Moses Kuria, Gatundu South MP, while appearing on a morning show aired by CItizen TV on Interest Cap rate debate revealed the country’s economy overseen by President Kenyatta is in bad shape.
“Kibaki (former President) left us with an average tenure of ten years money, we have dropped that to 4% meaning we have lost all our consensuality ...you look at our books, our loans we have dropped from consensual loans to commercial loans, from long term loans to short term loans,” said the controversial legislator.
Mr. Kuria went ahead and said Uhuru’s administration had deliberately steered the country into an economic ditch by avoiding long term loans offered by reputable organisation such as the World in order to avoid being accountable and instead chose expensive and dogy loans.
“It's because we have refused loans from World Bank and ADB (African Development Bank) and the people who would be asking questions. And it’s a conspiracy between Treasury and ministries departments and agencies whereby they tell you, you take the expensive money because they won’t ask questions,” explained Kuria.
Over the last seven years, Kenya has been on a borrowing spree against the advice of policy analysts and financial institutions whose pleas have fallen on deaf ears. As at March 2018, the total stock of debt in Kenya amounted to Ksh 4.9 trillion, comprising Ksh 2.37 trillion domestic and Ksh 2.51 trillion external debt.
Financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (Kippra) have warned Kenya should go slow on its borrowing spree lest it risks crossing the tipping point and start borrowing from Paul to pay peter.
Currently, China is Kenya’s top lender and Beijing gave Nairobi a total Sh487 billion ($4,733.94 million) in the 12 months through the end of September 2017.
Within a period of just three months to September, China lent Kenya Sh122.73 billion ($119.16 million).
Kuria added that the government had also developed a nasty habit of borrowing expensive commercial loans from local banks while the same government ministries has idle cash lying in banks.
“Because me i have found my way to Damascus on my own, i want to ask the other people, please lets repent and go on the right path and tell people (Kenyans) we have lying to them, us as parliament and people in the executive have been stealing from them,”
Last month, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor, Patrick Njoroge also came out and faulted the government for delivering economic growth without creating jobs or an increase in incomes.
Mr. Njoroge said that households have not felt Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, stating that increased infrastructure spending has not spread wealth among working Kenyans.
“It is true you have GDP numbers but you can’t eat GDP,” said Dr Njoroge during the launch of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regional outlook report. “At the end of the day, what is needed is specific income. That is what anybody else wants. Plus jobs.
Kuria’s and Njoroge’s comments come at a time corporate Kenya has witnessed reduced profitability that has ushered in job cuts, freezes in hiring and near stagnant wages as companies race to protect their profit margins despite a 5.6 percent growth in the second quarter to June.