Straight lies written By CS Rotich to World Bank to get another loan

CS Henry Rotich is using  powers at his disposal to make sure that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Big Four Agenda becomes a reality.

CS Henry Rotich is applying for a Sh75 billion loan, described as Inclusive Growth and Fiscal Management Development Policy Financing.

The loan application is contained in a letter to the President of the World Bank, Ms Kristalina Georgieva, by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, dated March 13, 2019, in which he says the money is needed to fund the Big Four agenda.

According to the project document on the bank’s website, the loan will enable the government to crowd in private investment and financing for affordable housing; enhance farmer incomes and food security; create fiscal space to allow the government to invest in key development programmes; and crowd in private investment and leverage digitisation to support the government’s inclusive growth agenda.

The Lie

In his letter, Mr Rotich cites recent high-profile measures which the government has taken to fight corruption, such as the arrests and prosecution of government officials and business people.

He says that the government has not only conducted lifestyle audits on all public officers, but that it is now aggressively executing compliance to wealth declaration by public servants.

This is a straight lie as the Auditor General is still struggling to find a perfect climate to run life audits to all public servants.

Corruption on the other hand is still the biggest headache to the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Risk associated with the loan

Should the loan be approved, it will add to Kenya’s growing debt burden. The country’s debt position has reached a dangerous level, with experts warning that it poses a real and massive systemic risk.

“What we should be looking at is debt service-to-government revenues, and much less the GDP-to-debt ratio popular with our Treasury. We continue to justify the current situation where the Treasury prefers to use debt-to-GDP, hence arguing that we’re within the IMF benchmark sustainability ratios,” said an economist.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *