Kenya needs to expand the manufacturing sector to create jobs

By Ken Opalo

NAIROBI, KENYA: As the Cabinet and Principal Secretaries get down to work, many have been reading the tea leaves to determine who is the most powerful, and hence most important. In my view, as far as the country’s economic future is concerned, the most important Cabinet Secretary is Adan Mohamed, Secretary for Industrialisation and Enterprise Development. According to official figures Kenya has an unemployment rate of 40 per cent. That translates to about eight million people among the working age population. And to make matters worse, this number is on the lower side. Millions more Kenyans remain underemployed, barely scraping a living on subsistence agriculture and other informal economic activities.