What Uhuru wants his successor to do
President Uhuru Kenyatta has invited the next government to borrow two lessons from his administration, even as he exits office.
Speaking during the 59th Madaraka Day celebrations, President Uhuru Kenyatta said that corruption has been the greatest undoing in development, which hindered development projects when he took power in 2013.
He says that his government has been forced to use the military to return sanity to a number of state organisations, that have been riddled with corruption.
Among the state organisations that were handed over to the military include the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) which was making losses, but has turned around to profit-making according to the President.
KMC was handed to the military in September 2020, after operating below capacity for years due to an unreliable supply of raw material and an ageing plant.
“When we gave them the Kenya Meat Commission to manage, they turned it into a profit-making enterprise in record time,” President Kenyatta said.
"When we took over in 2013, some of the state corporations were “...rotten from the core and to the core”. We had to “…drain the swamp” from the inside-out. But we had to balance this ‘clean-up’ exercise with accelerated performance. That is why we turned to the disciplined forces and summoned them to the course of nation-building."
Uhuru added, "The other institution worth of mention is the Kenya Shipyard Limited. This institution had collapsed due to mismanagement and corruption. Then last year, we handed it over to the disciplined forces. Today, this Corporation is poised to be the largest shipyard in sub-Saharan Africa."
Uhuru on public debt and development
The President also defended the ballooning public debt orchestrated by his administration, saying that the country is still in a position to service its debts.
He said that the next government should not shy away from borrowing to develop the country, provided the money does not end in corruption.
"The question is not whether debt is good or bad, the ultimate question has to do with what the next administration will do with borrowed funds. Will they end up in private pockets or will they be used for economic advancement? The only time debt is a burden to the nation is if a nation is led by looters. But in the hands of a visionary administration, debt is a catalyst for rapid development," he said.
"When my administration took over the helm of leadership, we knew that we had a maximum of two terms to accomplish a very ambitious agenda The challenge was that the bar set by my predecessor, the late Mwai Kibaki, was a high one."
President Kenyatta said that his government has built more roads in nine years than all previous administrations combined, including what the British, built in 123 years.
"Infrastructure has a way of turning swamps into cities, dead spaces into high value property, and village shopping centres into huge city malls. Without infrastructure, there is no way of finding new possibilities," he said.
"Today, I am proud to record that the third administration built 2,000 kilometres of tarmac roads, we accelerated his achievement by building over 11,000 kilometres, which is close to six times what they built."
