Mudavadi wants debts managed by authority

Amani Party leader Musalia Mudavadi at Riverside Drive in Nairobi. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

Amani National Congress party leader Musalia Mudavadi wants Parliament to establish an independent Public Debt Management Authority to regulate what he describes as reckless borrowing by the State.

Mr Mudavadi said the authority would then regulate present and future borrowing of money to cushion Kenyans from impending crisis of repaying debts.

He said Parliament was tasked with the duty of protecting taxpayers and one of the ways to do that was creating laws to safeguard their interests.

In a harsh-worded statement on the State of the Nation delivered ahead of the 56th Madaraka Day to be celebrated in Narok on Saturday, Mudavadi said the Government’s borrowing was being handled as if it was “a function of a secret society.”

He said Jubilee must tell Kenyans the true level of the country’s indebtedness and detailed terms of the loans.

“We need details of every debt. Government can no longer behave like a recruit society of sirikali. There must be public participation in every borrowing. We are seeing a country that is over-borrowing so as to satisfy the greedy appetite of a few thieves.” 

Kenya owes more than Sh5 trillion, according to information by Central Bank of Kenya, but which Mudavadi says could be more than Sh6 trillion.

Kenya’s debt under the Grand Coalition administration was below Sh2 trillion, but since Uhuru Kenyatta became President, the debt has increased steadily.

In the recent past, Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo warned that the increasing public debt was weighing down Kenya, with Sh1.1 trillion channeled to repaying debt. This means only about Sh700 billion would cater for development and recurrent expenditures.

Mudavadi asked Uhuru to desist from “glossing over things and the kinds of political half-truths and untruths” by rolling out statistics that suggest the country is doing extremely well.

The leader further asked the President to address the question of youth unemployment, adding that more than 8 million young people were unemployed or underemployed.

He asked the Head of State to end the ongoing wrangles between teachers’ unions and the Ministry of Education over the new Competency-Based Curriculum by calling for dialogue between stakeholders.

“We are hearing frightful things about the new Competence-Based Curriculum that seems to be forced down our throats. The Ministry of Education must now sit down with the leaders of the teachers’ unions and listen to their concerns about the curriculum,” he advised.