ODM,
UDF take political competition to manifestos
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Updated Saturday, June
23 2012 at 21:00 GMT+3
Political competition is
expected to rise when parties subject their manifestos to scrutiny with some
already coming up with radical proposals.
The next poll promises
to be a break from the past, where presidential election campaign will be
nothing more than character assassination as opposed to ideology and issues. On
the basis of the election manifestos, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and
the United Democratic Forum (UDF) are tirelessly working behind the scenes to
outdo each other.
The statutes of United
Republican Party (URP), The National Alliance (TNA) and Narc remain in abeyance
over the candidature of the party leaders, while that of Narc- Kenya is in
progress.
Narc chief executive Fidelis Nguli, whose
party leader, Water Minister Charity Ngilu, who may be locked out of Parliament
and presidential race on account of lacking a university degree, did not give
details on status of party manifesto, although he said it is ready.
The URP and TNA manifestos are said to be under construction,
despite ICC cases hanging on the heads of their presumptive presidential
candidates Eldoret MP William Ruto and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta
respectively.
In the past three polls, top on the agenda of most political
parties was constitutional and institutional reforms, a feat that was
accomplished in 2010 when Kenyans voted overwhelmingly in a referendum for new
laws, now in implementation stage.
Sectorial reforms
The battle for supremacy is narrowing down to Prime Minister Raila
Odinga’s ODM and his former ally, Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi, who
has set his eyes on reversing privatisation in the energy sector to inject
competitiveness in the manufacturing and knowledge sectors.
In a draft document seen by The Standard On Sunday, Mudavadi
intends to take the risk of reversing the privatisation of strategic State
corporations.
While Laikipia West MP Murithi Nderitu, says the UDF manifesto
focuses on cheap energy to spur the manufacturing sector, Gwasi MP says Raila
will be looking to entrench the new laws, deemed critical for creation of a
humane and just society.
“The capacity to develop power must first be underwritten by the
State. The economies of the Asian Tigers (North and South Korea, Malaysia,
Singapore) are powered by cheap energy. An efficient economy must create demand
and supply. This can only happen when the economy can create employment and our
target is make this possible by providing cheap energy with the positive effect
being felt in the labour market,” says Mr Nderitu, Industrialisation assistant
minister.
The former employee of the World Bank blames past regimes for
embracing Bretton Woods institutions prescriptions blindly. In what is billed
as a revolutionary move UDF proposes to reduce the cost of power from the
current Sh15-22 kilowatt per hour to Sh4.5 to spur manufacturing.
“A command-and-control economic model would enable the Government
apply sufficiently long term financing options and price power
accordingly. This would currently be Sh4.25 per kilowatt hour compared to
Sh15-22 that emergency supplies have been costing over the last three years,”
according to the manifesto.
Mbadi says the ODM manifesto, now under revision, will be unveiled
during the party’s national delegates conference planned for end of the year,
the party’s focus will be implementation of the new Constitution.
Reverse the privatisation
“The party leader’s heart is with devolution
and grassroots empowerment. The Prime Minister wanted a three-tier governance
system, which he must now make work,” says Mr Mbadi.
The PM has already underlined sectorial reforms – security,
judicial and financial – as critical to realising 10 per cent economic growth
as the country prepares for a leap into the new industrialised nations in less
than a decade.
UDF and ODM have invested heavily in expertise, with the former
keen to counter the latter’s personalised attacks with ideas and in the process
steer its agenda towards ‘hygienic’ politics.
UDF agenda, expected to be launched soon,
focuses on affordable energy production to spur industrial growth and generate
more than two million jobs in the first year. The document blames economic
stagnation on wrong prescription by donors. Referred to as
“command-and-control” economic model, the radical proposals will undoubtedly
elicit intense scrutiny from economists opposed to State competing with the
private sector for business.
The decision to reverse the privatisation of Kenya Power Company,
Kenya Power Generation Company and Kenya Power Transmission Company borrows
from the British model, which is at present working on reversing the
privatisation of the energy sector and water services.
“We aim to reverse the privatisation of the Kenya Power Company,
where the law relating to receivership, bankruptcy and liquidation is not a
practical option for curing commercial failure, where the Government cannot
stand aside and see Gitaru, Kindaruma or Sondu Miriu becoming disposed of under
the auctioneers hammer, because the operators have gone bankrupt or where the
profits are secured not through risk-taking but periodical upward revision of
the applicable cess, then private shareholding in such public assets is
unethical because it puts the Treasury in an inbuilt bail-out bind since
liquidation will not be allowed to work in case of commercial failure,” it
says.
Mbadi says ODM’s election campaign flagship will be infrastructure
development in line with delegation of Executive authority to county
governments.
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