Ruto Is Right, No Sensible Govt Can Borrow Money To Pay Salaries
The Mt Kenya Times 
President William Ruto
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Worth Noting:
- He has so far made some good progress in terms of fulfilling the promises he made during the campaigns.
- The three other main challenges that stood in his way were: Drought and famine, Russian-Ukraine war and Covid-19-Kenya was recovering from devastating effects of the pandemic.
- Recently, the delay in paying the salaries of the civil servants and members of parliament for month of March drew mixed reactions.
- For the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Party, this showed the government is broke. So, it was an indication that President William Ruto’s administration was collapsing. This is happening because Dr Ruto was ‘clueless’ on how to govern a nation.
When a new government comes to power, the main challenge is rebuilding and stabilizing the economy.
The government of President William Ruto was not an exception.
After assuming power, Dr Ruto and Deputy President (DP) Rigathi Gachagua stated that the situation was so bad.
We literally inherited empty coffers.
The DP has been reiterating. The ‘handshake’ government had run down our economy. They looted everything at the tail-end of thier administration.
As President William Ruto promised Kenyans during the campaigns, he is now rebuilding it.
These teething problems cannot be addressed overnight. As such, Kenyans should brace themselves for a bit of hard time but this is for a short period.
Dr William Ruto is determined to manuever his way out of this and steadies the ship.
Yes, being the second in command, you would not expect Gachagua to expose the weaknesses of the government, if any.
However, in my considered view I think he has a point.
President Ruto has been at helm of power for seven months.
Therefore, it is too early to judge him.
He has so far made some good progress in terms of fulfilling the promises he made during the campaigns.
The three other main challenges that stood in his way were: Drought and famine, Russian-Ukraine war and Covid-19-Kenya was recovering from devastating effects of the pandemic.
Recently, the delay in paying the salaries of the civil servants and members of parliament for month of March drew mixed reactions.
For the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Party, this showed the government is broke. So, it was an indication that President William Ruto’s administration was collapsing. This is happening because Dr Ruto was ‘clueless’ on how to govern a nation.
As expected, the President did not take these attacks lightly.
Reacting, he seemed to put across this point. The Azimio leadership should be the last person to lecture me.
This is because I’m building an economy that had been run down by the previous government in which their leader was a co-principal.
Some media reports had earlier alleged that the ‘Handshake’ government used to borrow money to pay salaries and clear other recurrent expenditure bills. This is what plunged our economy to its knees.
For President Ruto, he maintained his position. It is true the payment of salaries has been delayed.
This is not because the government is broke. It is because 65 percent of the revenue collected was being used to service the loans.
Most of loans matured recently and this happened around the same time.
We cannot away from this reality. As a government, we have obligation to pay.
We know the loans had been secured by the previous government.
So what comes first? Is it the salaries or loans repayment?
The priority should be given to the latter. In default, our country would be blacklisted.
This means that we shall lose the trust and confidence of development partners, particularly the international partners.
They will close their lending taps.
As a developing country, we cannot survive without borrowing. So we must always strive to maintain and strength en our relationship with the community of nations.
Remember the developed countries also borrow.
For Ruto, he restated that his administration will never borrow money to pay salaries for the civil servants and recurrent expenditure.
When we do this we are killing our economy.
The delay in paying salaries is not a big deal. This teething problem will not take long. I’m working round the clock with my team to stabilize the economy.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi
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