With two years left before Kenyans return to the ballot, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has blamed past administrations for the country’s worsening poverty, saying the economic crisis was years in the making and cannot be reversed overnight.
Speaking during an interview on Citizen Tonight, Mbadi said the government inherited a broken economic foundation that had been weakened by years of mismanagement, reckless borrowing, and policy inconsistencies.
“We must understand that sliding into poverty has been a journey that has taken so many years and it should have been reversed earlier,” Mbadi said. “What the government has done is to stabilize the macros first; we have de-risked the economy in the sense that now it is evident that Kenya may not default. We have stabilized the currency; interest rates have started going down.”
The CS argued that stabilizing the macroeconomic environment was the first step toward lowering the cost of living and improving household incomes. He noted that while frustrations among Kenyans are valid, the country is only beginning to recover from structural weaknesses left behind by previous regimes.
Economic analysts say the next two years will be crucial for President William Ruto’s administration, which faces pressure to show tangible progress before the 2027 elections. Rising food prices, joblessness, and stagnating wages remain major concerns for millions of Kenyans who feel left out of the government’s recovery narrative.
Mbadi acknowledged the public’s impatience but insisted that reforms already underway will eventually ease economic pain.
“These things do not happen instantly,” he said. “But we are seeing positive signs.”
Opposition leaders, however, have dismissed the government’s narrative, accusing it of shifting blame to avoid accountability for what they call its own policy failures.
