In a candid reflection on Kenya’s development prospects, Doanh Chau, President of Vietnam Gas and Energy Science, has highlighted critical gaps in execution and infrastructure that he believes are holding the country back despite strong political rhetoric.

Following high-level meetings with Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and President William Ruto in Nairobi, Chau praised the enthusiasm for Kenya’s future but pointed to a more troubling reality: a lack of execution culture and long-term planning.

“Kenya’s problem is not money or talent,” Chau stated. “It’s the absence of long-term vision and the dominance of short-term gain. Leaders talk big, but systems don’t move.”

Chau emphasized that Kenya’s development is constrained by an overreliance on external investment and insufficient efforts to build a sustainable business environment internally. He cited electricity as the most telling indicator of Kenya’s struggles.

Comparing Vietnam’s energy capacity with Kenya’s, Chau noted that Vietnam, with a population of 100 million, has over 70 GW of power capacity. In contrast, Kenya, with half the population, only has 4 GW.

“This is not a side issue—it’s the foundation of economic development,” Chau said. “No investor will build a factory where the lights flicker every day.”

Chau credited Vietnam’s economic rise to its strategic focus on infrastructure, particularly power generation, which was prioritized even before the establishment of free trade zones. As a result, the Southeast Asian nation has become a global export hub.

His message serves as a wake-up call to Kenyan leaders and policymakers: for Kenya to realize its development ambitions, it must move beyond vision statements and invest in foundational systems that support sustainable growth.

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