An opinion leader from Meru has welcomed a move by the national government to launch Vision 2060.
Erick Mutwiri who is an economist vying for North Imenti parliamentary seat in 2027 said the country has started a new conversation.
“We are almost done with vision 2030 and we are looking forward to vision 2060,” Mutwiri said.
He said the Kenya constitution has envisioned and put laws to govern the public management framework in the vision.
“It will guide devolve units to anchor their plans in national vision,” Mutwiri said.
Mutwiri said the vision 2030 only has three years remaining before it’s lapse and the new vision 2060 should align with Africa Agenda 2063.
” Apart from that we also have the global vision where about 153 member states of the United Nations are guided by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” Mutwiri said.
He said even if the country is heading into an election year in 2027 for both the national and county governments, there is a need for a midterm plan anchored by a national vision.
“If we don’t prepare and have the vision now, we will have a challenge,” he said.
He said the vision carried people’s aspirations and in 2030 there were aspirations to raise the country into a New Industrializing Upper Middle Income Economy.
“I was keen to listen and the chairman said they have achieved their target by 61.6 percent. But the question is the impact there,” Mutwiri said.
He said in the vision 2030 there were three pillars that included political,social and economical pillars and according to their analysis, it’s the economic pillar that has lagged behind.
“In 2010 we promulgated a new constitution that gave birth to devolved units which is a big score in the political pillar. This is because we have not yet reached the level of issue based politics instead of personality and tribal based politics,”Mutwiri said.
He said that in education, the country has not been able to achieve free universal education from nursery to higher education.
“On economy, we had envisioned the country’s economy to be growing at the rate of 10 percent per year. But we have seen an average of about 4 percent and there is still a lot that needs to be done,” Mutwiri said.
He said the vision 2060 is not about the current President or the one who will come.
“It’s not a conversation about President William Ruto or the regime that is there right now but about the progress of the country and it’s the right time to talk about it,” Mutwiri said.
He said the major challenges that hampers the achievement of many visions in the country is corruption.
For instance in Meru, we ought to have an operational Airport in Isiolo and ought to be helping create jobs and ferry farms produce to many parts of the world.
