“I just could not understand how we have so much debt, on our debt book.”
The question of public debt should be a key issue of concern for all citizens. According to our constitution article 214.2, “For this Article, “the public debt” means all financial obligations attendant to loans raised or guaranteed and securities issued or guaranteed by the national government.”
Jimmy Wanjigi yesterday (Sunday), made a case to the general public representing the results of a Forensic Investigation into public debt, “The debt book today is showing we owe Ksh. 8.4 trillion Central bank figures. When Mwai Kibaki left his last budget, the debt we had as of June 2014 was 2.3 trillion. The amount of Kenyans who were poor at that time was 38% at 2.3 trillion debt. Today, at 8.4 trillion debt we have a 63% poverty rate.”
According to the Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data, Kenya’s current population is 56,203,608 as of July 24th, 2022 states the countries. With these figures, if you divide the public debt by the total population, each Kenyan has a debt of Ksh 149 456.597164. In a country where 63% of Kenyans are living below Ksh.200 a day.
In the press conference, Jimmy Wanjingi released Forensic data on the Public debt under the Jubilee Government. The preparation of the report took approximately 6-7 months to gather. Wanjigi presented the subject from the definition, origin, and legalities of the subject according to the Kenya Constitution. The conclusion was that “public debt is the biggest heist of public funds” in Kenya.
“We have announced today that Kenyans are debt free and have credit. The pain you are living is unjustified. What has happened over the last eight years is that we are creating poverty in our country. We are making poor people because of Fake debt.”
The audit focused on the financial books of various government agencies and parastatals. In the end, Wanjigi called upon anyone who seeks to challenge the report to provide answers as everything they used was in the public domain. The businessman promised a part 2 of the same analysis. Can the question of Public debt be that simple?
