Give President Uhuru Kenyatta political cover to punish the corrupt

NAIROBI: As an Opposition leader, President Uhuru Kenyatta once dismissed former President Kibaki as a “see nothing, hear nothing, and do nothing president.” Given recent goings on in his administration, the same can be said about President Kenyatta. Just last weekend he sounded singularly out of touch with his comment that the economy is OK, despite overwhelming public sentiment to the contrary.

But in many ways the President was right. We are growing at above 5 per cent. Inflation is below 7 per cent. Our debt servicing remains a healthy 2.6 per cent of GDP and is projected to get lower in the medium term. Our debt-to-GDP ratio, while at 53 per cent, is also projected to reduce in the next few years. Even the performance of the shilling against the dollar does not look that bad relative to other emerging and frontier market currencies. And lastly, our forex reserves at the Central Bank amount to over three months of import cover, well within conventionally accepted “safe” levels. The overall point here is that to understand movements in macroeconomic indicators we must put things in perspective. And that requires an appreciation of trends in the global economy as well as the performance of our peer economies.