THE COURAGE TO REBUILD KENYA

SPEECH DELIVERED BY HON. CHIEF JUSTICE (EMERITUS) AT THE MARAGA ’27 VIP DINNER, SAROVA PAN-AFRIC HOTEL, NAIROBI

22 Nov 2025

Fellow Kenyans,

On Thursday, President William Ruto delivered his second State of the Nation speech with his customary insensitivity, and through a posture that fails to appreciate the current state of the Nation.

In a truly remarkable moment, he continued with his signature habit of gaslighting us; asking us to believe his version of reality, rather than the true reality that we all live. The Kenya he portrayed can only be that which Ruto and his political and business friends – who have captured the State – have selfishly created for themselves.

In his speech, the President offered four headline numbers as proof that “things are working” under his leadership: lower inflation, a stronger shilling, higher reserves, and a bigger gross domestic product, or GDP.

Let’s set the record straight. On inflation, the President said, and I quote: “Inflation, which stood at 9.6% in 2022, has steadily declined to 4.6% as of last month, bringing much-needed relief to households.”

The undeniable reality, as we all know it, is different. As a recent newspaper headline said, and I quote:

“Kenyans are borrowing KSH 13 billion a month just to eat”. 1 Inflation has not slowed down because of smart management by the President. It is because Kenyans cannot afford basic goods anymore. Our supermarkets are empty, our small businesses are shutting down, our farmers can’t get financing from local banks, and demand has evaporated.

And, in the real world away from State House, food inflation is still crushing Kenyans, and household incomes continue shrinking. This isn’t a breakthrough, it is economic paralysis.

In his speech, Ruto said the following on the matter of the shilling, and I quote: “The shilling, once in a perilous downward spiral, has stabilised at KSh 129 to the dollar for nearly two years, a direct consequence of prudent monetary policy and disciplined fiscal management.”

And with respect to foreign reserves, he said, and again I quote: “Foreign reserves had hit historic lows… Today our reserves stand at USD 12 billion, the highest in our history.”

The undeniable truth is this: Under President Ruto, our national debt has ballooned from KSH 8.6 trillion when he took office, to just about KSH 12 trillion today. That is a stunning rate of growth in debt in just three years.

Under his leadership, our country has borrowed at least 40% of our annual budget since he took office. 2 And he has nothing to show for it.

Much of this new debt has been taken out in US Dollar denominated loans, such as two loans from the World Bank totaling USD 2.2 billion in 2023 and 2024. 3 The rest was from the IMF 4 , and international and local commercial banks 5 , leading to the government becoming the largest borrower from domestic banks.

As a direct result of this reckless borrowing, international credit ratings agencies and other publicly available data show that about 70% of our country’s revenue today is dedicated to debt service alone 6 – as opposed to serving Kenyans.

To make matters worse, as recently noted by the Office of Auditor General, while domestic debt made up roughly half of total public debt in 2023-2024, it accounted for about 70% of total interest expense during that period 7 .

This is a clear indication that this government is taking expensive, short-term loans from local banks at double-digit rates, hurting our country’s ability to serve Kenyans and also crowding out local businesses in the market for financing.

So, the truth is, the shilling is not “stable” because Kenya suddenly became productive under President Ruto. This “perceived” stability is the result of more debt taken in US Dollars – from the World Bank, the IMF, and other places – and poured into the market to induce a short-term perception of stability.

And I shall spare you today the worrying trend of Kenya suddenly becoming a huge exporter of gold to only one country in the Middle East, which is entangled in destabilizing our region including Sudan and Tanzania.

On the country’s GDP, the president said, and I quote: “Kenya’s GDP has increased from USD 115 billion to USD 136 billion, making us the 6th largest economy in Africa.”

Common sense tells us that the size of the pot only tells you how much food is in the kitchen. The more relevant question is, who is invited to eat at the supper table when more than 8.9 million Kenyans are living on less than 300 shillings a day?

The reality is that given a stubbornly high wage bill, wastage and inefficiency in government today, our country’s bureaucracy and politicians are consuming much of the borrowed resources that we should be deploying to serve citizens.

Most Kenyans cannot experience the increase in “wealth” the President is touting. The people whose taxes and future debt obligations fund the banquet, are kept outside the dining room.

On his way to the Presidency, President William Ruto and Kenya Kwanza sold Kenyans a Bottom-Up transformation: cheap credit for “hustlers,” mass affordable housing, health-care reform, and a digital jobs boom. Three years later, the reality is record debt and policy theater.

Our country has not grown stronger under President Ruto — it has grown poorer, hungrier, more indebted, and more captured by corruption, with a collapsing economy being painted as success through borrowed dollars and manufactured data.

Fellow Kenyans, these are the facts, and they are not in dispute. Rather than create jobs at home, this government is sending our youth to servitude in foreign countries.

In a shocking sign of moral and intellectual bankruptcy, our own government has reduced itself to a mere broker of talent – sending our best and brightest to the Gulf to be nannies.

In recent global news, the current regime has brought disgrace to our nation. We are all familiar with reports of the government trading off its citizen to provide cheap labour in foreign lands. Under the Gulf’s kafala regime, Kenyans are subjected to indignities that no one deserves, all in the name of bringing in remittances. Kenyans are not afraid of hard work; they detest betrayals of their social contract and abuse by their government.

Education

We cannot forget the current status of our education system. Just recently, the government reduced capitation for secondary school students from KSH 22,000 to KSH 12,000 per student, taking away the last bit of hope for millions of students.

Today, under President Ruto, the constitutional promise of “inclusive, free, quality education” has been trampled by budget cuts, poor policy, and broken promises. Persons living with disabilities face challenges due to erratic policy decisions and poorly implemented education and skills programs.

Public universities and research institutions that used to be academic giants in Africa, are now graveyards of potential, starved of funding and relevance. Ruto’s government has recorded one of the longest teachers’ strikes in Kenya’s history. Lecturers languish without pay and even resort to begging to pay their rent and feed their families. These are highly educated Kenyans whose minds continue to put out the best in spite of the disrespect and dismissive attitude they get from the government.

Healthcare

The healthcare system is crumbling. Within a year of taking office, President Ruto embarked on an aggressive and determined effort to dismantle the NHIF, replacing it with the shambolic SHA, which has come to be known universally for the daily agony of mothers losing babies in labor wards because it is not working.

Patients crying at the gates of hospitals because dialysis and cancer treatment is now a privilege, not a right.

SHA cost us KSH 111 billion, without taking into consideration our views of what we wanted in a healthcare system. Because he doesn’t care about our feelings on the matter. In a truly shocking finding, the Office of Auditor General, expressing an opinion with regards to the procurement processes around SHA, said, and I quote:

SHA was “unbudgeted”. “Uncompetitive”. It has “undefined scope”, and its agreement contained “unfavorable contract clauses” such as those surrendering our beloved country’s right to pursue any other technology without getting sued in foreign courts, for years.

In other words, a total and wholesome betrayal of our country. [The Courage to Rebuild Kenya - Ukatiba and Plan for the Economy]

There is good news though. It does not have to be this way. Kenya has everything we need to run a better race to prosperity and dignity.

We are not a poor country. We are a country of innovative youth and hardworking men and women. This is why I have outlined my Ukatiba philosophy to take us back to where the people birthed a new Constitution guaranteeing our socio-economic rights. And this is why I support the initiative by Mr. Muigai to have the Katiba taught in all schools. If we implement all the provisions of our beautiful constitution we shall have economic prosperity, integrity in leadership and dignity for all.

President Ruto keeps saying that we have no plan for the country. That he is the only one capable of leading Kenya.

When we adopted our Katiba in 2010, we buried the concept of messiahs and autocrats.

We reaffirmed that any Kenyan can lead, guided by our Katiba. This is why in line with my Ukatiba philosophy, I have laid out my five-point plan for the economy. It rejects the labor-export scam and rebuilds capacity at home.

First, we will balance the budget in my first term by shrinking the cost of politics, hard-capping debt service near KSH 600B, cancelling fraudulent or idle contracts, and freezing non-essential borrowing. My government will seek to find efficiencies and deploy previously wasted funds to serve Kenyans. This is necessary to ensure macroeconomic balance and reduction of the crowding out effects of the current administration’s policies.

Second, we will address structural issues that inhibit job creation. Entrepreneurs complain that high taxation has made business unviable and over-regulation makes doing business unnecessarily difficult. We will introduce reforms intended to allow the capital markets to play their rightful role in nation-building, to allow free flowing capital to boost productivity and investment.

Third, we will introduce the National Youth Apprenticeship program which will fund upskilling for youth ages 18–30, with employer rebates and guaranteed placements—with a projected 4 million youth working by Year 3, yielding an estimated KSH 576B per year in new revenue once scaled.

Fourth, on Intellectual Property rights, technology, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and manufacturing, we will invest in digital infrastructure, talent, and county-based industrial zones; unlock export growth and import substitution. Our team has identified far-reaching plans to implement, within my first days in office, an infrastructure that will unlock immense wealth through Kenya’s Intellectual Property right. I will focus on producing and exporting ideas, patented inventions, products and services, instead of exporting our people.

Fifth, I will face corruption head-on. We do not need new laws. We just have to implement the law, starting with me. My family and I will not do business with government. As my record on digitization shows during my tenure as Chief Justice, we will digitize all procurement and government business.

Once and for all, we will fight corruption with the seriousness this national crisis deserves, end leakage with full e-procurement, real-time budgets and dashboards, and pursue aggressive prosecution and recoveries.

Conclusion

We can continue pretending that President Ruto understands our struggle and challenges, and that he will treat with utmost respect our blood, sweat, tears, and taxes.

Or we can choose an honest leadership that treats every tax shilling as if it’s the last we have—and invests it to create work and opportunities here. That is my promise to you.

We will not betray our people, and we will not break our sacred constitutional promise with them. Every Kenyan—farmer, artisan, professional, and youth—must be able to work, create, earn, and build ethical, and generational wealth. Prosperity is meaningless unless it restores dignity and lifts the lives of the most vulnerable. Our economic architecture will be designed to make sure that growth is not captured at the top but shared by all.

Let us be very clear. Our youth are not “hustlers” at home or for hire in the global labour bazaar. They are wealth creators. They are custodians, guardians and stewards of the present and the future. My duty is to equip them for leadership, invention, and ownership of Kenya’s destiny, to operate beyond survival and dependency.

We, the people, with purpose and courage, shall restore humanity and the value of life in our country.

The courage that birthed the Ukatiba spirit in 2010, is not dead. The courage that got our youth to step up in 2024 to oppose the Finance Bill still lives. The courage that allows us to trudge the roads, the farms, the lakes, the seas and the web to find economic opportunities still exists. It is time to reset, restore and rebuild our nation.