We have a colonised mindset where we believe that if the british do it that way then it’s got to be right.

The same is reflected even in the way we do our purchases. We buy italian suits because they are meant to be better than what oti in nairobi will make, or even buy a shoe made in paris rather than in limuru since ‘we all know’ paris is the fashion capital of the world.

I believe looking at the end product of our actions should be what that moivates us to do these things. The budget would be easier read in the papers rather than listening to it been read.

Sometimes I wish our leaders found time to read your “sunny words”. The vision 2030 is today our catch word. However, it is only mentioned by the same people who had other visions for the country by 2000, 2020 etc. A peep into the history of our beloved President in Kenyan public life is as follows: In 1963 he made a debut in elective politics by contesting the Donholm Constituency (now Makadara) in Nairobi Province, which he won on a Kanu ticket.

He was made the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance from 1963 to 1965 and in 1965 he was appointed a minister at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry where he served until 1969. We had Sessional Paper No. 10 published in 1965 and co-authored by Kibaki. This was our first vision “2030″ at the time.

He was later moved to the strategic ministry of Finance and economic Planning where he served from1970 to 1978. Kibaki was appointed Vice-President in 1978 when Daniel Arap Moi took over the reins of power following the death of founding President, Jomo Kenyatta. He continued to serve in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning until 1983 when he moved to the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Heritage .Kibaki was also the Leader of Government Business and Chairman of the Sessional Committee from 1978 to 1988.He was the Kanu vice-President from 1978 to 1988.

It was around the 80s that we had vision 2020 mooted. Kibaki was still in the picture. Today, about 40 years after the first vision ‘2030′ we are still having the same people shouting from the rooftops about achieving the same dream in 25 years to come. Are they for real or it is the same gerrymandering that we are used to from our politrickians? From a personal perspective, I dont feel vision 2030. You mentioned that in the long run, it is education that will be the driver of development. But, here I am, an educated Kenyan youth ( I graduated from our public universities - UoN- with a degree in electrical $ electronics engineering) who have been left out as thousands of other educated youths from the circus called vision 2030. Is it those Wazees who are going to help achieve the dream of 2030? How young will Mzee Kibaki be in the year 2030?

I believe it is the Kenyan youth who will do the mortar and brick work that will see Kenya achieve that goal. The energy reserves that the youth have in this country seems useful only when attending political rallies, unleashing violence on fellow Kenyans and being told to wait for their time- tommorow- to build the nation. We are still waiting. I have had chance to travel around our country in the course of my duties. Kenya and Africa is not poor, it is the people!! We have arable lands which are lying idle just because the colonialist didnt develop them. The stretch from Athi River to Mombasa has very fecund soils which only require irrigation, yet the people of Ukambani have to wait for relief food. Tana and Athi Rivers pours thousands of litres of water into the Indian Ocean daily while we “cry” for food aid from donors. At the same time, we cite lack of employment for our idle youth in our idle land. Recently, I went to work in Kisumu accompanied by a colleague from North Eastern who had never seen the Lake. Here we were, on the shores of the largest fresh water lake in Africa which is mostly lying idle with no water sports or vessels doing transport business. The same commodity - water- is in abundance yet barely 300 miles away, there are people walking miles and miles daily with their livelyhood (livestock) and killing each other over ponds. What is so hard about making the water available in remote Lodwar district. In fact, the people living on the shores are ever thirsty due to lack of clean drinking water. It is just an irony that in the abundance of water, the fools are thirsty!!!

We can not claim to be a modern nation if simple things like plumbing (piping water from the many sources) seem like rocket science to our government.
All in all, we are still the ‘Africans’, known for not doing anything positive that the world can write about. The budgets will still be read and nothing much will change apart from hearing that Nyeri will get a big allocation for water and roads than Marsabit simply because the president doesnt come from that corner.