President William Ruto explained how he intends to deal with the high cost of living and unemployment situation in the nation with the proposed budget for the Financial Year 2023/24.
According to the President, the government bears a “deliberate and practical” plan to see its vision starting with the biggest — the high cost of living.
Ruto stated that he plans to maximize the untapped sectors by bolstering agriculture. It will consequently aid in increasing production and lower the cost of food commodities.
“We have registered 5 million farmers and we have given each fertilizer, we also have put money in the budget to ensure that we increase fertilizers and seeds to our farmers in the coming year,” he said.
“We plan to build 400 small markets in different parts to help farmers so that we start the journey of aggregating, value addition, processing, and manufacturing to bring money into the farmer’s pockets and also create employment for our youth.”
As a way to factor in the growth of livestock farming, and food production, Ruto stated that the government will construct about 4,100 dams to curb water shortage.
“For the first time, we have the largest budget in matters of livestock. We lose a lot of livestock because of drought and we have a big plan of constructing dams,” he said.
“We will build 100 big dams and we already have contracts for 33 dams. We will also build 1000 small dams and 3000 water pans.”
At the same time, Ruto said he intends to channel his resources towards contriving the soaring unemployment rates.
He said bilateral talks are ongoing with foreign nations to settle on labour agreements for Kenyans working in all professions including university graduates. They plan to agree on how much the young people will be paid when they arrive there. The main reason is to curb the constant suffering that comes with being a foreign worker.
This will be spearheaded by the State Department of Diaspora Affairs which is mandated with channelling employment avenues to Kenyans in foreign nations. The CS in charge of Diaspora affairs has already taken a step in this direction through conversations with countries like Canada.
“We are in talks with Germany, USA, Canada, UAE region and they have asked us to give them young people who will go and work there,” he said.
Other avenues planned for creating employment are in increasing the manufacture of raw materials. He plans to onboard as many Kenyans as possible to his housing plan which has caused a rift among Kenyans.
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In matters of the state of national education, Ruto mentioned that he allocated an increased amount of money from the previous years to the construction of schools and the employment of teachers nationwide.
He added that with the added amount, he wants to improve the quality of education in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) centres, universities, and other institutions of higher learning.
“In this budget, I have added an extra Ksh.65 billion for education beyond what we have been spending. We have dedicated Ksh.650 billion to the education of our young people from primary school to University level. And that is why we have planned a lot of money for it,” he said.
“I have included money to employ 25,000 teachers and next year I will employ more because we have a deficit of teachers of up to 110,000. We must close the gap.”
The Ksh.4.5 trillion budget awarded the lion’s share to the Ministry of Education, which received an allocation of Ksh.628 billion for the 2023/2024 Financial Year.
The State Department for Medical Services and Public Health received Ksh.141 billion, while the allocation to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) doubled from Ksh.15 billion to Ksh.30 billion.
The government also allocated Ksh.81.9 billion to Equity, Poverty Reduction, and Women and Youth Empowerment Programs to support entrepreneurial endeavours.
It further gave Ksh.338 billion to support operations in Defence, National Police, National Intelligence Service, and Prisons for the financial year.
According to the president, though the budget is extravagant, it is angling to alleviate the struggling nation from the high cost of living and unemployment.
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