President William Ruto's personal aide Farouk Kibet (left) and the Leader of Majority in the National Assembly Kimani Ichung’wah donate cash during Interdenominational prayers and thanksgiving service for churches in Malava at Friends Girls Kamang'eti in Kakamega county on April 27, 2025.
President William Ruto leads from the front when it comes to philanthropy, or that grotesque Kenyan version of it. Even when not personally present to dish out wads of cash, influential politicians and aides will be delivering huge amounts in his name. And of course his donations have to be the largest, followed by Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, and then Cabinet ministers, apparently in order of the influence and budget of their respective dockets.
It has now become the norm that every weekend, top government figures are traipsing the countryside hauling sackfuls of cash. The generosity seems to know no bounds, and wherever they go, eager citizens will welcome the bounty with ululations.
What is troubling however, is that this is not generosity or philanthropy by any stretch of imagination. It is voter bribery. It is an open campaign to win the hearts and minds of gullible voters who are expected to sell their hearts and souls, and their country, ahead of the next General Election. It is also proof positive of retrogression to the worst elements of the Nyayo era, where crooked politicians earned acclaim only for the extent to which they could subvert democracy with cash.
And let’s make no mistake about out it, these perverse cash money political tours are not funded from personal resources. It is public money being used to bribe the public. When not from the so-called “confidential accounts” available to a select crop of government leaders, it is money directly diverted or looted from the budgets of government ministries and State corporations.
We can also be sure that the money being distributed to win political favour represents only a small fraction of what the politicians actually loot from the public. It is likely that if a “generous” politician donates an average of Sh10 million a week, another Sh90 million has been “donated” into his personal accounts.
Illicit money flows
In any working system, the Central Bank of Kenya, Kenya Revenue Authority and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission would be investigating the politicians who are dishing out all that money. They would be interested to know the source, if it is from legitimate and traceable enterprises, or whether it is stolen from the people.
Those institutions that keep such beady eye on cash movements in order to track and detect tax evasion, proceeds of corruption, illicit money flows, money-laundering and other suspect activity would be coming down like a tonne of bricks on all those individuals presently so active on the political bribery circuit.
Even the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the National Intelligence Service should be paying close attention. We have it on good authority that the latter institution considers grand corruption—and related activities such as those listed above—a definite threat to national security.
Illicit cash can be used to corrupt and undermine governance systems. Unchecked graft also impoverishes the nation, leading to high unemployment and creation of an angry and hungry youth mass that will easily be disposed to crime, and amenable to recruitment by the purveyors of violent, radical extremism.
The fellows dishing out cash all over the place may imagine they are doing good work for the regime, but clearly are unable to see the nexus between the poverty they perpetuate by diverting public funds to their private pockets.
Money-fuelled politics
So why are the aforementioned institutions in the national security and financial governance sectors playing deaf and dumb? Because of the convergence of State capture and the Deep State.
Critical institutions charged with ensuring basic hygiene in our body politic are guilty of gross dereliction of duty. All of them are by law insulated from political pressure. They are supposed to operate independent of direction from any other person or authority. However, they have willingly neutered themselves. Their governing boards and managers have reduced themselves to willing tools of the political establishment.
Every day, we see the taxman and the banking regulators, as well as the investigative and prosecutorial authorities, coming down hard on those who have fallen afoul of the political system, but looking the other way when those who are on the right side of the divide commit crimes with impunity.
We may not easily realise it, but the money-fuelled politics directed from the top amounts to subversion of our democracy. We are celebrating a kleptocracy that on the surface seems based on generosity, but ultimately is no different from the nations that are ruled by the mafia, narcotics traffickers or other organised criminal groups.
No country can make meaningful progress when under capture of criminal cartels.
[email protected]; @MachariaGaitho
