Expect no more bailouts, CS Yatani tells State agencies

Treasury CS Ukur Yatani. [Standard]

The Government is no longer keen on bailing out loss-making State corporations, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said yesterday. 

Yatani’s comments came on the back of a Treasury report, revealing that out of 247 State corporations, 127 made either losses or deficits.

“Gone are the days where we’ll be allowing State agencies to come here with a begging bowl or for a bailout,” he said.

Yattani was speaking after being presented with a Sh168 million dividend cheque from Kenya Reinsurance Corporation (KenyaRe), a rare occasion that he noted should be emulated.

The CS said in light of the impact of coronavirus and shrinking revenues, the government cannot afford the “luxury” of rescuing parastatals, most of which are plagued with mismanagement issues.

“We can least afford to spare public resources to bail out public enterprises, some of which are wanting not because of the nature of the business transaction but the inability of management to stay true to their objectives,” said Yatani.

He, however, noted that profit-making was not the sole aim of the corporations but urged them to “work hard” and trim overhead costs in order to improve service delivery to Kenyans.

Yatani committed to pursuing unscrupulous parastatal heads through radical reforms such as mergers.

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