For Jubilee, it’s race against time to complete projects

Jubilee administration is racing against time to complete the projects it promised four years ago as the country gets to the last stretch to the polls.

The speed has, however, prompted the opposition to raise the red flag claiming the back-to-back commissioning of development initiatives had got nothing to do with service delivery but was a ploy to entice voters.

The diaries of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto are full, one is either launching road construction, a mega power system somewhere or signing some pact to pave way for a related undertaking.

With the elections expected next year, the stakes are high because losing would potentially end their political careers and make them the first pair of incumbents to lose an election in independent Kenya.

The design, it appears, is informed by the fact that Kenyans are a forgetful lot so that the projects are either completed on the eve of elections or just days to it.

For instance, two major outstanding “milestones” are planned for June next year, events that will likely form the bulk of campaign messaging given their timelines.

This week, the Energy ministry announced that the National Government and the Turkana County Government will continue working closely with the joint venture partners in commencing export of crude oil by June 2017, two months to the polls.

In the same month, Mr Ruto recently announced at the launch of the newly formed Jubilee Party that the first train on the Standard Gauge Railway will make its maiden voyage.

This seems like aiming to achieve a clinical finish to their first term with eyes on re-election. As this happens, the opposition says the script Jubilee was employing is favoured by regimes that thrive on optics.

The Sunday Nation has learnt that more launches are lined up in at least each sub-county as the hunt for votes intensifies in what will see Mr Kenyatta lead one group as his deputy takes charge of the other to cover all parts of the country.

A source at State House intimated that top bureaucrats were toying with the idea of having Mr Kenyatta resume his “regional camps” in his last leg in office, an arrangement that would see him take a few days outside Nairobi to listen and address the people in their own backyard.

“Such would provide a better avenue for the head of state to effectively pay attention to each corner of the country,” the source said.

NO FOOLS

Were this to happen, it would not be the first time Mr Kenyatta would be doing so.

He tried it early this year but abandoned it because of what State House later attributed to a loaded diary and some pressing international obligations.

The “last mile” project that aims to connect households has seen the presidential duo visiting the tiniest of hamlets to switch on power.

Last month, the opposition chief, Mr Raila Odinga, criticised the model of the drive, saying it didn’t factor in the sustainability aspect.

“How do you connect a mud house to the national grid without even caring about how the bills will be paid, and the house itself is almost collapsing? There was one picture where some old women clearly looked hungry; in such a case, do you address the hunger or provide them with light?” he asked.

And after it rolled out mass distribution of tablets for schools last week, about three years behind schedule, Cord accused the government of trying to hoodwink Kenyans that Jubilee was working.

Mr Odinga’s co-principal in Cord, Moses Wetang’ula, accuses Jubilee leaders of taking the country through a revolving door.

“They are launching and re-launching similar projects to appear as though they are working. The excitement about exporting oil, for instance, is unfounded. World over, who exports crude oil in tankers?

Pipeline is the ideal to make it cost-effective. And why can’t they rehabilitate the refinery at the coast and do value addition before exporting? Luckily, Kenyans are not fools, their ability to see through falsehoods is above average,” he said.

Some of the most recent promises by Jubilee include giving insurance policy to farmers.

When he opened Nairobi International Trade Fair four days ago, President Kenyatta announced that Sh152 million had been set aside for pilot livestock insurance and a further Sh300 million for a crop insurance scheme before a comprehensive one is started.

Mr Odinga further says Kenyans are not as gullible as Jubilee tends to think.

“Like they say, a tiger does not proclaim its tigritude, it pounces. If you have done something good, people will just see.”

Mr Odinga recounted an incident where a plaque with his name at a local health centre in Lunga Lunga, Kwale County, was replaced with that of the DP yet he is the one who opened it when he was prime minister.

“Because [Mr] Ruto was attending a Law Society of Kenya function in the area, some overzealous officials thought of a creative way of making it appear he had gone there to do something meaningful. I have no problem with my name being removed but I wish this was indeed a new project that would ease the people’s suffering,” he said.

NOT A FAVOUR

He added that the only thing Jubilee could boast of is the laptops for schools but he says it is time-barred.

“In Garissa, they launched a public toilet built by the county government. SGR, Lapsset (The Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport) corridor and geothermal are all initiatives of the Grand Coalition Government. Let them show Kenyans new things they have done since coming to power. They’re in the last leg to the polls yet they are still piloting it, time is not on their side.”

Another Cord leader and former vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka accuses Jubilee of running a campaign to impoverish the areas where the opposition enjoys support.

“Development is a basic human right, not a favour. Yet they have been selectively dolling out development. When, for instance, in 2011 I launched the Kibwezi-Kitui-Mwingi road, they cancelled it only to bring it back now as a campaign tactic,” he said.

But Mr Kenyatta dismisses the opposition as having resigned to fate and become cry babies.

“The President is determined to show that the pledges he made to Kenyans are being honoured. That’s why he’s travelling across the country to inspect the projects. People are visual, if they don’t see that some serious work is going on, how will they believe it?” his spokesman Manoah Esipisu asks.

“Let the opposition focus on what they can do better for this country instead of attempting to pull our legs back.”

Mr Ruto, on his part, said development was part of campaigns and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

“If the construction of a road or connecting electricity to a village or equipping a hospital is campaigning, so be it,” Mr Ruto told the Sunday Nation through press secretary Emmanuel Talam.