Editor's Review

Mbadi, who was previously opposed to the bottom-up economic model, seemed to have changed his mind after Ruto nominated him to the Cabinet.

ODM secretary general Edwin Sifuna has seemed to be puzzled by John Mbadi's about-turn on the Bottom-Up Economic model on which President William Ruto founded his government.

Mbadi, ODM's outgoing chairman, is on record trashing the model, saying it would do less to solve the economic challenges bedevilling the Kenyan citizenry.

The nominated ODM MP stood his ground, oblivious to the turn of events in which he would be tasked with presiding over the national purse.

President William Ruto nominated him to be the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury.

While appearing before the National Assembly's vetting committee on Saturday, August 3, Mbadi was put to task over his stance on the model.

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Proposed National Treasury CS John Mbadi.

The committee members sought to establish how Mbadi would preside over an economic transformation technic he did not believe in from the onset.

Curving his way around it, Mbadi seemed to defend the bottom-up economic model, saying it was akin to the one borne in the Azimio La Umoja manifesto.

"Bottom-up is actually a concept of UDA, but I want to tell him that if you look at the physiology of UDA and ODM, there is no difference. Actually, the two are social democrats. The two parties promote social democracy. If you look at Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda(BETA), it talks about job creation, cost of living, it talks about agriculture, it talks about digital economy, it talks about job creation. What about our manifesto? We talked about the same," he said.

"Actually the BETA concept is on value addition. ODM manifesto, which I participated in drafting, we had manufacturing emphasising agriculture as raw material. So it's manufacturing supported by agriculture. BETA is on agriculture for value addition, ODM, and agriculture for manufacturing. Semantics," he added.

Sifuna seemed to be puzzled by Mbadi's change of tune.

The Nairobi senator seemed to doubt the nominated MP's understanding of the model, likening it to Alice Wahome, who had previously been put on the spot over her supposedly incoherent explanation of what bottom-up economics is.

"My former chairman channelling Alice Wahome on Bottom Up economics," Sifuna said on X.