NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 11 – Legislators in the Senate and the National Assembly are today expected to begin debating President William Ruto’s State of the Nation address delivered last week.
The three day debate will give lawmakers an opportunity to scrutinize the President’s assessment of the country’s political, economic, and social progress over the past year.
During the address, the President unveiled an ambitious 5 trillion Shillings plan to ‘move Kenya from developing to developed’ status, anchored on large-scale investment in people, irrigation, energy, and transport – and financed without piling on unsustainable debt.
He said Kenya must ‘cast off the prevailing mindset of being content with the average’ and emulate Asian Tigers such as South Korea and Malaysia, which he said rose through discipline, strategic investment and refusal to accept mediocrity.
Ruto said his administration will be driven by four national priorities namely massive investment in education, a nationwide water harvesting and irrigation drive.
He will also push an aggressive scale-up of power generation; and a ten-year transport and logistics upgrade, including roads, ports, airports and railway.
The President also announced an ambitious infrastructure plan that includes the dualling of 2,500 kilometres of major roads across the country.
He acknowledged that the mapping and design work for the dualling programme has already been completed and will target key transport corridors to ease traffic congestion, improve connectivity, and spur regional trade.
Ruto unveiled an unprecedented national water infrastructure programme that will see the construction of at least 50 mega dams across the country, alongside 200 medium and small dams and thousands of micro-dams.
