Thursday, August 5, 2021 – Deputy President William Ruto held a UDA meeting at his Karen home which was attended by among others 100 MPs.
Ruto used the meeting, dubbed Hustler Nation Parliamentary Meeting, to drum up support for his bottom-up economic model, arguing that is the elixir needed to uplift some 7 million Kenyan youth who are currently jobless.
He lobbied support for the ‘wheelbarrow’ economy which has been a subject of intense debate.
According to Ruto, millions of jobs can be created through policy changes in investment.
The second-in-command argued that with his government at the helm, over 15 million jobs can be created, particularly for the Kenyan population living at the bottom of the pyramid.
“Amongst the 15 million at the bottom of the pyramid is about 4 million jobless Kenyans. It is our considered position that through policy change in investments — by investing not in capital-intensive infrastructural programs rather investing in labor-intensive infrastructural programs for example housing, cottage industry….. we can create millions of jobs,” he said.
The model proposes the facilitation and enhancement of productivity of farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, and other actors within the agricultural value chain through labour-intensive investments.
Under the same model is also the proposition to finance and empower hustler enterprises such as mama mboga, hawkers, Boda Bodas, artisans, and artists among others.
The proponents of the model have also suggested the implementation of a manufacturing and industrial program that prioritises cottage industries as a multiplier of national productivity.
This comes even as he confessed to taking thousands of jobs and multi-billion investments to Uganda, leaving hustlers in Kenya high and dry.
The move has landed him in trouble with Kenyan hustlers who are now questioning the authenticity of his hustler narrative and the bottom-up economy.
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