The minute you have a financial crisis in a country and the resultant inflation and unemployment spikes then you have a recipe for political instability and civil unrest . The Sri Lankans have taken to the streets in massive protests and chased the president away .
This is reminiscent of the financial turbulence that swept through South America twenty years ago and when Argentina became the poster example of financial mismanagement causing hyper-inflation which in turn sparked demonstrations and riots against the government .
Kenya also experienced unpredictable economic upheavals due to the pandemic but tax collection actually improved so the genesis of the Kenya debt is not tax related but expenditure related . The government has been profligate even without factoring in corruption .
The government embarked on ambitious infrastructure projects , on paper they look prudent and progressive since the development of a country is dependent on such projects and they help open up the country for economic activity .
In Kenya these projects have unfortunately become the bane of the country as unscrupulous Kenyans in the procurement process have seen an avenue to enrich themselves from the projects by hiking the quoted prices to ridiculous levels . We have even coined a name , tenderpreneurs , for them .
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Kenya has become a Plutocracy where only people of means can ascend to political power which then puts them in a position to dip their hands deeper into the public coffers and control the security machinery that safeguards their ill-gotten wealth .
The projects whose prices have not been hiked have been abandoned unfinished yet the full price of the project was paid . Money has been siphoned in many creative ways to the detriment of the country as the projects are useless since they are incomplete .
Worse still are the many ghost projects that have been paid for but did not see the light of day . This blatant theft of public resources is what has caused the crisis since the projects intended to spur economic activity did not actually take place .
Kenya has cooked up in its supposed progressive constitution , an elaborate Kleptocracy that has devolved corruption to the County level hence the insane preoccupation with what position one will get in the next government as a means to plunder .
Kenya has become a Plutocracy where only people of means can ascend to political power which then puts them in a position to dip their hands deeper into the public coffers and control the security machinery that safeguards their ill-gotten wealth .
The taxman has done his job but there is no point of diligently collecting taxes if the funds collected are going to be carelessly wasted and looted . Financial indiscipline , mismanagement and corruption are the prime causes of the debt crisis that we are currently facing .
Perhaps the taxman is wasting his time waiting for the Stellas to come back so they can declare their wealth . What he needs to do is to remove the blinkers he is wearing and explain to himself and his colleagues where the endless supply of cash on the campaign trails comes from .
It is unfair to hold the taxman responsible for the usage of the monies he collects but he should be an interested party to resolving the issue especially if what he collects ends up in a bottomless debt pit and he is then required to station himself at the airport waiting for Stella .
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