Ruto is not the problem

With the anger over the recent finance bill, it is tempting to look for individuals to put the blame on. For some people, they want to put the blame on Ruto. For others, they want to look for the culprit who planned the Finance bill protests. To politicize this issue would be a mistake as there is no one individual responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.

The issue at hand is that the Kenyan government is deeply in debt, and they are now trying to overtax us to repay those debts. Therefore the pertinent question must be:

What is driving us into debt?

To explain that, let us use this chart of Kenya’s debt to GDP ratio

As you can see, the Kenyan government’s debt started shooting up at some time in 2013. We can all agree that people get debt to spend more on something. So what is it that Kenya needed to spend more on starting in 2013?

The new, devolved government

That is the culprit behind the increased debt. That is the reason the government needs to borrow and overtax people.

Since devolution came into force in 2013, the government went from 8 provinces to 47 counties. From 10 ministries to 21. From 262 parastatals to 349. From 188 MPs to 349. Introduced entirely new categories of the senate, women reps etc. We all know how salaries have been rising in every group mentioned. That’s nearly double the spending or more in every major sector of government. All of these new positions created each want a substantial budget for their operations and also to line their personal pockets through corruption. The government simply cannot afford all these government expenditures right now, therefore they have to borrow and increase taxes to manage the costs.

The bloated size of the government is what led to the Finance Bill. Not Ruto. Any person you put in the presidency will be faced with the same dilemma of looking for money to sustain this inflated government. I will propose a solution in a later post.