19/03/2022
MAKUENI COUNTY BLUEPRINT VALIDATION MEETING
Together with the regional economic blueprint technical team, I led leaders from across the county to validate the economic plan.
In the development of the bottom up economic blueprint of Makueni County, the Makueni people have held several meetings to discuss the priority sectors of development and ensure that the document is a reflection of the development needs of Makueni.
This meeting has brought together more than 100 participants drawn from the 30 wards of the county to validate the blueprint and fill in the missing gaps.
The core objective of the meeting was to develop an economic blueprint that will be adopted and consolidated as part the South Eastern Region development plan whose vision is to socio-economically transform Kenya, under the leadership of the 5th President of the Republic of Kenya, William Samoei Ruto.
The members of the public went through the priority economic sectors and on consensus agreed on areas that they would like to be given priority the government that will come to power in August, 2022.
The economic sectors are; Water, Agriculture, Infrastructure, Energy, Education, ICT and Sports, SMES, Health and Mining and Minerals.
The process of involving the public in identifying their areas of economic priority is informed by the need for a paradigm-shift from the trickle-down economic Model to the Bottom-up Economic development approach which aims to facilitate decentralization of resources to the base of the pyramid.
The county just like the rest of the country is faced by high unemployment rate of our youth, high cost of living, declining incomes high taxation levels and effect of ballooning public debt.
The areas that we have identified will therefore promote growth of industries through value chain development, creation of jobs for our youth, reduction of the high cost of living, and improvement of the social welfare of the people of Makueni.
Agriculture remains the sector with the highest value addition-key agricultural value chains targeted for support were discussed by reviewing the current status, challenges, intervention to increase productivity and impact to the economy.
The sector of water was looked in to as an enabler through construction of mega dams, boreholes, harnessing of roof water, development of sand dams, among others. SMEs as a cross cutting sector, with the productive areas being given priority due to empowerment at the households by ensuring Maendeleo Mashinani and Pesa Mfukoni for all – for those at the very bottom of the social welfare pyramid.
The economic blueprint will be the Makueni County Economic Charter that will be consolidated with the ones for Machakos and Kitui to form the South Eastern Regional Charter and will be executed with the 5th President of Kenya, William Samoei Ruto.
We, the Makueni people stand firm with all like-minded Kenyans, behind Dr. William Ruto as we prepare to form the next government of the republic of Kenya.
As the second Governor of Makueni, I commit to implement this to the core!
Emmanuel Mutisya
