Mudavadi on the economy: Why the next two, three years will be difficult

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi is forecasting a difficult two to three years and asked Kenyans to bear the burden until the economic situation stabilises.

The Kenya Kwanza administration, he said, is faced with a giant of rumbling economy forcing it to make “extremely” difficult decisions to pull the economy out of the turmoil.

Mr Mudavadi, a former finance minister, said the decisions the regime is undertaking will take about two-to-three years before Kenyans can feel full relief.

He added that the regime had no time to lament over the poor state of the economy but would offer solutions.

“It will take us a bit of time because defaulting [on debt] is not an option. We are likely to see a difficult two to three years as a nation before we start seeing a reprieve. But there is hope at the end of the tunnel,” he said on Saturday.

“When you are in a difficult situation, you are sometimes forced to make extremely painful and difficult decisions.”

Among these was the privatisation of parastatals, touting it as the only way to walk away from the cash crunch the regime is facing. He said the decision to list some of the parastatals for privatisation was informed by the difficult spot the country found itself in. The privatisation has sparked a furore.

In defence of the government, Mr Mudavadi said the regime had no time to lament but to turn around the poor state of the economy, but counselled patience among the electorate.

“In due course, what appears like a long, dark night shall become a long, bright day,” he said.

According to him, the William Ruto regime was walking a tightrope, occasioned by commitments made by its predecessors.

“We must move away from the blame game. But I have acknowledged where we are as a nation. Right now, it is not a question of who appended his signature to what document since we are bound by those commitments. Now it is time to work collectively to get out of those commitments,” Musalia said.

“We must think away from continuously taxing the people and start looking at the other areas where we can make savings, raise resources, inject money into the system so that we can ease the burden,” he explained.

He was speaking at the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) 25th annual delegates’ conference in Nairobi.

Mr Mudavadi implored the teachers and other Kenyans to support the regime “to make this tough decision so that we can secure more resources for the education of our children and cash into your pockets as better salaries as we move forward.”

The parastatals listed for sale are the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), New Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC), Kenya Seed Company Ltd (KSC) and National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK).

Others are Kenya Literature Bureau (KLB), Western Kenya Rice Mills Ltd (WKRM), Numerical Machining Complex Ltd (NMC), 35% of Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers Ltd (KVM) and Rivatex East Africa Ltd (REAL) and the Mwea Rice Mills Ltd (MRM).

dogetta@ke.nationmedia.com

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