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State capture – the illicit control of the state organs for personal gain by business barons and powerful politicians – has never been so real in Kenya Short of a miracle, or a massive harambee by friends and relatives, or a philanthropy coming along to their aid, their relative would just die. Woe unto the poverty-stricken Kenyans if, for example, their kith and kin fall sick. In short, they live below the statutory social and economic rights that are demanded of a human being. Hence, as the borrowing bonanza went up, so did the poverty level, which means that for every 100 Kenyans, 63, on the very least, cannot afford to clothe, educate and feed their children. It then boggles the mind of every right-thinking Kenyan, what possibly the borrowed trillions of shillings have been for. Well, conventional logic would dictate that since the trillions of shillings was being borrowed for “development” and for public good, it would mitigate the exponential rise of poverty level. That is to say, for every 100 shilling that the government has been collecting, 65 shillings has been going to debt repayment.įor every 100 shilling that the government has been collecting, 65 shillings has been going to debt repaymentĪs the debt has spiralled out of control, the corresponding poverty level also climbed up: From 38% when Kibaki left office, to now 63% during the Jubilee government reign. This meant that by the financial year 2021–2022, the debt servicing was at 65% of the total national budget. The CBK reported that the government had accumulated a total debt portfolio of KSh6.1 trillion. Eight years later, in April 2022, the debt had quadrupled to KSh8.4 trillion. Kibaki’s outstanding debt was brought forward to Jand the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), publicly acknowledged this debt in its report. Flickr/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. The corresponding poverty level to the debt was at 38%. By the time, he was leaving State House, in 2012, in which time he was president of a government of national unity, from 2008, with Raila Odinga as Prime Minister, that debt was manageable and traceable.

Since then, we have not been able to achieve that percentage growth. Between 2003–2007, the height of Kibaki’s reign, the economy boomed at an all-time best of seven per cent. The true nature of the debt is clouded and shrouded in a labyrinthine maze of unscrupulous borrowing deliberately made so, so that ordinary mortals may not make head or tail of the trail of the staggering debt.īy the time, President Mwai Kibaki was leaving government, Kenya had a public debt portfolio of KSh2.37 trillion. The bewildering debt of trillion of shillings that now envelope Kenya’s national debt has so far been downplayed by the government and not many Kenyans may appreciate just how much the country could in the red. The bombshell was not in acknowledging what’s already public knowledge the soaring, spiralling and uncontrollable debt appetite by the government, but in the optics and mechanics of how that debt has been accumulated, who possibly has been accumulating it, who has been enabling the insatiable borrowing, why the debt has been accumulated and what for and how the public so far, has been duped into thinking that the borrowing of hundred of billions of shillings in their name, is for the public good. Two weekends ago, presidential aspirant Jimi Wanjigi dropped a bombshell: Through a power point presentation, for close to an hour, in front of local and international press, Jimi painted a grim but sadly, a true picture of Kenya’s outlandish and overwhelming public debt.