less competitive atmosphere and for Kenya to get what is the very best of the alternatives. It also allows the parties to explain to the public the development priorities and whether or not the funds are available to execute these projects without using incendiary ethnicity-based arguments. In this synergy we can re-capture the national energy and harness it towards the delivery of a new Kenya, one that has been contributed to by the entirety of the population's representatives.