Setting the manufacturing agenda for Kenya’s new administration – Business Daily
The presidential debates held over the last few weeks were a breath of fresh air for the campaigns. Various political aspirants took to the podium to share their visions and aspirations for Kenyans.
It was refreshing to see the shift in the campaign approach from selling the hope of a better future to having socio-economic issues taking centre stage.
The political pillar of Vision 2030 aspires that Kenya pursues issue-based politics. It envisions a country with a democratic system that reflects the aspirations and expectations of its people.
As such, electoral mobilisation should centre around aspirants’ manifestos, which should be proof of their mastery of challenges facing the country and how they seek to resolve them.
Even beyond the elections, it is important that political aspirants continue prioritising citizens’ needs at all levels of engagement.
This means increasing focus on the challenges facing us as a nation, which are increasingly becoming a heavy burden to bear, for instance, the skyrocketing cost of living. One of the ways of solving these challenges is to nurture our manufacturing sector and enhance its competitiveness and productivity.
Manufacturing is known world over for generating sustainable, well remunerating decent jobs, improving foreign exchange income, and driving the country’s overall wealth and well-being.
Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), through the Manufacturing Manifesto launched earlier this year, has contributed to the national conversation on the economic choices that will face the incoming government.
The manifesto presents policy proposals to enable the new administration at all levels of leadership, to ensure Kenya’s economic and social goals are attained.
These include raising the export intensity of manufacturing, reducing the regulatory burden, raising investment for industry, providing public goods for manufacturing, driving counties’ industrial competitiveness, putting in place an effective and pro-industry taxation structure and fully implementing existing manufacturing-centric policies.
We remain optimistic that Kenya will be a better place for citizens after the elections.
