Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah claimed on Wednesday that Kenya has settled all of its debts and that the government has even exceeded the required payment by Ksh.1 trillion.
According to the Senator, records in government books show that Kenya has been paying its lenders but has failed to update its debt portfolio over the years.
Speaking during an interview at Spice FM, Omtatah claimed that money is leaving the exchequer (National Treasury), but it is not being channeled towards debt repayment and is instead being inherited by a few individuals.
“Kenya has overpaid its debt by more than Ksh.1 trillion we do not owe anybody anything,” he stated.
“If you look at the figures on what we have legitimately borrowed and what the government has been paying over the years when you do a balance sheet you find that we have overpaid the debt,” he added.
“When we pay they do not subtract from what has been borrowed. I think a large proportion of it is just being pocketed so what they are trying to do is to tamper around with the few interests so that you look like you have defaulted.”
The outspoken legislator also claimed that some of the borrowed funds were never deposited in the country’s consolidated fund and were instead held in offshore accounts.
He claimed that the accounts were established during the Uhuru Kenyatta administration, when the Public Finance Management Act was amended to serve as a conduit for storing the funds.
“Some of these debts did not even reach Kenya it was paid offshore, there was a time the Uhuru government amended the Public Finance Management Act to allow them to make offshore accounts where they would make payments,” he claimed.
“Under the law, all the money should come to the consolidated fund, parliament should then appropriate that money and the controller of budget should appropriate how that money should be spent.”
Omtatah used the multibillion-dollar Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project as an example, claiming that the funds for the project were transacted in China but were still recorded as debt in Kenya.
“Take an example of the SGR, not a coin came to Kenya from China all money was paid in Beijing and the debt was factored here and I fought it until the Supreme Court agreed that it is unconstitutional,” he said.
The activist also claimed that the blunder occurred at the Office of the Auditor General (AG), which is not performing a thorough job of checking the balance sheets.
According to Omtatah, the money is not stolen during the expenditure stage, but rather during the revenue allocation stage, when the AG does not cross-check funds disbursed from the Treasury to the recipient.
“They (AG) audit government books like stand-alone they do not crosscheck. When they go to audit the Treasury, Treasury simply says Ksh.10 left the consolidated fund but they do not go to check whether whatever has been declared has been received on the other end,” he said.
“This is where you and I come in where we say that this Auditor General is just a mechanical thing, you and me who pay the taxes can we follow [through] and say that this Ksh.10 that left Treasury [did it go] to where it was intended to go?” he posed.
“Because they (AG) will go to the other side and ask how much did you receive and they say Ksh.6. They will audit him for Ksh.6 and they have audited the Treasury for Ksh.10 without connecting the two to confirm the transaction.”
As a result, he believes that all individuals who have served in the Executive should be called to account, and that a public audit of government accounts should be conducted.
He stated that individuals such as President William Ruto, Former President Uhuru Kenyatta, Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u, and Former Treasury PS Kamau Thugge should be investigated.
“Outside institutions we must audit the public debt and people like Professor Njuguna, Thugge and all these people who have been in money must be brought before the public to answer where is this money,” he said.
“We need to ask where does this money go because it does not just disappear.”
Kenya’s public debt is expected to reach Ksh.9.4 trillion in June, already exceeding the Treasury’s target of 55 percent of GDP.
