"Power, the road and rail net work, tourism, agriculture, security will be addressed to catalyse the motion of our sluggish economy,".

There is little revolutionary or even visionary about this. Already under the President Kibaki led NARC government, KenGen, the main contributor to the national electricity grid has embarked on new projects to generate over 700MW of diversified power generation including further geothermal exploration and wind-powered generators in the Ngong' area. In addition, the company has also, in line with requirements of its listing at the Nairobi Stock Exchange, cemented a more open and prudent approach to financial management and reporting.

Further, the Kibaki government has brought before Parliament a new Energy Bill that strongly supports renewable energy and rural electrification. As a result Rural Electrification funds are at record high. More than this, the key corporations charged with energy provision, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company and KenGen have been turned around from perennial financial black holes into profit making entities with improved responsiveness to the growing energy demands of Kenya. The obvious and glaring faux pas in the hand-over of KPLC to the Canadian Manitoba Hydro International (MHI)  and the buying off of KPLC holdings by the State House affiliated Trans-Century Group.

Ruto also lists as a priority the need to sort out Kenya's roads, a project the NARC government has taken to with particular gusto. Cowboy contractors, long the bane of the country's efforts at road development have been largely put aside as the cost of road repair has gone down drastically. The creation of the Rural Roads Authority, Urban Roads Authority and Highway Roads Board; and the use of infrastructure bonds and asset-backed financing have revolutionized infrastructure development.

A well informed William Ruto, educated with the knowledge of sustainable solutions for Kenyans would have developed his vision along similar lines. It would have been useful to hear from Ruto whether an administration under him would discard these projects or enhance their implementation- and how fast would it do this. Ruto should have proposed that we push for KenGen to diversify further into sustainable renewable energy and list a few strategies as examples of how that can be achieved. He also speaks of forests, conveniently forgetting the plunder of Karura Forest while he was at the Office of the President. His suggestion on tree planting, that each person holding a title deed would be expected to grow trees on 10 per cent of the land, seemed ridiculous in this context, a cosmetic measure that does not address the key problem with deforestation in Kenya.

On Kenyan agriculture, the ODM-K presidential candidate was adamant that Kenya needs to start producing more finished/ processed products in the country, instead of exporting non-value added raw materials. Again this is empty rhetoric devoid of substance; it needs to be backed up by a plan. The government of President Kibaki has shown this actively by rejuvenating the Kenya Cooperative Creameries, the Kenya Meat Commission and spending money on the revitalization of the sugar and coffee industries.

On CDF, we want to first see Mr. Ruto's track record on administering the fund itself before we pay any heed to his calls for its increase. Indeed we want to hear Mr. Ruto own up that the Harambee model that he so much participated in during the past regime was unsustainable in fostering development much as he religiously took part in it. Further than that thank his fellow MP, Ol Kalou MP, Karue for the idea of CDF while Ruto was in the same parliament, otherwise making it his idea amounts to stealing some intellectual property from the Ol Kalou MP. We want to know how he will create structures that will make the fund work in synergy with other government ministries development funds.

In wooing the nation to cast its vote for Ruto, what we should have been hearing was a plan to encourage other value added processes, like reviving the cloth factories of Western Kenya or improving the efficiency of small-scale farmers, out-growers and pastoralists through the provision of free and efficient extension and veterinary services by investing such a percentage of the national income on agriculture, and forego a similar amount from the expenditure on defense, etc.

This is what a well-thought-out vision should proclaim. It should include realistic time-lines, be actionable and accountable. If Ruto becomes our choice for the Presidency, we must be able after two years of his government, to check his achievements against a list of his promises, as we are now doing with President Kibaki. Anything less casts doubts over his credibility and his passion for service of the Kenyan people.

To make a break with the past, we must also expect that Hon. Ruto make a clean breast of his past, for a president no matter how visionary is burdened by a questionable past.

William Ruto would do well to remember the fiscal mess created by YK92 and its money printing business. This we must hope is not the monetary discipline his vision portends. He must now elaborate how he would manage interest rates during his guardianship of our economy and what plans he has to see rates dip beneath their current 9% level. It would be good of him to cast back an eye towards his track record in the 8th parliament with regard to his contribution in public and private finance issues. In his opinion piece cited, Ruto says

"Our nation cannot prosper with over one half of the population excluded from the mainstream economic circuit. And so I plan to institute and sustain pragmatic affirmative measures to bring the 56% mass of the poor and the excluded to the economic high table, by deliberately empowering them to realize their full potential. With equity as my tool for universal empowerment, I commit myself to raise the bar of popular investment by placing resources and decision making means directly in the palms of ordinary Kenyans in the villages and towns across the length and breadth of our land. "

We can overlook the Hon. Ruto's past and give him the benefit of doubt, but it would be interesting  to know how else the farmer would be empowered than the current government has done. What competitive advantage does his method have over Kibaki's?

We want to hear what the 'paradigm shift' is. We want to hear how well the co-operative movement will be utilized better than now or how it will be discarded and what will replace it. Above all we want to hear the specifics of how this will be done. While Ruto proclaims equality and empowerment for the youth, we want to see how much better it'll be done, not mere ideological grand-standing but actionable strategies on the field like the Muthurwa market giving hawkers a new lease of life that was commissioned recently by Kibaki. We want some defined strategies that go beyond the 1 billion youth fund , for example how to structure it as a fund for Jua Kali commercialization fund or how to increase the exchequers contribution to this fund.

He should also seek to explain to us just why we ought to believe his vision is true, given his participation and profit from a government that brought about the mess he so eloquently speaks about in this opinion piece here. Unless he does that, we are likely to take his pronouncements on security, fiscal management and economic development with a rather large pinch of salt.