Broke Uhuru Government Accepts Mitumba Police Uniforms from China
As a totally broke Kenya government came under pressure to shelve a controversial 16% VAT on petroleum products, the government has accepted a huge batch of second-hand police uniforms from China.
The “acceptance ceremony” was held barely three days after Uhuru Kenyatta returned from a begging mission in China. Before his China trip, the President travelled to the United States to bow before President Donald Trump before he returned to the country hurriedly to worship Teresa May, British Prime Minister, who was on a stop-over trip in Nairobi during her African tour.
According to Yi Kuan Lung, a Chinese official who was involved in the shipment of the mitumbas, the used clothes are part of a Chinese “bonus” to the Republic of Kenya “to boost police morale and life-style”. The Chinese are rewarding Kenya for being one of the leading countries in the world to borrow heavily from the Chinese.
Unveiling the uniforms for the General Duty Police, President Kenyatta said that the uniforms “will enhance better visibility of the officers”. The President said that the Kenya Police Service will be merged with the Administration Police “in order to eliminate waste, duplication and overlap” of duties.
This means that the 39,680 police service officers and the 24,572 Administration police will be merged to form the General Duty Police which will be under the command of Deputy Inspector General of the Kenya Police.
Deep economic crisis
The pool of poverty in which the government is swimming can best be illustrated with the example of Kenya’s economic mathematics in the month of July 2018.
During this period, the government collected Ksh 99 billion through tax revenue and since this was not enough to finance government’s economic activities in July, the regime sourced another Ksh 30 billion through domestic borrowing, ending up with a total of Ksh 129 billion.
Out of this amount, Ksh 68.2 billion was used to pay the country’s debts, pensions swallowed Ksh 3.1 billion while Ksh 0.2 billion paid off international organizations. Next, recurrent expenditures were sorted at Ksh 49.5 billion bringing the total expenditures to Ksh 121 billion. This leaves the government with an Ksh 8 billion balance.
The implication is that after paying compulsory expenditures, the government has zero cash for both development and Counties because the Ksh 8 billion balance is like petty cash. The deep economic crisis the Uhuru government is plunged in explains why the President announced early this year that the government has frozen all development projects in all counties until the current projects are completed.
The situation is catastrophic because even the monthly budget of Ksh 121 billion cannot be financed without domestic borrowing. In short, the government has to borrow money to finance recurrent expenditures and this explains why when the Chinese donate mitumba police uniforms, Uhuru has to accept because the Uhuru regome has no options. That is how bad the situation in Kenya looks like.
