President William Ruto’s economic advisor David Ndiii now claims that taxes collected in Kenya do not pay government officials.
Ndii was responding to an X user who wondered why Kenyan leaders supposed to serve Kenyans treated Kenyans harshly yet they were being paid by taxes collected from citizens.
I grew up knowing the state bureaucracy as “trouble”, the modus operandi which Mamdani et al problematized as decentralized despotism. At what point did citizens develop a benevolent view of the state? Is it a generational or class perspective. Subject worthy of scholarly… https://t.co/RuYnDOxWlg
— David Ndii (@DavidNdii) December 17, 2023
In his response, Ndii claimed that tax revenue was not sufficient to pay both debt and salaries and that the taxes collected were paying off debt accumulated from the previous regime.
Alleging that officials hired are not being paid by debt, Ndii further stated that he was working for his children since his salary came from his children’s future taxes.
“Wrong. Debt is first charge on revenue. Tax revenue is not enough to pay both debt and salaries. Your taxes are paying Uhuru’s debts. Anybody hired recently is paid from debt. So in essence, I’m paid from my children’s future taxes. That’s who I’m working for,” he wrote.
Wrong. Debt is first charge on revenue. Tax revenue is not enough to pay both debt and salaries. Your taxes are paying Uhuru’s debts. Anybody hired recently is paid from debt. So in essence, I’m paid from my children’s future taxes. That’s who I’m working for. https://t.co/R5WuE14yEo
— David Ndii (@DavidNdii) December 17, 2023
Ndii’s remarks come months after he told Kenyans disagreeing with the government’s Finance Bill 2023 to formulate an alternative budget cushioned from external shocks without the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The economist further stated that whoever was opposing the bill should show how the budget deficit can be brought about without tax measures.
“And do the numbers. As Sam Rayburn said ‘Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a carpenter to build one’,” he wrote on X in May this year.
