Deputy President William Ruto has asked leaders and Kenyans not to make fun of his bottom-up model.
Speaking in Karen on Thursday, Ruto said the insults are not healthy to the nation.
“Let us stop the politics of ethnicity, division, and hate and have a healthy competition. Get rid of these insults and have a conversation about the economy of our nation. Kenya will be a lot better and will stand a chance to be much greater,” he said.
Ruto said UDA competitors have criticized matters the economy and matters, bottom-up model.
“We welcome all criticism because it is an avenue to improve our model,” he said.
“While we are it they should explain how their trickle-down model that has not worked for the last 60 years is going to work this time around.”
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Ruto who was speaking after a parliamentary group meeting said the model has changed the conversation in Kenya.
“Today we are discussing matters economy. That at least we are not engaged in an exercise to create positions for leaders but passionate engagement to see how we can create jobs for Kenyans,” he said.
He said the discussion is about what is in it for the ordinary people in Kenya.
“We are very proud that while in the past we were discussing PM, deputy PM and other positions, today the ordinary person has taken the centre stage,” he said.
“We are ready and we want to engage in that conversation that will bury forever the politics of ethnicity, division and will elevate our political competition to the realm of issues.”
Ruto defended his bottom-up economic approach, saying it is a noble approach to helping others.
He explained how bottom-up model will work in relation to job creation.
Ruto said Kenya has about 4m jobless Kenyans among the 15m at the bottom of the pyramid.
“Through policy change in investment by investing not in capital intensive programs but in labour intensive infrastructural programs,” he said.
Ruto said the programs include; housing, cottage industry, agro processing, value addition and informal manufacturing.
“…we can create millions of jobs. We did not have to look for additional money for the roads, we changed the model,” he said.
“We did not need more money to connect people to electricity. We changed model of connection. To fix economy by changing the model we can create jobs.”
The DP is rallying supporters around his hustler narrative, which he says is a “bottom-up-middle-out economic approach” that has been received with admiration and criticism in equal measure.
Ruto has made clarification of his economic approach which he said is focused on creating jobs for millions of Kenyans who are unemployed and small scale business people.
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