Jubilee MPs Cast Doubt on Big Four Agenda

The Budget Committee, comprising mostly of Jubilee MPs has for the first time poured cold water on President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Big Four Agenda.



While delivering the Budget Policy Statement and Debt Management Strategy report, the Budget and Appropriations Committee chairman, Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung'wah doubted whether the Big 4 projects would be realized.



The Committee claimed that Treasury’s budgetary allocations to the President’s legacy projects were not enough to achieve any meaningful outcome, as only Ksh650 billion had been projected as development expenditure in the financial year 2019-20.



The 27-member committee criticized the Treasury led by Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich claiming that the distribution of resources may not necessarily be geared towards actualizing the Big Four plan.

Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria recently dismissed Kenyatta’s housing plan and asked how he intends to deliver 500,000 affordable houses in three and a half years.



According to Kuria, Kenyatta would have to deliver 250 houses every day, an equivalent of an economic and engineering miracle, to realise his pledge.



President Kenyatta had prioritised food security, affordable housing, manufacturing, and universal healthcare as his legacy projects.



Apart from a cash crunch for future projects, the government is also faced with a backlog of stalled capital projects that need about Ksh295 billion to complete. 



Furthermore, mega capital projects, most of which were at the centre of the Jubilee re-election campaign, have been hit by unprecedented scandals.



The latest is the Ksh21 billion sunk into the Arror and Kimwarer multi-purpose dams meant to generate hydropower complete with transmission, as well as irrigation.



The one-million-acre Galana-Kulalu irrigation project has collapsed due to squabbling between the contractor and the government.