Public debt, wage bill and land injustices driving poverty in Kenya - KHRC

Two reports released by the Kenya Human Rights Commission show that the bulk of Kenya's resources are channeled towards debt repayment and the wage bill, leaving inadequate allocations to health, education, development and social protection.

The reports also show that Kenya's high poverty levels are steeped in historical injustices, especially those tied to land.

The first report, titled “The economics of repression,” paints a chilling picture of Kenya’s public finances. It reveals that today, a staggering 68 percent of all ordinary government revenue is immediately consumed by just two things: servicing the country's massive public debt and paying the ballooning government wage bill.

“That is such quagmire because what it does is crowd out resources that would have gone towards infrastructure development, particularly social and economic rights under the sectors we are talking about, that is health, education etc," Annette Nerima, economic analyst, said. 

In just four years, interest on public debt has jumped from 18 per cent to 25 per cent of total government spending. This drain is starving the sectors Kenyans depend on most. Support for older persons has shrunk from Ksh.18 billion to Ksh.15 billion. Funding for orphans has dropped from Ksh.7 billion to Ksh.5 billion.

The consequences are immediate and painful. Families report hospitals without medicine. At the county level of the country's capital, real health spending has dropped from Ksh.8 billion to Ksh.7 billion, despite a population of over 5.7 million residents, while pending bills have exploded, and the wage bill consumes nearly half the entire budget.

This financial maneuvering, critics argue, requires greater accountability from the country's leadership.

Davis Malombe, executive director, KHRC, said, “We ask parliament to check the executive because they are the ones who are not upholding the constitution and not doing their job.”

But the policy failure isn't just about spending. The second report, “Who owns Kenya?”, links the economic crisis directly to extreme land inequality. While land is Kenya's most valuable asset, fewer than two percent of Kenyans own more than half of the country’s arable land.

To put that into perspective, 0.1 per cent of large-scale landholders occupy 39 per cent of farmed land. Meanwhile, 98 per cent of all farm holdings, averaging just 1.2 hectares, occupy only 46 percent.

“Majority of the land owned by the 0.1 per cent of the population is being kept idle. They are doing it for speculation, we are seeing people owning huge chunks of land. Meanwhile, the majority of Kenyans do not own an eighth of an acre. The source of poverty in Kenya is land injustice," Gladys Mongare, social justice advocate, said. 

The KHRC reports point to a country with two parallel economic systems: one that protects the wealth and land of the elite with minimal taxation, and another that imposes high taxes on basic goods and income for ordinary citizens while offering declining public services.

The solution, according to the report, can be found in the root problem, land. KHRC is now proposing the introduction of a national land value tax that will target idle and speculative land, a move that will help unlock resources for development.

Estimates suggest such wealth taxation could generate up to Ksh.125 billion, nearly doubling the current social protection budget.