Office of the Citizen is the logical evolution of years’-long efforts of the Okoa Uchumi Campaign, a citizen-led civil society initiative founded in 2019 to champion transparency and accountability in fiscal governance in Kenya.
The country is in an economic crisis; this year, for every 100 shillings the government collects as
revenue, more than 65 shillings goes to service the national debt. More devastating, the first three
quarters the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in the revenue collection for the 2022/2023 Financial
Year have been below target. Out of the targeted Ksh 2.07 trillion for the current fiscal year, Ksh 1.57
trillion has been collected. Almost 25% below the target amount. The above financial predicament
notwithstanding, the government, through the National Treasury, has put together an expansionary
national budget for the 2023/2024 financial year totalling Ksh 3.6 trillion with a projected deficit of
Ksh 768 billion in the 2023/2024 financial year.
In April 2021, the IMF officially approved the Fiscal Consolidation Program for Kenya,
anchored in the Extended Fund Facility (EFF)/ Extended Credit Facility (ECF) that aims to
stabilize the economy and set a basis for a resurgence of growth and shared prosperity.
The Kenya public debt stock currently stands at Ksh 7.712 trillion as of June 2021, having
increased from Ksh 6.28 trillion in March 2020 when the first case of COVID-19 pandemic
was reported in Kenya. This consists of Ksh 3.697 trillion as domestic debt, and Ksh 4.015
trillion as foreign debt, implying reduced borrowing space given the borrowing threshold of
Ksh 9 trillion set by parliament and provided for in section 50(5) of the PFM Act 2012.The
relatively high level of Kenya’s indebtedness and its rising debt burden has serious implications
on the country’s development and debt sustainability initiatives as well as a rising concern on
the rise in domestic debt and its effect on investment in Kenya.