BY OLIVER MATHENGE
When they launched their manifesto on February 3, 2013, Jubilee Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto promised double-digit growth of the economy.
The duo promised to create at least a million jobs a year and keep the exchange and interest rates in check.
Two-and-a-half-years later, the President and Deputy President’s economic manifesto that had promised great things seems to be slipping through their fingers.
Instead of the 7 to 10 per cent growth for the first two years, the Jubilee administration is revising its targets downwards, from 6.5 per cent to 6 per cent.
Even the World Bank does not see the country hitting double-digit figures any time soon, with a forecast of 5.4 per cent in 2015, 5.7 per cent for 2016 and 6.2 per cent for 2017.
The Jubilee administration has recorded slower economic growth than was registered in President Mwai Kibaki’s first term.
When he came to power in 2003, Kibaki found the economy growing at only 2.8 per cent, but raised this to 8.0 per cent by 2007.
Though economic growth was slowed down to -0.4 per cent by the post-election violence, Kibaki was able to raise it to 8.6 per cent by 2010.
Uhuru found economic growth at 4.6 per cent in 2013 and has only managed to raise it by less than one per cent, with 5.3 per cent recorded in 2014.
Another key highlight of the Jubilee manifesto was an economy that would generate at least one million jobs every year from 2013.
According to government data, the economy generated a total of 742,300 new jobs in both the formal and informal? sectors in 2013 and 799,000 in 2014.
Even with these additions, the government is preparing to raise the jobless numbers by about 50,000 in a planned retrenchment to tame the wage bill.
The Jubilee Coalition had also promised to “cut waste and fight corruption so that public resources are spent wisely and properly”. This is yet to be achieved, with the Auditor-General and Controller of Budget frequently questioning government spending both at the national and county levels.
Corruption has yet to be controlled, with Jubilee being implicated in a number of suspicious transactions.
These include, but are not limited to, the Sh791 million loss at the National Youth Service, a department of the Ministry of Devolution and Planning.
Uhuru and Ruto said they would tackle corruption through deployment of the Integrated Financial Management Information System – but irregular transactions are being made through the IFMIS.
Indeed, the President was forced to suspend almost a third of his Cabinet after they were adversely mentioned in mega corruption scandals.
Two of the Cabinet Secretaries, including Lands’ Charity Ngilu, whose party's manifesto was fused with the Jubilee blueprint, have been charged in court.
The Jubilee Coalition had also promised to “reduce the public deficit so that the Government spends more money on services instead of paying off Kenya’s debt”.
However, in the first quarter of the 2015/16 financial year, the government used almost half of the revenues collected during the period to pay the public debt.
Yesterday, three of the four ferries in the Likoni Channel broke down, causing a stampede and impacting the coastal economy adversely.
The Jubilee manifesto had promised to promote Kenya as an end destination rather than a stopover, with the aim of doubling the number of tourists to 3 million visitors a year.
Instead, the country has seen a slowdown in tourist arrivals, with hotels in the tourism belt of the coastal region closed down most of the year.
Jubilee Economic Promises at a glance:
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