Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah on Thursday, April 24, announced the withdrawal of petition 531 of 2015 touching on Kenya’s odious debt situation.
In the petition that has been in the corridors of the courts for nearly a decade now, both President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and then Deputy President William Ruto were named as the 1st and 2nd respondents, respectively.
Through a press briefing, the vocal activist revealed the new development, citing too much time being wasted on technicalities, but still maintained the battle was far from over.
“After consultations and given the technical objections raised by the court, it has become untenable to proceed with this petition in the manner that it was. So we have withdrawn it tactically to avoid the cascading disaster that was before us,” Omtatah posited.
“However, we are going to refile the same immediately so that we can avoid all those technicalities that were being placed in our way like minefields,” he added.
The petition filed in 2015 alleged mismanagement and a lack of transparency in the handling of the Eurobond proceeds. The petitioners claimed that the funds were unlawfully deposited into offshore accounts instead of the Consolidated Fund, violating constitutional provisions and the Public Finance Management Act.
They sought accountability and transparency regarding the utilisation of the Eurobond funds.
The latest follows recent claims made by Omtatah, where he stated that Kenya has no public debt. Omtatah suggested that the trillions taken in loans by the administrations of former President Uhuru Kenyatta and his successor, William Ruto, were all on their account.
As per Omtatah, the unconstitutional amendment of the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act in 2014 resulted in the country’s economic coffers spiralling out of control.
The Senator claimed the amendment, which bypassed Senate involvement contrary to Article 110 of the Constitution, gave unchecked powers to Treasury officials to open foreign accounts and negotiate loans without oversight from the public and parliament.
However, Omtatah’s assertions heavily contrast with public documentation on Kenya’s public debt, which is at approximately Ksh11 trillion. Out of the debt, Ksh5 trillion comprises domestic debt, while Ksh5.09 trillion accounts for external debt. Domestic debt largely consists of treasury bills and bonds, whereas external debt is owed to multilateral, bilateral, and commercial creditors.
The government, through Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi, has constantly reaffirmed that Kenya is on course to be debt-free by the next decade. Currently, Kenya’s debt level stands at 63 per cent of its GDP well below the stipulated 55 per cent. The end date for Kenya to comply with the regulations is November 1, 2029.
While speaking at the Dissemination of the 2025 Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy in March, Mbadi noted that the key challenge lay in the constrained maturity periods rather than the ability to repay debt.
To reduce domestic debt, Mbadi stated that the government would gradually decrease the stock of Treasury Bills while lengthening debt maturity and issuing more medium- and long-term debt securities.
