Broad based CSs: ODM quartet, Mt Kenya trio and the betrayal of Gen Zs

The ODM quartet of John Mbadi, Opiyo Wandayi, Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya took over as Cabinet Secretaries one year ago.

Their appointment was accompanied by protests that ODM leaders, and to an extent the then opposition chief Raila Odinga, were riding on the push for reforms by Gen Zs, even though they were not part of the protests.

Despite having ridden to power on the backs of protesters, there are concerns that they, too, have gotten cozy with the administration, and the demands of Gen Z are now taking a back burner.

In their demonstrations that were initially sparked by what they said were punitive tax proposals in the Finance Bill 2024, the young Kenyans called on the government to stop making life more difficult through frequent hikes in taxes.

They also demanded an end to corruption, called for an increase in opportunities for youth employment and more accessible and affordable healthcare and education.

In January this year, President William Ruto further opened up the Cabinet, appointing Mutahi Kagwe (Agriculture), William Kabogo (ICT) and Lee Kinyanjui (Trade and Industry), also drawn from the opposition but in different parties. 

While there were reservations about co-opting opposition into government, considering it was not among the Gen Zs’ demands, the entry of ODM and other opposition leaders into government was also with expectations that they would check on the government's excesses, even right Kenya Kwanza's wrongs.

One year down the line, and nothing seems to have changed. If anything, the opposition leaders who were once vocal against Kenya Kwanza’s brand of governance have turned out to be the fiercest defenders of President Ruto’s policies, many of which are seen to make life for Kenyans more difficult.

Analysts say there is little to celebrate for Kenyans with the broad-based government, with the economy seeming not to gather the required momentum yet to generate more jobs, while delivery of public service appears to deteriorate, considering the state of health and education in the country.

“It is hard to know if the economy would have done better without the broad-based government.  The new dispensation stabilised the politics, but we are yet to see the economic dividends,” noted XN Iraki, a professor at the University of Nairobi.

“Has there been a spike in GDP? Has joblessness decreased? Has FDI gone up? Has corruption reduced? The best answer is from the streets. Do ordinary Kenyans feel economically better? Anecdotal evidence suggests reforms pushed by Gen Z are work in progress. Once the protests ended, political recidivism sadly set in,” Prof Iraki said.

Samuel Nyandemo, an economist and lecturer at the University of Nairobi, said the CSs brought in under a broad-based arrangement had largely underperformed.

Prof Nyandemo cited continued delays in the disbursement of funds by the Treasury, which should have improved given the credentials of CS Mbadi, as well as a broken health system and the Hustler Fund that have failed to live up to the expectations for traders and small businesses.

“The economy is getting worse if you take some of the parameters, such as inflation that has risen to 4.5 per cent, health services have deteriorated, and the SHA has reached a dead end with the system not operational and patients left on their own,” said Nyandemo. 

Nyandemo added that “the Hustler Fund is not visible” despite the promise of empowering what President Ruto and Kenya Kwanza romanticised as ‘hustlers’.

“The CSs and other leaders within this umbrella of broad-based government may be looking at this as their time to eat. They are in serious business and the opposition is no longer there, which has given this administration a blank cheque,” he said, dismissing the broad-based model as far-fetched and not valid while noting the betrayal of Gen Zs.

“They have betrayed the Gen Z, and it is just a question of this young generation reorganising themselves into a formidable third force.”

In the year that Mbadi has been at Treasury, public debt has gone up significantly, growing by more than Sh1 trillion to Sh11.81 trillion in June this year from Sh10.7 trillion in August last year. Inflation has also been on the rise, going up to 4.5 per cent in August this year from a multi-year low of 2.7 per cent in October last year. 

While the cost of essentials, including maize flour and fuel, had gone down in 2024, they have started to go back up again in recent months, and there appears to be no clear strategy to tame this increase.

Access to credit by the private sector has stagnated while the government appears unable to provide a way forward to clear the hundreds of billions of shillings that it owes the private sector in pending bills.

For Wandayi, the cost of power has remained high, with a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) report earlier this year noting that Kenya has the highest cost of power in the East and Central Africa region.

The Energy Ministry has also not been able to unlock a stalemate with Parliament over the negotiation and signing of new Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), which has meant that no new power plants are in sight for the next few years.

This is despite demand for energy growing rapidly and is now nearly stripping available capacity. Electricity demand has in recent years been growing fast, with peak demand posting three new record highs in a span of five weeks in July and August this year.

It is the same case for Joho, whose docket is still grappling with a 2018 ban on the issuance of new mining licenses.

While the ban was lifted partially in 2023, the sector still appears to be in limbo, unsure of how to proceed, especially in the case of large firms keen on prospecting or mining minerals now classified as strategic and requiring partnership with the National Mining Corporation.

Mining experts have pointed out regulatory gaps that have created uncertainty in formalising partnerships between mining firms and the NMC.

Oparanya has not fared any better, with the Kenya Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (Kuscco) scandal in which Saccos stand to lose a billion, remaining unresolved.

Some of the large Saccos in the country have made provisions of nearly Sh2 billion as of March this year.

The provisions are expected to cover the expected losses following the widespread financial fraud and mismanagement by top officials at Kuscco, the umbrella body for Saccos, who manipulated books while diverting billions of shillings from members’ savings. 

The result has been that Saccos across the board have given members much lower dividends as they provisioned or wrote off losses. 

A forensic audit ordered by the Ministry of Cooperatives found that Kuscco had non-performing loans to the tune of Sh3.7 billion while it had been overstating profits over the last six years by some Sh798 million. Kuscco also paid irregular commissions worth Sh2.7 billion.

The Hustler Fund, also within Oparanya’s docket, appears to run out of momentum despite the promise it seemed to hold in unlocking access to credit for small entrepreneurs. It also appears unable to put in place a mechanism to tame defaults. 

Peace Rep, a UK-based research consortium, observes that the inclusion of opposition in the Cabinet was a result of the President being oblivious to the issues that had been raised by Gen Z demonstrators.

In a July 2025 analysis of the aftermath of last year’s Gen Z protests, the consortium said that Ruto had done little to address the grievances put forward by the protestors.

“The government has made little meaningful effort to address the legitimate demands voiced by protesters, including calls for an end to corruption, economic justice, youth employment and equitable access to healthcare and education. Instead, it has responded with a mix of repression, propaganda, and superficial development initiatives,” Peace Rep noted.

Among the superficial development initiatives, Peace Rep says, are the large donations by senior government officials, including the President and his Deputy Kithure Kindiki and MPs close to the leadership, who give millions of shillings in donations but rarely attempt to answer queries as to whether the donations are from public resources.

The organisation also questions the genuineness of Ruto’s co-option of opposition chiefs into his Cabinet.

PeaceRep points to a 2020 address at the Chatham House, in which President Ruto, then Deputy President, denounced the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga.

In his address, Ruto termed the result of the handshake as “a mongrel of a governance system… You don’t know whether it is the government that is in opposition or the opposition the one that is in government.”

It further noted that Kenya Kwanza’s approach to governance increasingly reflects a disregard for democratic norms and civil liberties. 

“Following the tragic events of June 2024, any responsible government would have sought reconciliation through genuine apologies, reparations, and reforms. Instead, the State doubled down on repression, leading to yet another round of bloodshed a year later,” said the Peace Rep analysis.

“By framing peaceful demonstrators as terrorists and coup plotters, the government has created a dangerous precedent, one where constitutional rights are treated as subversion and dissent is criminalised. In doing so, it risks not only undermining democracy but alienating the very generation that holds Kenya’s future, the youth.”

Mbadi recently defended the broad-based arrangement, noting that over the last year, a lot had changed for the better.

This is even as he conceded an increase in the cost of basics in the course of 2025, citing factors that are beyond the control of the government.

“There has been a change in the economy,” said Mbadi in an interview with Citizen TV, noting that among the successes that Treasury has registered while he was in office was the repayment of the first Eurobond that was due for repayment in September this year.

The debt was paid by funds raised through the issuance of another Eurobond. He noted the carelessness by the Jubilee Administration in its debt acquisition.

“The shilling also almost lost its footing last year because of a mistake by the previous administration… You have Sh260 billion debt ($2 billion Eurobond) coming for repayment, and you have no strategy at all. That almost caused a problem with the shilling, which lost ground to Sh165. From late last year to date, the shilling has stabilised at about Sh129 to the dollar.”

This and other loans that the government has taken have further complicated Kenya’s public debt situation.

Mbadi added that the factors that have resulted in the cost of basics going up include the geopolitical tensions iEasternst Europe and the Middle East that have disrupted supply chains. 

“This economy has faced turbulence,” he said, explaining that when he was taking over, the economy had been battered by Covid-19, a three-year drought and international shocks that included the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. He also noted that locally, the economy nearly shut down for three months last year during the anti-government protests, as well as in June and July this year, when Kenyans commemorated the young Kenyans who lost their lives last year, as well as the 35th anniversary of Saba Saba.

“Last year, our economy almost shut down for three months during the protests… We also lost the Finance Bill 2024, and then this year, in commemoration and the Saba Saba … we have had challenges.”

But Mbadi says, despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges, the broad-based government has delivered.

“From last year to date, there have been a lot of positives,” he said, adding that these include a drop in inflation that has eased from a high of 9.6 per cent in October 2022 to 4.5 per cent in August,” said Mbadi. 

“If you check, prices of commodities such as maize, maize flour, sugar, beans and petroleum were high, especially in 2022 and 2023. They, however, came down in 2024.”

There are, however, doubts as to whether this was on account of the government's intervention, with even Mbadi noting that the cost of goods has, in 2025, started to go up, with the risk of eroding the gains made last year.

“This year, they have gone up but not very hi,gh and inflation has been managed,” he said.