The government is planning to borrow another Sh83 billion to pay off debts, Cord leader Raila Odinga has claimed.
Raila said this on Friday, hours after Treasury CS Henry Rotich said the country was borrowing to encourage investments and meet expenditure.
But Rotich noted that the country’s debt target does not exceed 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
But the Opposition leader told journalists at his home in Karen, Nairobi, that the day of reckoning had caught up with the nation.
“As we speak, Jubilee is syndicating $800 million to international bank loans, not for development but to plug the holes that their looting has created,” he said.
Raila said the public can now see that companies are retrenching employees and that the stock market is in free fall.
“The chickens are now coming home to roost because we now have no money to pay debts. We are just borrowing,” he said.
The Cord leader added that the shilling’s value was being propped up by massive Central Bank of Kenya interventions, “to the extent of gagging market analysts from making exchange rate forecasts”.
“Many government suppliers have not been paid for a year or more. Many suppliers are facing financial ruin as banks recall loans they cannot pay,” he said.
Humiliation in polls
Regarding the August 8 general election, Raila said President Uhuru Kenyatta will be humiliated when the opposition wins.
Raila accused the President of using public resources to better Jubilee zones but said Jubilee and Cord strongholds no longer exist.
He was referring to the warm reception he received on Thursday in Meru, a county perceived to be Jubilee’s turf.
During the visit, Raila told Meru residents that they had been misled into believing he is the enemy of Jubilee Administration’s progress.
More on this: Raila to Meru residents: I am not your enemy, register as voters to save Kenya from Jubilee
“Now there is nothing like Jubilee or Cord strongholds in this election. Did you see the huge crowd in Meru?” Raila posed.
He said the 2013 myth of the tyranny of numbers had changed completely.
“[Things have changed]. Jubilee is moving on with the figures of last time. They are mistaken,” he said.
Amani leader Musalia Mudavadi and Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka joined the fray, accusing Uhuru of attempting to intimidate his rivals through the use of force.
“I am just trying to caution him. I am ready for the humiliation in the coming elections but you (Uhuru) are the one who will end up very humiliated,” he said
Kenya’s foremost political rivals,Uhuru and Raila who faced off for President in 2013, are expected to do so again on August 8.
Uhuru assured Kenyans and the international community last week that he will concede defeat if he loses.
“If it happens so, I will obey the will of Kenyans. That is the law, nothing more,” he said during a press conference at Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri county yesterday morning.
Gambia’s former leader Yahya Jammeh flew into exile in the Equatorial Guinea on Saturday, after stepping down under pressure from West African nations, after refusing to handover power to President-elect Adama Barrow.
