Kenya’s Grand Theft Of Public Resources: They Are Looting In Broad Daylight, And We Are Silent

Kenya is no longer just a country—it is a crime scene. A crime scene where the thieves don’t even bother to run, where they don’t wear masks, where they steal with their names printed boldly on gazette notices. A land where budgets are drafted as bank heists, where policies are designed as getaway vehicles, and where government offices are just corporate branches of well-organized looting syndicates.

They are looting through the Housing Levy Fund, and we are silent. They told us it was for affordable housing, yet all we see are mushrooming mansions in Karen, lavish properties in Dubai, and a few glossy PR projects meant to pacify the gullible. They are taking from the pockets of the poor to finance the opulence of the already wealthy, yet we still show up at rallies to cheer them on.

They are looting through the Social Health Authority (SHA) and Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), and we are silent. They shut down NHIF with the promise of something better, yet the only thing that has changed is the level of theft. Patients are still dying in hospitals, doctors are still underpaid, medicine is still missing—but the people in power are smiling at high-profile medical conferences abroad, discussing “universal healthcare” in designer suits as if Kenyans can eat PowerPoint presentations.

They are looting through budgeted corruption, and we are silent. They don’t even hide it anymore. Budgets are no longer financial plans; they are organized theft manuals. Billions for ghost projects. Trillions for procurement scandals. A hundred million to paint a hospital, yet inside, there’s no medicine, no doctors, no working machines—just empty beds waiting for the next victim of state neglect.

Public healthcare is dying, and we are okay with that. The well-connected don’t die in Kenyan hospitals; they are airlifted abroad with taxpayer money, treated in hospitals funded by honest taxpayers from other nations, and then flown back to tell us how “healthcare reforms are progressing well.” Meanwhile, the ordinary Kenyan sells land, borrows from predatory loan apps, and still dies at the gate of a hospital that demands cash before treatment.

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Public education is dying, and we are okay with that. Teachers are underpaid, classrooms are overcrowded, and students sit on the floor in mud-walled structures. Meanwhile, the leaders who refuse to fund public schools send their children abroad, where no student ever studies under a leaking roof. Then they come back and tell us how they “value education” while holding degrees they didn’t earn in a country that now sells degrees like cheap roadside bananas.

The theft has evolved, mutated, and gained levels of sophistication that would make legendary bank robbers jealous. During Jomo Kenyatta’s time, they stole farms and houses. During Moi’s time, they stole hundreds of thousands. During Kibaki’s time, they upgraded to stealing millions. Uhuru came, and they started stealing billions. Now, under Ruto, we have unlocked the final level—trillions are vanishing, and all we have are government speeches sprinkled with Bible verses to keep us distracted.

They are stealing in broad daylight, and we are clapping. They are robbing us blind, and we are too busy debating their tribal affiliations instead of jailing them. They are laughing at us because they know we will still vote them back in. They know we will still line up to defend them. They know we will still find excuses for them.

Why are we so calm about this theft? Why do we normalize our suffering? Why do we treat corruption like an unfortunate weather pattern instead of the disaster it is? Do we not realize that every stolen shilling is a stolen future? That every misplaced billion is a mother who will die at childbirth, a student who will never graduate, a farmer who will remain in poverty?

We are not a poor country. We are a robbed country. We are not a helpless people. We are a people who have been conditioned to accept theft as leadership. And until we decide that enough is enough, they will keep looting. They will keep feasting. And they will keep laughing—because, for now, Kenya is a buffet, and we are the meal.

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