NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 7 – Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah now claims that Kenya had paid off all its debts and that the government had even made an additional payment of Sh1 trillion.
Speaking to Spice FM on Wednesday, Omtatah said the government records show that Kenya has been making payments to its lenders but has failed to update its debt portfolio over time.
Omtatah said money has been leaving the National Treasury’s exchequer but is not being used to pay off the debt but is instead being inherited by certain individuals.
“If you look at the figures, Kenya has overpaid its debt by more than sh1trillion, we do not owe anybody anything,” he said, “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 continued by saying that “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 activist further asserted that the Office of the Auditor General has been making mistakes by failing to thoroughly review the balance sheets.
Omtatah alleges that the money is being stolen during the revenue allocation stage, rather than being stolen through expenditure when the AG neglects to double-check the funds that are distributed from the Treasury to the beneficiary.
“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 Sh10 that left Treasury [did it go] to where it was intended to go?”
He added that “Because they (AG) will go to the other side and ask how much you received, and they say sh6. They will audit him for sh6 and they have audited the Treasury for Ksh.10 without connecting the two to confirm the transaction.”
Omtatah continued by saying that a portion of the loans were actually stored in offshore accounts and never reached the nation’s consolidated fund.
“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.”
Therefore, he believed that everyone who had served in the Executive should be questioned and that there should be an open audit of government finances.
He said that people like President William Ruto, Former President Uhuru Kenyatta, Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u, and former Treasury PS Kamau Thugge should be questioned, among others.
“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 this money goes because it does not just disappear.”
Kenya’s public debt is expected to reach sh9.4 trillion in June, already exceeding the Treasury’s target of 55 percent of GDP.
In April, the National Treasury began a nationwide public hearing to raise the current public debt ceiling and instead base it on the country’s GDP.
Lobbying for the move, CS Ndung’u proposed tying the debt limit to no more than 55 percent of the country’s GDP to increase borrowing capacity.
This makes borrowing a top priority for the government, which is currently mired in a funding quagmire due to lower-than-expected revenue collection.
Treasury has already sought services from qualified firms to assist it in launching a new Eurobond before the end of the fiscal year ending June 2024.
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