‘Vision 2030 has made strides in growth targets’

To most Kenyans, Vision 2030 might be just that, a vision. Not to James Mwangi, the chairman of Vision 2030 Delivery Board.

Dr Mwangi, who is also the chief executive of Equity Bank, last week met numerous CEOs representing different Government agencies to take stock of the progress of the country’s development blueprint over the last 10 years.

He believes Kenya has achieved half of Vision 2030 goals. This is after all the fundamentals necessary for take-off into the sphere of the upper middle-income countries were put in place.

Never mind that Kenya is yet to grow by double digits as envisaged in the blueprint, but income per person has more than doubled since President Mwai Kibaki unveiled the development roadmap in 2008.

Mwangi, thus, has no doubt that in the remaining 12 years, Kenya will achieve double-digit growth and become an upper middle income country.

The Vision 2030 Board declared the political pillar of the vision -- others being social and economic pillar -- a success. The board, which comprises representatives from the private and public sectors, said it was impressed by the manner in which the political environment had shaped up.

The two General Elections in 2013 and 2017 indicated that the country’s economy might have broken free from the five-year cycle in which the economic growth dips with every election.

In 2008, gross domestic product dropped, growing at extremely slow pace of 1.5 per cent compared to a decent growth of 6.9 per cent in 2007.

Mwangi believes the country has since found the solution to this problem: empowered institutions, such as the electoral commission, Judiciary, Director of Public Prosecutions and various security organs.

He said the three arms of Government have constantly been checking each other, denying the Presidency the imperial powers it enjoyed before.

And with the 2010 Constitution, power and resources were also devolved to mwananchi, a factor that might have played a role in reducing the clout of the Presidency, a trophy for which some hunters were even willing to kill.

So independent and fearless is the judiciary, says Mwangi, that it can overturn the election of an incumbent President. “That is what we wanted for our country."

Teething problems

Moreover, he adds, Kenya’s politics is slowly getting issue-based. “Our politics has now matured to become issue-based,” he says.

There are a few teething problems with devolution, but so far it has been a success.

“We created devolution in counties that were never centres of human capital and will be sometime before they evolve,” says the Vision 2030 chairman, noting that counties such as Mandera had few schools and health centres.

“But I am sure in the next 12 years, the county government structures will have fully evolved,” he said.

The board have also done a lot in primary education and are now moving to free day secondary education.

“Children can now stay in school for 12 years,” Mwangi says.

Effort is now being put on quality of education, with authorities keen on stamping out cheating in exams. Quality of teaching is also being looked at, with teachers being retrained. On health, there were two referral hospitals, now there are 98.

“A caesarean operation could only be done at Kenyatta National Hospital, now it is being done at Moyale and Mandera,” Mwangi says.

But there are challenges too. As much as Kenya doubled its GDP per capita, many citizens are still poor and cannot access quality healthcare or clean drinking water.

Mwangi knows this too well, saying the country might have achieved growth but not development; that it has not had significant dent on the poverty and inequality.

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