NAIROBI, Kenya Jul 3 – Deputy President Kithure Kindiki has defended the sale of some stake in government agencies to marshall resources to fund major infrastructure development projects and accelerate the socio-economic transformation of our Country.
Speaking while receiving report on the progress of various infrastructure development in the country, Kindiki said the proceeds of those sales will be channeled towards the National Infrastructure Fund that is designed to be the key driver of improving our infrastructure.
“This is the first time we are saying yes we can of-take you know part of our stake in some of these uh investments but use it to solve very crucial public challenges water infrastructure irrigation which has eluded us and which are standing between us and moving to the first world.”
“Agriculture is a primary uh industry is a primary sector. Manufacturing is a primary sector. Without those two, you can take all the time improving your tourism and other services including ICT and financial services where we are doing very well. But without tackling agriculture, transforming agriculture and manufacturing, no country will move to the next categorization in terms of economic uh categorization,” the DP explained.
The Deputy President added that even before fully operationalizing the National Infrastructure Fund they have began sourcing for its funds and the Fund’s operationalization is on course.
“We are at the tail end now of operationalizing the NIF. The law is in place and we have seed money which is already with us for that Fund over Sh100 billion from the sale of the stake in Kenya Pipeline and another Sh245 billion from the sale of the stake in Safaricom and we are very happy with that progress. I think our confidence levels as a country now on responding to the needs of the country on infrastructure, water, we have higher confidence than before and that Fund has been a game changer because for every shilling we will leverage 10 shillings on every shilling that we have on that Fund,” he said.
Among the sectors that will benefit immensely from the fund are roads and water sector, with the national government intending to improve water connectivity in Kenya from 76% to 100%, a move that Kindiki says is long overdue as water is an enabler in many sectors of our economy.
“Water is at the center of agricultural transformation. Water is also relevant to manufacturing because of industrial use. So I am very happy that finally we have uh a way of mobilizing enough domestic resources without piling up public debt and without raising additional taxes. Just innovatively raising money by pulling part of the resources from the private sector to provide public goods and services that ordinarily would be very expensive to fund from our budget unless we borrow,” Kindiki stated
