ANALYSIS OF H.E.

PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA’S INAUGURATION SPEECH

30/11/2017

Introduction:

H.E. President Uhuru

Kenyatta during the
inauguration Ceremony
held on 28th November
2017 at the Kasarani
Stadium

During the inauguration of H.E. President Uhuru Kenyatta for his second term in office, he made
remarks detailing some of the achievements of his government over the last four years. As key
partners to the government of the day in social economic growth and development, these are
some of the achievements that we also celebrate. In 2013, we aligned our second National
Business Agenda, NBA-II to the government priorities, the Medium Term Plan II of the Vision
2030 and our business priorities for the period 2013-2017.

Most of the commitments made by the President after his inauguration address the issues that
we have raised over the past four years through our Public Private Dialogue (PPD). We intend to
integrate these into our third National Business Agenda (NBA-III), and align it with the current
MTP-III for the period 2018-2022 to champion for full implementation. Some of the areas present
direct opportunities the private sector can leverage on for increased investment.

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A. Over the last 4 years, the government has been committed to implementing devolution
and laying a firm foundation for economic take-off.

KEPSA members during the

inauguration ceremony at
Kasarani ceremony

i) Business environment: The President mentioned the aggressive reforms to the

business environment that saw Kenya improve by 56 positions in the World Bank’s Ease
of Doing Business Index from position 136 to position 80 between 2014 and 2017. This
has been one of the key priority areas for the private sector and outlined under Thematic
Area 1 of the second National Business Agenda (NBA-II).

KEPSA has worked closely with different MDAs under the Doing Business Delivery Unit
towards improving Kenya’s ranking on the DBI to position 50 and below. Today,
businesses are streaming in attracted by the more favorable business environment.
Examples include the VW, the Peugeot, among many others.

ii) Physical and social infrastructure: The president mentioned thousands of Kilometres
of access roads have been constructed over the last 4 years, thousands of schools and
millions of homes have been connected to electricity and the new railway system has
enabled about 500,000 Kenyans travel the Mombasa-Nairobi route cheaper, faster and
safer since June 2017.

Infrastructure development is part of our advocacy Agenda under Thematic Area

3 of the NBA-II which focused on affordable, reliable and increased power supply,

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 Improvement of transport facilities and services, Increasing Housing supply, Cascading
ICT gains for private sector development and Better Management of the extractives.

B. Some of the government priorities over the next 5 years as highlighted by the President
include:
1. Increasing affordable Housing

The President revealed that the government will seek to facilitate affordable housing; and
implement a home ownership programme that will ensure every working family can afford a
decent home. The target is to create 500,000 new home owners in 5 years.

Some of the focus areas will include: attracting the injection of low-cost capital into the housing
sector from both public and private sources; and prioritizing implementation of Policy and
administrative reforms targeted at lowering the cost of construction, and improving accessibility
of affordable mortgages.

Under Objective 13 of the KEPSA NBA-II, Increasing Housing Supply is one of key priority areas
for the private sector. Access to affordable and decent housing is an important element of Human
development and dignity. Nevertheless, our constitution recognizes housing as a basic right.

To achieve this, we have engaged and will continue to engage the government on incentivizing
the housing sector for more Public and Private sector investment to increase and upgrade low-
medium income housing supply.

2. Target 100% Universal Healthcare coverage for all households

On matters of Health, the President mentioned the free maternity programme, expansion of the
public hospital infrastructure and the transformation of NHIF as some of the progress achieved
over the last 4 years in transforming delivery of healthcare in Kenya.

Over the next 5 years, the government will ensure 13 million Kenyans and their dependents are
enrolled on NHIF up from 6.8 million currently. The government will also embark on complete
reconfiguration of the National Hospital Insurance Fund and reform of the laws governing private
insurance companies to improve access to health care.

Improving the health sector has been one of KEPSA’s main objectives (Objective 9) under the
NBA-II, with specific goals and recommendations such as:

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  Improving access to affordable quality healthcare through increased budgetary
allocation, implementation of the NHIF strategy, expanding micro-insurance products,
restructuring the health sector through implementation the Health Act etc.,

 Improving the requisite infrastructure for comprehensive basic health care. Our
recommendations included the use of ICT in health provision, improving response time
to emergencies and disasters, and low cost specialized centres for screening and
treatment of chronic/terminal illnesses

 Re-engineering human resources for healthcare by attracting and retaining specialized

personnel.

KEPSA members during the

inauguration ceremony at
Kasarani ceremony

3. To create jobs and opportunities for the youth, the government will target to grow and
sustain the manufacturing sector as the primary vehicle for the creation of decent jobs,
and raise its share of GDP from 9 to 15 percent.

The president mentioned plans to build on ongoing efforts, such as the VW and Peugeot motor-
vehicle assembly plants; the fertilizer blending factories; and Wrigleys in the confectionery
industry; as well as, creation of 1,000 small and medium scale enterprises in agro-processing.

This will complement the private sector push for measures to attract increased investment in the
manufacturing sector, grow MSMEs and encourage their scale up. KEPSA proposed a similar

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initiative under the Presindent dubbed the ‘Kenya Rising Star and Scale up Programme’, which
was endorsed in PRT 6.

4. Support manufacturing sector

To encourage manufacturing and adoption of 24 hour operations, the government pledged to

reduce power tariffs charged to manufacturers by 50 per cent between 10:00pm and 6:00am with
effect from December 1st 2017. This will reduce cost of production and make our manufactured
goods more competitive internally and globally.

This is in tandem with our advocacy under Thematic 3, objective 11 which focuses on the lowering
the cost of power to improve the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector through reduced
operational costs. Beyond making our manufacturing sector competitive, these reforms will lead
to more jobs in the economy.

5. Value addition and job creation:

The President mentioned that the government will also focus on developing the agro-processing,
textiles and apparel, leather processing, construction materials, innovation and IT, mining and
extractives sectors.

The private sector has an opportunity to participate in ensuring the policies and actions of the
government over the next 5 years are focused on ensuring as much value addition, and as many
jobs, as possible are created and retained in Kenya as promised by the president.

The government will also reach out to Kenya’s key trading partners to work together to achieve a
win-win outcome that enables Kenyans to get the most out of their products; this will also involve
negotiations to open new international markets for Kenya’s products, and to attract even more
new investment. Again, a welcome move for the private sector.

6. Re-engineering the agricultural sector to improve food security and cushion the
country against the vagaries of weather.

The Government will in the next 5 years invest heavily in securing water towers and river
ecosystems to harvest and sustainably exploit the potential of water resources. It will also take
steps to address idle arable land ownership and utilization, encourage and facilitate large scale

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commercial agriculture to help diversify staple food crops, and redesign subsidies to the
agriculture sector to ensure they target improvements in food yields and production quality.

These commitments will help address the multiple challenges in agribusiness (Objective 21 of
NBA-II) and improve Kenya’s food security. The sector contributes immensely to the National
GDP (about 32.7%) and is a key employer (engaging over half of the country’s workforce).

The president also mentioned that his government, together with other actors, will provide key
enablers within the farming process that will address distribution, wastage, storage and value-
addition of agricultural commodities. This will eventually improve the value of our exports and
reduce post-harvest losses that account for upto a third of our agricultural produce.

H.E. the President and the

Deputy President during
the inauguration ceremony
at Kasarani stadium

7. To improve governance in public institutions

The president committed to deal with bureaucrats and functionaries to improve access to quality
public service, engage with the Judiciary to address the protracted delays in our justice system,
and the use of the courts to sabotage the delivery of government programmes. He intends to Use
Parliament to enact legislation that will strengthen fiscal discipline and accountability at both the
national and county levels.

This is in line with the calls by the private sector to fight corruption and improve governance
(Objective 4 of NBA-II). So far, KEPSA has spearheaded the enactment of the Bribery Act 2016,

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the Anti-Money Laundering and Proceeds from Crime Act 2017, development of a Code of Ethics
for Businesses and entrenchment of a Suppliers Code of Ethics into the Public Procurement.

8. Continued engagement with the International Community

The President expressed the government commitment to strengthening economic ties, bilateral
and multilateral relations including collaboration in the fight against terrorism and insecurity in the
region and internationally. Good international relations are crucial for the private sector in terms
of markets.

To support the Pan-African goal of free movement of people, the President directed that Africans
visiting Kenya will be eligible to receive a visa at the port of entry, a move that will not be subject
to conditions of reciprocity. This will lead to deepened integration, and promote the regional
Tourism as well as trade. The move sets an example that may inspire other countries follow suit.
Enhancing trade and Investment is the Fourth Thematic Area under NBA-II.

Citizens of the EAC were also allowed free entry into Kenya, to work, do business; own property
and even settle with only an ID card but will be subject to same rules and laws as Kenyans. This
will further deepen Kenya’s integration in the region considering the country is already ranked the
most Integrated among its partner states in EAC, COMESA and even the IGAD. This development
is a welcome move for the private sector across the EAC, and will hopefully end the restrictions
imposed against Kenya especially by Tanzania

Under thematic 4 on enhancing trade and investment, objective 18 on tackling non-tariff barriers
we continue to advocate for removal off such obstacles that impedes trade and ensure free flow
of human labour. We have pushed for A single Visa for Africans and we believe that this will
increase intra-trade in the region

9. Strengthening Education:

Some of the Reforms mentioned by the president include: restoring the credibility of national
exams, removing examination fees, provision of digital learning devices, connecting schools to
power and reviving TVETs. Going forward, the government will focus on delivering free day
secondary education and enrolling all KCPE candidates to secondary schools which will greatly
improve access to basic education.

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This is an area the private sector has been involved in as part of the wider goal to improve the
quality of Kenya’s human resource as stipulated in NBA II thematic area 5 on promoting human
capital development and entrepreneurship

10. Unity and nationhood:

The President reiterated his government’s commitment to strengthen the bonds uniting Kenyans
at every level of society. He pledged to devote time and energy reach out to all Kenyans across
the political divide, to bring them on board, unite them and work together for prosperity of the
country. He promised to incorporate some of the ideas of the opposition into his agenda for
inclusive attainment of the visions of all Kenyans.

He called upon all Kenyans to observe the rule of law, to reject politics of division, hate and
violence, shun pessimism and embark on building the nation.

Strengthening social cohesion has been our concern and we have been deeply involved through
the Mkenya Daima Peace Campaign, advocating for peaceful coexistence and tolerance amongst
Kenyans before, during and after the elections. Businesses are only able to thrive in a stable,
secure and predictable environment – therefore, over the next 5 years, we shall work closely with
the government, other stakeholders to ensure all Kenyans live in peace, harmony, and any
historical injustices or political/ethnic hatred is resolved.

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