Kenya can pay its external debt if corruption is cut by half - CS Mbadi
Mbadi highlighted that the ongoing fiscal consolidation strategy aims to boost revenue while curbing excessive spending.
Kenya can comfortably pay its external debt if the government cuts corruption-related losses by half, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said.
Speaking on Citizen TV’s JKLive Show on Wednesday, Mbadi highlighted that the ongoing fiscal consolidation strategy aims to boost revenue while curbing excessive spending.
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He pointed to public procurement as a key area of concern, where financial leakages continue to drain resources.
“We have talked about coming up with e-procurement because in procurement alone we lose so much money,” he said.
Mbadi referenced a statement by former President Uhuru Kenyatta, who once claimed that Kenya loses up to Sh2 billion daily due to corruption.
He argued that if this figure is accurate, cutting it by half would save the country an estimated Sh365 billion annually.
“A lot of figures have been thrown around; remember the former president talked about us losing Sh2 billion per day. I made a joke one time which went viral, that if we could just reduce our theft by 50 percent…” said the Treasury CS.
“If we are stealing Sh2 billion per day as an economy and we make a conscious decision that we steal a billion…if you had been stealing Sh1,000, you steal Sh500, although that is not desirable. We will be saving Sh1 billion per day which translates to Sh365 billion per year.”
Mbadi noted that this amount surpasses the Sh280 billion in external debt Kenya has accumulated in 2025 alone. He insisted that reducing corruption-related losses would eliminate the need for external borrowing.
“That is the money we borrow externally. External debt this year alone is Sh280 billion far much less than what we will save so we will not go out there looking for money,” he noted.
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