NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 20- A report detailing the performance of the flagship projects outlined in the first phase of the Medium Term Plan (MTP) of the Vision 2030 will be out in a few months, a senior official at the Vision Delivery Secretariat has said.
Mugo Kibati the Director General of the Secretariat which is charged with ensuring the timely implementation of the projects told Capital Business that they are currently undertaking the annual performance review of the programs that commenced in the 2008/2009 financial year in order to access their progress.
“We are looking at the status of the flagship and other Vision 2030 projects and looking at what happened to them in 2008/2009. We hope to have the report in a couple of months and we shall be able to tell you where we are on the various projects,” he said.
It is from the review that they will also be able to estimate how much funds will be needed to execute the projects.
“We are going to have each ministry look at its projects and begin to quantify and cost those projects,” he added.
Mr Kibati said many projects such as infrastructure development that had been identified under the five year MTP up to 2012 had been commenced albeit with some delays occasioned by the effects of the post poll violence.
“The idea is not to finish the entire flagship in 2012. All we are doing now is to commence a program of more systematically coordinating monitoring and publicising what’s been going on,” the DG added.
He expressed optimism that despite the challenges that the country has been going through, all stakeholders would redouble their effort to achieve the goals set out in the development blueprint.
Under the first phase of the MTP, the country had targeted to achieve an economic growth rate of 10 percent but its upward trend was severely impacted by the skirmishes resulting in a growth of 1.7 percent in 2008.
“We need to ensure that even if we don’t attain the 10 percent, we attain something close to that. We’ll pick up from 2.5 percent this year, increase that in 2010, we increase that in 2011 and we see where we are in 2012,” he stated.
Financing of some the project has been an issue particularly after the government was forced to divert funds to emergency programs such as the relief food to feed the millions of Kenyans that were facing starvation.
“This is a challenge that is going to continue facing the government, the private sector and the people of Kenya,” he admitted adding that they were working on initiatives to encourage the business community to mobilise financing.
About 80 percent of the programs are expected to be financed through Public Private Partnerships (PPP) thus the formulation of regulations to encourage the private sector’s participation.
Early this year, Treasury developed some new PPP rules and regulations and it is currently in the process of a Secretariat to help vet and regulate PPP projects.
“In the process of always improving the environment, we want to look at what has happened so far in PPPs and see whether we can better the framework, can we perhaps have an Act of Parliament,” Mr Kibati said.
There has been a lot of pessimism on whether the goals outlined in the blue print are going to be achieved. The Director General however said that this will change as soon as some of the projects come into fruition.
“Vision 2030 is a huge daunting task but over the next few years people will begin to see the success which will give them the confidence to become optimistic. But I urge them not to wait for that because we need everybody to come together to be able to do this work,” he appealed.
The DG added that the current efforts to have a new constitution and implement the Agenda Four reforms would all work towards ensuring a stable Kenya and contribute towards the realisation of the Vision.
