The country is staring at economic decline contrary to earlier predictions that it would turn the corner this year.
Fresh projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have scaled down the growth targets to 5.3 per cent from the previous 5.6 per cent, which is hardly surprising.
There have been signs that all is not well. For one, the country has witnessed unprecedented disruption of industries as profits fall, leading to severe job cuts.
Dozens of reputable firms have declared profit warnings and retrenched staff to contain costs, deepening the unemployment crisis.
Worse, some firms have closed shop or relocated to neighbouring countries as environment gets hostile locally.
In all, the reason for this is unfavourable business environment that makes it difficult for companies to thrive.
Secondly, tax collection has proved difficult as companies collapse or record diminished returns.
The Kenya Revenue Authority is singularly unable to meet its revenue targets and none other than acting National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani has admitted as such.
Targets imposed on KRA are unrealistic and untenable. The unfortunate bit is that the budget is always pegged on those revenue forecasts and, when they fail, the country finds itself in a precarious situation where it cannot make ends meet. Indeed, debt is piling up and heading to crisis levels.
Thirdly, agriculture, the bedrock of the economy, is diminishing.
Production of major cash crops such as coffee, tea and sugarcane is on the wane and, painfully, returns to farmers have fallen drastically, making commercial farming a dud venture.
Just a couple of days ago, tea farmers were up in arms about acutely reduced earnings from their tea crop, demanding an audit of the sales.
Despite the worrying scenario, the government is notorious for heavy spending with so much resources put into non-core expenditure like luxury cars, travel, seminars and conferences that do not provide value to taxpayers.
Worse is outright corruption, theft and embezzlement of public funds while little is done to apprehend and punish the suspects.
So far, the government has been forced to slash budgets for all ministries and departments to mitigate against a cash crunch.
But there is no evidence that this will contain spending. Not when the same government engages in ventures that are downright wasteful — like hiring a private jet to fly President Uhuru Kenyatta to Japan and Russia for meetings or embarking on whimsical mega infrastructure projects.
The country is in a crisis and requires sound economic policies to get out of the rut.
Political leaders cannot lie anymore about the financial health of the country; it is struggling and must be fixed.
