There was a distinct smell of stale coffee and damp carpet in the air at the KICC offices this Tuesday as Ndindi Nyoro finally let it all out. The Kiharu MP didn’t mince words, basically accusing the administration of playing games with the numbers. It’s the kind of blunt talk we don’t hear enough of, honestly, but he was clearly frustrated by what he calls a deliberate misrepresentation of how this country actually borrows its cash.
Nyoro’s argument is pretty straightforward, even if the finance officials try to bury it in technical fluff: if you raise money by leveraging future revenue—like those fuel or railway levies—that is debt. Period. He’s tired of the government pretending that securitisation is just some magical, debt-free financing trick. According to him, the folks over at the IMF and World Bank have finally caught on to what local critics have been saying for ages. It’s hard to tell if this will actually change anything, but the sentiment is there—or maybe it’s just political posturing? Either way, he’s not backing down.
“Securitisation is being used as jargon to sanitise illegal borrowing,” Nyoro told the room, and you could tell he was really digging into that point. You can’t just hide a mountain of debt under a complex term and hope nobody notices. The math just doesn’t add up otherwise.
Then he brought up that trip to Washington. You know, the one where government officials went all the way across the globe just to hear the same things Kenyans have been saying right here in Nairobi for months. It felt like a massive waste of resources to him, and quite frankly, it’s hard to disagree. Why spend public money to be told that debt is, in fact, debt? It’s a bit insulting, isn’t it? The Treasury needs to stop acting like they’re running some sort of experimental lab with the country’s future on the line.
He says the public debt has hit Sh13 trillion. That’s a staggering number, and if the government isn’t being clear about what’s included in that—or what’s being hidden—then we’re all in the dark. Transparency isn’t just a buzzword, though it seems to be treated like one lately.
We need real accountability, not just fancy terminology. I suppose we’ll see if the Treasury actually listens, though I wouldn’t hold my breath—not with the way things have been going lately.