KHRC sues state for ‘hiding’ information on Kenya’s debt treaties
The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) has sued the cabinet secretary for National Treasury and Planning and the Attorney General seeking to compel them to produce information on Kenya’s debt treaties, agreements and contracts signed with other States and international financial institutions.
In a statement on Thursday, May 5, 2022, KHRC said that the process of government acquiring loans from other states and financial institutions has not been transparent in the last one decade.
"The government has taken expensive loans bilaterally from states, international financial institutions and corporations over the past decade but this process has not been transparent as the Kenyan public isn't involved in the process and is only left to rely on stories from the media," the statement read in part.
"Despite constitutional and legal provisions that require public disclosure of all aspects of public borrowing, the National Executive continues to operate in an opaque, and shadowy manner."
KHRC said that they took the move after trying to obtain the information from the National Treasury, only to be ignored for months.
"We sought to obtain the information from the Cabinet Secretary National Treasury and Planning through a letter dated 7th February 2022, but the request has been ignored to date. The obligation to avail these documents to the public is paramount since it is a constitutional and democratic requirement for citizens to engage actively and meaningfully on public finance and debt matters," added the statement.
KHRC has attributed the skyrocketing cost of living to the unaccountable borrowing, which has seen the public debt almost hit Ksh10 trillion in the last 10 years.
"The government's unaccountable expansion of our borrowing continues to present serious economic challenges for Kenyans with the ever-increasing cost of living," KHRC added.
As at September 2021, the public debt stock amounted to Ksh7.99 trillion, a 19 per cent increase from the June 2020 debt stock level. Of this amount, domestic debt accounted for 48 per cent of the debt stock whereas external debt accounted for 52 per cent.
Further, at this level, the debt stock accounts for 88.8 per cent of the Ksh9 trillion debt ceiling and has a present value of Public Debt-to-GDP ratio of 64.2 against a threshold of 55.
Forecasts by both the National Treasury and the Parliamentary Budget Office indicate that by June 2022, the debt stock will range between Ksh8.6 trillion and Ksh8.8 trillion. Further, it is estimated that by end of 2024, the public debt stock will have crossed the Ksh10 trillion mark.
