President William Ruto has defended his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, while explaining the transition from the Linda Mama program to the new Linda Jamii initiative.
Speaking on Tuesday, September 30, President Ruto called for magnanimity toward the former head of state, crediting him for the foundation laid by the maternal healthcare program introduced during the Jubilee administration.
"To defend him, we should be a bit magnanimous to him. He did time, led our country. And the Linda Mama program was a great program," President Ruto stated.
The President emphasized that the Linda Mama initiative, which was developed under the Jubilee government's leadership, provided valuable insights that informed the design of the current Linda Jamii program.
"We developed it under the Jubilee administration, under the leadership of President Uhuru. We learned a lot from the Linda Mama program," he said.
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President Ruto described Linda Jamii as an evolution of its predecessor, incorporating lessons learned to create a more comprehensive healthcare coverage system.
"Because of the experiences, because of the lessons learned from the Linda Mama program, we designed the Linda Jamii program, which was an improvement from the Linda Mama program," the President explained.
He outlined the key differences between the two initiatives, noting that while Linda Mama focused primarily on maternal delivery, Linda Jamii offers a broader scope of coverage.
"Linda Mama was good. Linda Jamii is obviously better. And therefore, it is an improvement from what it was in terms of the scope from just the delivery of mothers, which was the primary target of Linda Mama," President Ruto said.
The expanded program now covers prenatal care, the delivery process itself, and postnatal services, marking a significant enhancement from the original model.
"We've now improved it to cover prenatal, before the delivery, postnatal, the delivery itself, postnatal. And it's no longer targeting mama. It is targeting Jamii. Mama, plus the children, plus the household," he added.
The President's remarks come days after former President Uhuru Kenyatta raised concerns about the discontinuation of programs established during his tenure.
At the Jubilee Party National Delegates Conference on Friday, September 26, the former president had expressed disappointment over what he described as the erosion of progress made under his administration, specifically mentioning the Linda Mama program.
"Today, many of the gains we had in the past have been eroded; Linda Mama and others have been replaced by new, untried, and untested schemes. And while we wait for these experiments to work, Kenyans suffer and our progress is retarded," he said.
Uhuru had claimed that successful initiatives were being replaced with unproven schemes, leaving citizens to bear the consequences while new approaches were being tested. He suggested that the country was losing momentum by prioritizing political discourse over tangible development.
The former president had also warned that the nation risked repeating past errors by focusing on rhetoric rather than implementing practical solutions for ordinary Kenyans.
