Uhuru legacy will be shaped by much more than a second term and team

President Uhuru Kenyatta holding his certificate after he was sworn in on November 28, 2017. PHOTO | CHARLES KIMANI | DPPS

What you need to know:

  • With a debt of more than Sh4 trillion, government will have to borrow more to finance this and remaining Big Three.

  • President Kenyatta identified a runaway public wage bill as a bottleneck to development early in 2013.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s final five-year incumbency and Cabinet have been branded legacy term and legacy team respectively.

Indeed, in his December 12 Independence Day address, the President prioritised food security, healthcare, housing and jobs (manufacturing) as the Big Four of his development agenda, and promised a Cabinet primed to drive this legacy.

But the President’s legacy will be shaped by much more than a term and team. One, while construction of government remains in his hands, what he and team could achieve is not. Take construction of 500,000 houses over five years.

This massive undertaking requires considerable funding. With a debt of more than Sh4 trillion, government will have to borrow more to finance this and remaining Big Three.

Therefore what attends his expansive and expensive legacy agenda, such as the effects of a runaway debt on the national economy and the accruing politics, could take from, or, in fact, become the President’s legacy.

PUBLIC WAGE BILL

Two, President Kenyatta identified a runaway public wage bill as a bottleneck to development early in 2013. Then he decried the bill’s gobbling up Sh627 billion or 40 per cent of government revenues annually, to pay just two per cent of Kenya’s population.

In 2017, the President revised the wage bill’s share of government revenue to 50 per cent. But, surprisingly, last month he expanded the Executive by 21 new staff called Chief Administration Secretaries.

He hired most of them because the electorate fired them in last year’s General Election. Much more importantly, the constitution does not provide for this new office.

Three, the President acknowledged last year that even as the economy improved, the purchasing power of ordinary Kenyans remained dismal. Ominously, the price of two kilogrammes of flour has this year shot up to beyond Sh100.

Hungry people are themselves a legacy, but the legacy they want is food.

Four, the Big Four cannot be realised in five years. Therefore most programmes will spill over into the next administration. A new president may do his predecessor a favour and continue his legacy, downplay it or dump it altogether.

DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

For example, Mr Mwai Kibaki bequeathed Kenyans Vision 2030 as their long-term development blueprint and his legacy.

President and Deputy William Ruto have shown scant enthusiasm for the Vision even as provision of water, power, healthcare and infrastructure, for example, remain central to it and to their own development agenda.

President Kibaki also left Kenyans the Standard Gauge Railway, but this is now universally known as Mr Kenyatta’s train.

Five, the President’s legacy may be who will succeed him. President Kenyatta is part of the legacies of former Presidents Daniel Moi and Kibaki. They loyally served founding President Kenyatta and made his son Kenya’s fifth President. 

Will Mr Kenyatta ensure Mr Ruto succeeds him or will Baringo Senator Gideon Moi jump the queue? Obviously, a campaign anchored on breaking the monopoly of the presidency by the Kikuyu and Kalenjin would enter the President’s legacy.

Six, politics may conjure up legacy-defining causes and courses. The hopeless and hapless Minority National Super Alliance cannot stop the President’s legislative agenda. But outside legislating it is questioning his mandate and legitimacy in unprecedented ways.

STOLEN VOTE

Mr Raila Odinga, Kenya’s most battle hardened veteran of political warfare, was on Tuesday sworn in as a parallel president. He maintains he won the August 8 presidential election, but the polls umpire declared Mr Kenyatta the victor.

He challenged that in court which annulled the poll and ordered a repeat. Mr Odinga then handed Mr Kenyatta victory on a silver platter by sitting out the re-run. Mr Odinga has since refused to recognise Mr Kenyatta as President, saying the vote was stolen, and maintaining his campaign of civil disobedience and investiture aimed to bring about electoral justice.

Mr Odinga’s manoeuvring will powerfully impact the President’s legacy. Indeed, on Tuesday, he turned into a Kim Jong Un and, in an act of thumbs down signal to investors, switched off TV stations broadcasting live Mr Odinga’s investiture. Of course external or local natural or man-made disasters will barge in, but a runaway debt; bloated public wage bill; Mr Odinga’s and succession politics; the economy and economics of the Big Four, will predominate and shape the President’s legacy.

Opanga is a commentator with a bias for politics [email protected]