Ruto's roadmap from Vision 2030 to First World needs clear directions

After witnessing weeks of populist pronouncements from car sunroofs exhorting Kenyans to stop being “average” for us to move “from third world to first”, we finally got to hear more about this latest brainwave by President William Ruto as he delivered his third State of the Nation Address to Parliament last Thursday.  

While he also railed against “naysayers” in his speech it is easy to cynically view this new idea as a fresh set of talking points having now exhausted the existing material he has bombarded the public with since assuming office in September 2022.

Some have remarked that the overall speech was a campaign pitch or another round of populist promises, little new in terms of substance and somewhat out of touch with reality “kwa ground”.  

The better way to look at it is Ruto was throwing down the gauntlet to potential 2027 rivals — this is what we’ve done (and we’ve done it successfully), and this is where we’re going. And it’s socio-economy on the ballot, hence zero mention of governance or security in the speech.

What exactly did President Ruto say on the future?  To begin, while Kenya has made commendable progress in the past 62 years, we are still punching “way below our true weight”. We have the talent, resources, and spirit to leapfrog ourselves from a developing to a developed country within our lifetime.

 We must abandon our current mindsets of contentment with the average and comfort with the familiar and ordinary, and “reach out, with courage, clarity, and conviction, for nothing less than excellence and greatness”.  Stated simply - IT.CAN.BE.DONE.

His roadmap to take Kenya to the next level will build around four national investment priorities.

First, investing in people (education, skills development, scientific training and innovation capacity) and growing the national research fund to two per cent of GDP (Sh320 to Sh350 billion); eventually Sh1 trillion in 10 years.  Second, investing in water and irrigation as part of the agro-strategy to turn Kenya from net importer to net exporter.

 Think 50 mega-dams, 200 medium/small dams and thousands of micro dams to cover 2.5 million acres of land in five to seven years. Third, investing in energy, specifically 10,000 megawatts of new power generation capacity in seven years.  

Finally, investing in transport and logistics.  Think 2,500 kilometres of new highways plus another 28,000 kilometres to be tarmacked in the next 10 years. Public-private partnerships deals will modernise Jomo Kenyatta International Airport including Mombasa and Lamu ports. Kenya Airways’ woes will be sorted out.  The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) will be extended from Naivasha to Kisumu, then Malaba.  

We also learn that the resource requirement for these four priorities is at least Sh5 trillion.  So, the media has been quick to call the whole idea Ruto’s 10-year, Sh5 trillion road map to Singapore.   

Less attention has been paid to the “no new debt” proposals to pay for this mega-endeavour through a privatisation proceeds-financed National Infrastructure Fund and a natural resource royalties and privatisation proceeds-funded Sovereign Wealth Fund. To be fair, the entire idea seems very raw, the proposals feel like a work-in-progress, and the devilish detail is yet to come.

Yet, again, it is easy to be skeptical.  Since their manifesto was low-key on projects, does this new infrastructure promise reflect a realisation that this regime lacks a flagship?  Remember, Uhuru did the SGR and doubled our tarmacked road network and power generation capacity (as well as GDP).  Notably, he called these the “economic acceleration” and “big push investments” parts of his legacy.  

This regime is yet to hit 2,000 new road kilometres, with no additions made to our power pool.  Of course, we shouldn’t forget Ruto inherited a tighter fiscal space than his predecessor.  Put a bit more crudely, “there was simply no more (project) budget to steal”

There is much to be said for a “balance sheet” approach which begins with an ambitious vision to be resourced, not the other way round.

 The task for government is one of marshalling the necessary resources towards the vision.  Where resources are not just the current (tax) or future (debt) revenue take, but what I call our seven “capitals”: land, physical, economic, financial, human, social and knowledge.  

Think “resources for wealth creation”, not “revenue” strategy.  Overall, it is fair to conclude that much of what we are hearing so far is encouraging in theory.

Less clear to most, however, is how this road map fits into Kenya’s current and forward policy, planning and budgeting context.  For multiple stakeholders, ranging from public servants within government to domestic and external markets to local and international development partners, two immediate questions arise.  

First, what does this mean for the administration’s current Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (Beta) and Fourth Medium-Term Plan under Kenya Vision 2030 (MTP IV)?  Second, what are this road map’s links to the successor long-term vision to Vision 2030 itself (with the related question – what does “first world” actually mean?)

In simple terms, does this road map shift, or even abandon, Kenya’s current development agenda? This question should not be dismissed.  What is the place of Beta’s six objectives (cost of living, food security, jobs, tax revenue, forex and inclusive growth), five vertical pillars (agriculture, MSMEs, affordable housing, universal health care and digital/creative) and five horizontal growth drivers (human capital and capital accumulation; market development, protection and regulation; domestic resource mobilization and optimal tax instruments; digital evolution and institutional reform) in this new road map?  

Remember, the President expects the current 13th Parliament to support this road map when we already have a development plan for this electoral term.

It’s even more telling when we look at the longer-term Vision 2030, which both the previous Jubilee and this current Kenya Kwanza administration showed reluctance to buy into.  As the vision comes to an end, consider that, if it had been executed faithfully and ruthlessly, we would be looking at a Sh39 trillion, and not Sh18 trillion, economy today; and a Sh52 trillion, not Sh22 trillion economy in 2027.  

In US dollar per capita income terms, that’s $4,800 not $2,200 today; close to $7,000, not $3,000 in 2027.  It doesn’t help that successive Medium-Term Plans to execute the vision toned it down to a Sh25 trillion economy today, Sh35 trillion in 2027.

Hence, two important lessons for this road map from Vision 2030’s sub-optimal achievement.  The first is we forgot its 25 goal statements (larger than Jubilee’s Big Four, or Kenya Kwanza’s Beta and now road map?) and rushed straight into medium-term plans and projects without an intermediating strategic framework to link visioning to planning.

 Second, as noted above, we allowed ourselves to tone down the vision’s ambition in successive medium-term plans, while introducing all manner of “tweaks” (Big Four, Beta) outside its big picture (the goal statements).

But here’s the real concern.  The East (China, Asian Tigers) transformed in a generation not simply by articulating their ambition, but by ensuring successive medium-term plans consistently aligned with the long-term vision, politics notwithstanding.  That’s what we miss; the discipline to stick to a long-term agenda.  If this road map is our successor vision will we connect these dots?

Oh, and here’s a final question for Ruto’s road map: what does first world, or developed, look like?  That’s our picture of tomorrow.  And what does third world, or developing look like?   That’s our picture of today.  Shouldn’t we first agree on these before rushing to quick answers?