True development happens when power is decentralised to the people. When citizens shape their own priorities, money stops circulating only at the top and begins to fuel real businesses, local enterprise, and community growth. Economic empowerment begins with political empowerment.

A country borrowing Ksh 3.3 million per minute should at least show visible transformation in healthcare, jobs, food security, and infrastructure that changes lives. Instead, Kenyans are being told to tighten their belts while debt repayments consume the future. Future generations are inheriting obligations they never approved. At what point do citizens say enough is enough?

A nation where nearly 90% of tax revenue goes toward debt servicing is not operating a development model , it is operating a repayment model. This is the dangerous reality Kenya now faces. Citizens are taxed relentlessly in the name of “development,” yet hospitals remain underfunded, industries remain weak, youth unemployment continues rising, and infrastructure expansion slows because an overwhelming portion of national revenue is consumed before government can even think about development expenditure. At that point, taxation ceases to function as a tool for nation-building and instead becomes a mechanism for sustaining debt obligations. No country can industrialize while future revenues are permanently tied to interest payments and loan repayments. What emerges is a fragile economy trapped between excessive borrowing, aggressive taxation, shrinking private sector productivity, and declining public trust. An economy cannot grow when almost every shilling collected has already been promised to creditors.

Kenya has continued paying debts year after year, yet the burden keeps growing instead of reducing. That is why we say many of these debts are illegal and odious. In the next Safina Party government, together with the people of Kenya, we WILL NOT pay debts that never benefited Kenyans through development during the 15 years of the Uhuru and Ruto regimes. Kenyans cannot continue suffering for loans that enriched a few while leaving the nation poorer.