Team proposes ways to put money in people's pockets

The handshake team wants a leaner budget as part of its proposals aimed at securing all-inclusive economic growth.

The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) taskforce, which was formed in March last year following a truce between political rivals President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, wants the economy restructured to allow the national cake to be shared widely.

Towards this end, the BBI team wants the country’s tax base broadened without over-burdening taxpayers.

It also proposes that banks ring-fence funds for small businesses, export credit, manufacturing, housing, education, health, renewable energy, sanitation and waste management, and agriculture.

The task force wants the Government to stop spending most of its money on salaries and wages, and instead pump additional funds into roads, dams and power stations, among other key investments.

The team that was chaired by Garissa Senator Yusuf Haji also wants Kenya to integrate more with its neighbours as a means of opening up its export market.

The task force went around the country consulting citizens, leaders, institutions, civil society, the private and religious sectors, and other stakeholders on thorny issues facing the country.

The views that they collected as well as proposed solutions to long-standing national problems were shared in a report that was handed to the President yesterday at State House.

The document will be launched today at the Bomas of Kenya.

In efforts to unite the country, the team sought to know how Kenyans wanted the national cake shared. To this end, the team vouched for an economy that was built from the grassroots.

“It is not enough to merely improve our economic output and present rates of investment. We must entirely transform the way our economy operates if we are to deal with the present lack of jobs,” reads part of the abridged report.

The economy has been going through a rough patch in recent months with businesses closing shop and hundreds of workers losing their jobs.

While the gross domestic product (GDP) has grown, citizens insist that the benefits have not trickled down into their pockets.

Economists, including Central Bank Governor Patrick Njoroge, have blamed this on the country’s skewed growth that has been driven mostly by public expenditure as opposed to the private sector.

“It is true you have GDP numbers but you cannot eat GDP,” said Dr Njoroge recently during the launch of the International Monetary Fund regional outlook report.

According to the governor, Kenyans needed specific income and jobs. “That is why we say the central composition of growth is important because if it is just driven by infrastructure, that doesn’t quite bring income to your grandmother. She needs to care not because it is 6.5 per cent but because of what really hits her pocketbook.”

Other recommendations to push economic benefits to the grassroots included increasing national domestic savings to at least 25 per cent of GDP, a huge undertaking that will require great effort.  

dakure@standardmedia.co.ke