Cooperatives, MSMEs Development Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugi has affirmed the government’s commitment to transforming the lives of Kenyans through the fulfilment of Vision 2030, which aims to create a globally competitive and prosperous country with a high quality of life by 2030.
In his speech, when he led a team from National Treasury and Economic Planning during the Medium Term Planning (MTP) IV dissemination forum at the Eldoret National Polytechnic Friday, Chelugui said Vision 2030 aims to transform Kenya into a new industrialised, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to its citizens in a clean and secure environment.
He noted that the government, in line with its Bottom-Up Transformation Agenda (BETA), is geared towards economic turnaround through a value chain approach targeting sectors like agriculture, finance, and others with the most impact on driving economic recovery.
The CS affirmed that the MTP IV has been aligned with the BETA, which will thus provide an impetus for the achievement of the Vision 2030 objectives.
Noting that the MTP IV is a very important document in the delivery of the last mile of Vision 2030, he said that they have had several plans that the government has pursued since it was launched at KICC 2008 by the late president Mwai Kibaki, in line with Vision 2030.
“We seek to be a country with equitable resources, fair distribution of development and progress, and improvement of the welfare of the people, including education, health care, access to clean water, and others, which is the running call behind the vision 2030,” said CS Chelugui.
“BETA ensures rational resource allocation by eliminating wastage of resources occasioned by duplication, fragmentation, and ineffective coordination in the implementation of programmes and projects,” he said.
In his remarks, Immigration and Citizens Services Principal Secretary Julius Bitok, underscored that the MTP IV priority sectors, which include finance and production, infrastructure, social, environmental, and natural resources, governance, and public administration, resonate with the BETA core pillars of Agriculture, the MSMEs economy, housing and Settlement, health care, digital super highway, and the creative economy.
“The objective of the government is to bring down the cost of living by lowering the annual inflation rate by 5 per cent, eradicating hunger, creating 1.2 million jobs every year, expanding the tax base by increasing revenue collection to 19.7 per cent of GDP by 2027/2028, improving foreign exchange balance, and achieving inclusive growth,” noted the PS.
Prof. Bitok called on all the accounting officers in the public sector to exercise frugality in order to minimise loss of resources through mismanagement and other forms of maladministration so as to ensure public resources are utilised for intended purposes to help drive forward development in the country.
“The president is working very hard out there; we cannot afford to let him down. it is our duty as local leaders to ensure that we come together as a team to deliver the best for the people of Uasin Gishu County and Kenya at large,” noted Amb Bitok.
He expressed concern that, even as we look at these plans, one of the biggest challenges in government is the wastage of resources and called on all the responsible personnel to exercise prudence in the discharge of resources.
“I want to call all of us both in the county and national government, let us be prudent. One thing that made Europe grow in the last years is frugality in the utilisation of resources. Let us ensure that what we are doing, we are efficient in the discharge of resources to ensure we are moving forward,” stated Amb Bitok.
He lauded the Uasin Gishu County Administration for the proper implementation and alignment of the CIDP and county-specific projects/programmes to the fourth MTP, 2023-2027.
Uasin Gishu Governor Jonahan Chelilim pointed out that his administration, through the Nguzo Kumi agenda, had put in place proper structures to align its CIDP with the MTP IV to ensure the county programmes align with the national ones to ensure the achievement of Kenya’s Vision 2030.
The county-specific programmes and projects in the fourth MTP include the Credit Guarantee Scheme (CGS), Financing Locally Led Climate Action Plan (FLLoCA), Nairobi International Finance Centre (NIFC), digitising all payments into government to increase revenue collection and minimise the cost of collection, and others.
Others present at the event were PSs, Dr. Belio Kipsang (Education), Harry Kimutai (Health), Eng Peter Tum (Sports), Directors Joseph Mwangi (Immigration and Citizen Services) and David Kiboi (Economic Planning) among others.
By Ekuwam Sylvester and Judy Too
