Washington Akumu
6 June 2008
Cape Town — A new blueprint for Kenya's economic development will be launched next Tuesday. Prime Minister, Mr Raila Odinga, said this was the culmination of work that has been going on behind the scenes to harmonise the manifestoes of the coalition partners - PNU and ODM.
The marrying of the two documents, which share many similarities, was one of the agreements hammered out by the two sides under the National Peace Accord signed in March, following negotiations chaired by former UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan.
"The document is ready. It will set out the combined aspirations of the coalition partners for higher economic development and poverty alleviation in our country," said Mr Odinga. He was giving a sneak preview of the document to participants at the African version of the World Economic Forum, which is being held in the South African resort city of Cape Town. The event entered its second day yesterday. The five-year development plan had been also tuned to run in tandem with Kenya's global economic development plan known as Vision 2030.
"The recent Safaricom initial public offering (IPO) which was heavily oversubscribed has shown us the true potential of our people. We want to issue infrastructure bonds. We want to concession our roads, revamp our tourism, rebuild our cities and take development to areas hitherto ignored. Kenya is ready and open for business," he said during a dinner hosted by the WEF for the Kenyan delegation here and investors. Making a pitch for investors to come to Kenya, Mr Odinga identified some of the key virgin areas as energy, infrastructure, tourism, urban development and information technology.
Mr Odinga is among a number of heads of state and governments attending the forum.
He is leading a delegation that consists of Roads Minister Kipkalya Kones, Tourism Minister Najib Balala, Nairobi Metropolitan's Mutula Kilonzo and Samuel Poghisio, whose docket is Information and Communication.
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