Budget speeches more rhetoric than reality

This has even forced the Ministry of Transport to take over the project from the inept Kenya Railways Corporation.
 
“The purpose of the project was to reduce the ever increasing cost of transport within the region, facilitate faster and cheaper movement of freight and passengers and enhance competitiveness, while saving on our newly rehabilitate road network,” said Uhuru.

Uhuru also allocated Sh5.6 billion to the Rural Electrification Programme to facilitate supply of power from the national grid to 460 trading centres and 110 secondary schools, among other public facilities countrywide but these projects are yet to be implemented.

On the issue of oil and oil products importation that continues to gulp a huge chunk of the country’s import bill and is a cause of high cost of basic products, Uhuru revealed that taskforce had been constituted to review and advise on the best reform options to address the challenges associated with the importation, refining, storage, transportation and distribution of fuel.

To date nothing has been heard about the taskforce or its findings and recommendations.
But probably the area that Uhuru’s budget was centered on, besides infrastructure, was agriculture.

Uhuru committed about Sh100 billion to various agricultural projects ranging from irrigation schemes, fish farming, and provision of water to arid and semi-arid areas as well as livestock farming, among others whose object was to ensure food security.

A year down the line most of these projects are yet to take off and Kenya continues to depend on the unpredictable rain-fed agriculture for food production.

Jobless youth
In his budget, Uhuru also emphasised on the issue of youth unemployment and how it remains a time bomb if not addressed. To tackle youth unemployment, he allocated funds for various programmes like the Kenya Youth Empowerment Project, sports programmes, digital villages, business process outsourcing and increased allocations to the Youth Enterprise Development Fund.

But these programmes have achieved little in empowering the youth, something that makes them vulnerable to manipulation by politicians.