Gatundu MP Moses Kuria has exposed how legislators were bribed by State House officials to approve Kenya’s borrowing by approving budget estimates without questioning.
In an interview on Citizen TV, Moses Kuria said the deals happened when he was a member of the National Assembly’s budget committee.
The Gatundu MP revealed that they would be called to the meetings just around the time Parliament needed to debate on the country’s annual budget estimates.
The MP revealed that legislators from the committee who would go to State House, would receive goodies and asked not to question the budget.
This, he claimed, is the cause of Kenya’s huge public debt as approving the budget without question gave the finance ministry license to borrow uncontrollably.
“What used to happen is that every year before we pass the budget, we would be called to state house, both members of Jubilee and NASA (National Super Alliance) led by ODM chair, John Mbadi, and we would be given goodies for our constituencies and we would be told ‘shut up and go and pass everything the way it is,”Kuria revealed.
While exposing the bribery, the legislator said he regrets not playing his oversight role, letting himself be used by the executive.
“We have lied to Kenyans and the second thing is we have failed in our oversight responsibility,
“Since 2014, we have sold to Kenyans this romantic story that all is well because we believed in respecting the executive and also since most of us are members of the ruling party,” he said.
Kenya’s debt burden ballooned from 48.6% of GDP at the end of 2015, two years after the Jubilee party took over leadership, to 69% of GD by end of 2020 thanks to huge borrowing by the country to finance recurrent expenditure as well as few development projects including infrustruture.
According to Central Bank of Kenya data, Kenya’s total debt as of April 2021 was KSh 7.4 trillion. External debt standing at KSh 3.8 trillion while domestic debt stands at KSh3.6 trillion.
This is not the first expose of such nature from the MP.
On May 11, Kuria spilled the beans on being bribed in order to pass the Building Bridges Initiative bill.
“MPs voting yes currently receiving their KSh 100K from the office of a senior parliamentary leader,” he said.
He admitted that he was among the ones who took the bribe, later appearing with a bundle of notes to refund the Ksh 100,000 bribe.
