Senior Government officials have been directed to adhere to high standards of integrity and be accountable for their actions, in the wake of Kenyans’ push for reforms in all sectors.
Prime Cabinet Secretary, Musalia Mudavadi has called for the need to ensure all decisions made are evidenced-based, informed by reliable data and that a proper feedback mechanism is instituted to enable better service delivery to Kenyans.
Similarly, he said the Government needs to listen more to the voices of the people and through the National Development Implementation Committee (NDIC) NDIC process, there is need to reinvigorate a people-based approach more than ever before.
“We are accountable for our actions and the buck stops with us so let us just “get things done.” This is the legacy we should all aim to leave at the end of our tenure,” said Mudavadi.
He made the remarks when he chaired the inaugural NDIC meeting at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi, attended by senior Government officials including Cabinet and Principal Secretaries, Head of Public Service Felix Koskei, Attorney General Justin Muturi and Solicitor General Shadrack Mose among others.
Mudavadi, also the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary, said the joint NDIC meeting comes at a defining moment in the history of the country, where for the first time, young people have been exercising their constitutional right to canvass Parliament to reject the Finance Bill 2024, demanding better governance and service delivery to the people.
He said the young people have called out leaders, particularly with a strong message to the Government that they are not feeling what is being done.
“We gave them the ammunition to fight back by showing off our opulence, corruption and wasteful use of public resources. Essentially, they are pointing out how insensitive we are to the impact of our decisions on the wellbeing of our people in the face of difficulties arising from domestic and external shocks,” he said.
The meeting also took time to observe a minute of silence in honor of the youth who lost their lives while exercising their democratic right of peaceful demonstrations in the past two weeks.
He said the youth want to see a more inclusive Government that is sensitive to the emerging issues affecting them and majority of Kenyans, including high cost of living and lack of employment opportunities.
However, Mudavadi stated that President William Ruto, in response to this unprecedented moment in the history of our democracy, has led by conceding failures as leaders, declined to consent to the Finance Bill 2024 and returned it to the National Assembly for amendment.
The import of this is that the Budget for 2024/25 has a gap of Sh346 billion that will make it difficult for the Government to realize its commitments for the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) programmes.
He said the delivery of National Government programmes and projects is prioritized based on the limited resources available, which calls for a stepwise approach to yield better results than trying to do everything at the same time.
He called for the need to embark on more aggressive campaigns to seek alternative sources of funding from the private sector, development partners and other sources, which is necessary to complement the scarce Government resources.
More importantly though, he said, is how efficiently we utilize and optimize on the available funds.
He also said innovation will enable Government to come up with viable solutions that are affordable, practical and responsive to the needs of Kenyans, adding that the youth are oozing with ideas, which should be harnessed and motivated by including their participation in the decision-making processes.
“Let us ensure all stakeholders are engaged in an inclusive, constructive and participatory ecosystem. Every voice matters and we must listen more than we talk,” he said.
Mudavadi also insisted on the need to assess whether senior Government officials have supported the President to improve governance of the country and deliver on his promises of social and economic transformation, or the decisions and lifestyle are being seen as impediments to equitable growth and prosperity for all Kenyans.
While acknowledging that the Finance Bill 2024 protests were hijacked by criminal elements, he said it is important to refocus minds and efforts on the social contract signed with Kenyans, when Government promised to deliver on BETA and improve service delivery across all sectors and regions of the country.
“In just three years from now, we will be asking our people to renew our mandate to lead this beautiful nation for another five years. The fundamental question is: what will our scorecard look like? We must all strive to win the hearts and trust of the people in the remaining period by rolling up our sleeves and going back to work for them,” Mudavadi said
He said it is time to deliver the envisaged benefits of the BETA pillars to the people, adding that there is still an opportunity to move up agricultural value chains, expand the Hustler Fund to support the growth of our Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), scale up the uptake of affordable Housing, expand access to healthcare to achieve universal health coverage for all and integrate youth in the digital superhighway and creative economy space.
“It is time for us to cut our clothe according to our size, through prudent utilization of the available resources and targeted investment in areas of the BETA programmes that realize the best results to the target beneficiaries,” Mudavadi affirmed.
He said each and every shilling counts in this new journey and accounting Officers at all MDAs should be more zealous in protecting resources allocated to them.
As this is done, he reminded them that they have an obligation to viciously fight corruption, which has greatly contributed to the emerging breakdown in the trust that the people and Government enjoy.
