Strategies needed to address key challenges

Kenya has laid a solid plan that will see the country define its economic path in the 2014-2015 fiscal year. No doubt the budget set a critical development agenda for the nation that could significantly boost Kenya’s investment profile. At a time the country has been under terror attack, the move by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, to allocate more resources to boost the country’s security would help restore the sterling business environment businesses have enjoyed for some time.

Crucially, the budget made substantial allocation to the country’s infrastructure, which mainly covers energy, roads, rail and ports. We laud the Treasury’s move on this.?However, there still remain huge problems facing this country such as poverty, unemployment and food scarcity. No doubt there were allocations made to address these challenges. Sadly, these were not enough to address this dire situation.

Today, the country churns out about 800,000 eligible employees every year. Of these, a paltry 50,000 get absorbed into the job market.

Robust strategies must be laid out to check this ticking time bomb, as referred to by the World Bank recently. The budget, too, looked too synthetic in the eyes of the million of yawning Kenyans who face severe shortages. What for instance, happened to the much-publicised Galana project that was allocated huge amounts of money in the last financial year??It is time the Government acted on its promises so as to give hope to millions of Kenyans who are very expectant of this administration.