President Uhuru Kenyatta’s ‘Big 4’ legacy will not be achieved because of one thing.
Lack of trust!
Lack of trust in the government among Kenyans is the biggest hindrance to realising the Big Four agenda, according to Housing and Development Principal Secretary Charles Hinga.
Hinga said while many Kenyans understood the importance of ongoing development projects, mistrust still remained a challenge in realising the blueprint.
He said there is need to ensure Kenyans buy into the government’s Big Four agenda during a knowledge sharing workshop organised by Vision 2030 secretariat in Mombasa.
“Trust remains an issue among Kenyans, who are ready to invest in the housing projects but fear losing their hard-earned money,” he said.
The Jubilee government plans to create 1.3 million manufacturing jobs by 2022 and achieve a 100 per cent health coverage for every Kenyan.
This means that an average of 706 jobs will have to be created each day to achieve the 1.29 million target.
Uhuru also seeks to raise the share of manufacturing sector from nine to 15 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2022, expand food production and supply, provide universal health coverage for all Kenyan homes and build 500,000 affordable houses.
“During the next five years, I will dedicate the energy, time and resources of my administration to the Big Four,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said when he listed the projects.
On the other hand, his Planning counterpart Julius Muia said one of the challenges in achieving vision 2030 is that many of the projects are large-scale and are, therefore, taking too long to complete.
However, he said implementation of Vision 2030 is still on course, adding that the Big Four agenda is part of the vision.
Muia said although the government had kicked off plans to build 500,000 homes by 2022 to reduce the cost of home ownership, the duration of implementing the project was a key challenge to realising the dream.
He said planning and financing, especially from the private sector, was still slow.
“The main challenge in accomplishing the projects is in their sizes as they take way too much time to complete since the construction is being undertaken by the government and the private sector,” said Muia.