One of the oldest principles of good leadership is remarkably simple: do not fix what is not broken. Equally important, when something is broken, diagnose the problem correctly before prescribing the cure. This principle applies as much to governing a nation as it does to managing a business, running a university or constructing a building.
A thoughtful reflection on President William Ruto’s recent Special National Address captured this point powerfully. It questioned the administration’s recurring promise of doing things “fundamentally differently” and “getting it right this time.” Those phrases sound ambitious. They suggest bold leadership and fresh thinking. But they also contain an uncomfortable admission. If we are now being promised that government will “get it right this time,” what exactly happened the last time similar promises were made?
That question deserves serious attention. Kenya does not suffer from a shortage of visions. It suffers from a shortage of disciplined implementation. Vision 2030 was never the country’s problem. Whether one agreed with every detail or not, it was a coherent national development blueprint. It identified strategic priorities in infrastructure, industrialisation, education, healthcare, agriculture, technology, governance and social development. It was designed to survive changes in government because development requires continuity, not political reinvention every five years.
Kenya Vision 2030 and the Challenge of Execution
The challenge was never the blueprint. The challenge has been execution. Unfortunately, the current administration has displayed a consistent tendency to treat existing systems as though their greatest weakness is simply that they existed before Kenya Kwanza came to power. Instead of asking, “How do we improve what works and repair what does not?” the instinct has too often been, “How do we replace it entirely?”
That is not reform. It is experimentation. There is an important difference between the two. Reform begins with diagnosis. It identifies strengths worth preserving and weaknesses requiring correction. It recognises that institutions accumulate valuable experience over time and that continuity itself has value.
Experimentation begins with demolition. It assumes that because imperfections exist, the entire structure must be discarded. It promises revolutionary improvement without first establishing whether the problem lies in the design or in its implementation.
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The university funding model illustrates this danger. The previous system undoubtedly had shortcomings. It deserved review and improvement. Instead, the country was presented with an entirely new framework that was promoted as fundamentally superior. Kenyans were assured it would be fairer, more efficient and more sustainable. Yet within a remarkably short period, even the administration that introduced it began acknowledging serious difficulties and speaking about replacing or significantly revising it.
That should concern every Kenyan. If major national policies can be introduced with great confidence only to be substantially reconsidered a few years later, the question is no longer whether one particular policy succeeded or failed. The question becomes whether government is adequately testing, consulting and evaluating reforms before implementing them.
The High Cost of Perpetual Experimentation
The costs of perpetual experimentation are enormous.
Students cannot plan their education when funding models keep changing. Universities cannot manage effectively when financing systems remain uncertain. Businesses hesitate to invest when policy direction appears unpredictable. Public servants struggle to implement reforms that may themselves soon be abandoned. Citizens lose confidence because today’s certainty becomes tomorrow’s correction.
Development requires predictability. Investors prefer stable rules. Educational institutions require stable policies. Healthcare systems require stable financing. Farmers require stable markets.
Economic growth depends upon confidence that today’s policy will not be discarded tomorrow because another “fundamentally different” approach has suddenly appeared.
History teaches that successful nations rarely become prosperous by constantly rewriting their development blueprints. Instead, they identify sound long-term strategies and pursue them consistently across successive governments.
South Korea did not achieve industrial transformation by abandoning its national strategy every election cycle. Singapore did not become a global financial centre through endless institutional experimentation. Botswana’s reputation for sound governance rests not upon perpetual reinvention but upon consistency, discipline and respect for institutions.
Policy continuity creates confidence. Confidence attracts investment. Investment creates jobs. Jobs improve living standards. That chain is broken when governments repeatedly substitute novelty for consistency.
Diagnose Before You Redesign
This is why the old engineering principle remains so valuable: before redesigning the bridge, determine whether the problem lies in the design, the construction materials, the workmanship, the maintenance or simply poor management. Otherwise, the country risks rebuilding the same bridge repeatedly while never addressing the real cause of failure.
The same applies to national development. If Vision 2030 fell short in certain areas, the first responsibility is to establish why. Was the vision itself defective? Or were projects delayed? Were funds mismanaged? Were priorities abandoned? Were institutions weakened? Were implementation targets ignored?
Without answering those questions honestly, launching Vision 2060 risks becoming another exercise in replacing plans instead of correcting execution. A nation cannot build confidence if every administration behaves as though history begins on inauguration day. Good leadership is not measured by the number of new programmes it announces. It is measured by its ability to faithfully complete worthwhile programmes already underway, improve those requiring adjustment and discontinue only those that demonstrably fail after careful evaluation. That is how mature governments operate.
William Ruto’s governing style, however, increasingly appears to favour disruption over continuity. Existing systems are frequently portrayed as fundamentally inadequate, while replacement models are presented with enormous confidence before sufficient evidence exists to justify such certainty.
The danger is that government begins to resemble a laboratory rather than a stable institution.
Citizens are not laboratory subjects. Their education, healthcare, livelihoods and businesses should not depend upon continuous policy experimentation. The role of government is not to keep surprising the public with new ideas. Its role is to provide stability, predictability and competent execution.
Kenya does not need endless reinvention. It needs disciplined implementation. It does not need another grand slogan promising to “get it right this time.” It needs leaders who understand that the surest path to national transformation is often not beginning again, but faithfully finishing what is already sound, correcting what is genuinely broken, and resisting the dangerous temptation to fix what was never broken in the first place.
This article was written by Prof. Gitile Naituli. He teaches Constitutionalism and Governance at Multimedia University of Kenya and is a Fellow of the Kenya National Academy of Sciences. He can be reached at: [email protected].
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