Mbadi's Sermon on the Mount teachings now fall on deaf ears

Mbadi’s Sermon on the Mount and the flock that wouldn’t bud

Akin to the film The Last Airbender, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi believes he has the fictional powers like Aang, to persuade Kenyans to perceive the Finance Bill 2026 positively.

He is a man who not only knows his way around numbers – as a Fellow of the Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (FCPA) – but also a considerably good orator, courtesy of his background in politics.

But CS Mbadi is not just balancing books on the 14th floor of the National Treasury building, his other foot is still firm in politics as a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

It is through this platform that he has risen through the ranks to become a Cabinet Secretary.

A scroll through his social media pages speaks of these two personalities: weekends are full of political posts, while on weekdays, it is all about the economy.

When he speaks, he carries such conviction that you would believe he could make the budget numbers perform yoga poses if he wanted to. And they do sometimes.

It is not his first rodeo, he has been here before, and he knows it. To him, there is nothing wrong with the Bill, as there was nothing wrong with the 2025 version. However, the ghosts of the Finance Bill 2024 keep haunting him, day and night.

The problem with the Finance Bill 2026, he says, lies with a section of leaders who want to score points by pointing out non-existent clauses, urging the public – or their followers – to reject.

While his claim carries some truth to an extent, the persuasive script he is using is far too familiar to a section of woke Kenyans who know how flip-flopping politicians are.

This begs the question: should Kenyans believe him because he is an expert FCPA holder or should he be dismissed because he is a politician?

“Yes, I know I do some politics here and there but I can chew gum and scale the stairs,” he argued during one of his media briefings held at the National Treasury building. “What I do with my time, what is it that you have a problem with?”

He said from Monday to Friday, he is in the office performing his duties as the CS in charge of National Treasury and Economic Planning.

“On weekends I do what I enjoy. It is my hobby. Remember, I was not picked from a lecture room nor was I a Director General. I was in politics. You cannot remove politics from me. You can remove a monkey from the bush, bring it home, but the monkey will never be a goat. I know how to balance off things,” he insisted.

Just like last year, the CS took his sermon on the mount to Jeevanjee Gardens, in a bid to collect views from ordinary Kenyans on the Finance Bill 2026. When appearing before the National Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee chaired by Samuel Atandi Alego Usonga MP last week, he defended his decision to meet with ordinary Kenyans.

“How do you design policy for people you do not meet?” he posed. “I have to meet people everywhere, anywhere, in the villages, to demystify the National Treasury. It cannot be just sitting on the 14th floor of the Treasury building.”

While at this meeting in Jeevanjee, the politician in him came alive when he insinuated that a majority of the submissions that will be made by attendees are likely to be propaganda. This is even as he called for Kenyans to embrace the positives in the bill.

“You will realise that 90 per cent of the questions that come from you will be propaganda; things that are not in the bill. And that is why this engagement is good and not in vain,” he said. “Anything that you speak here, if it is something we can still correct, we will correct. But let us remove all the propaganda.”

During his briefing at the National Treasury building, CS Mbadi did call out Wiper Patriotic Front Partly Leader Kalonzo Musyoka for whipping up emotions for non-existent proposals in the bill in order to take people to the streets.

“If you think that is what will motivate people to start singing ‘one-term’, it does not work out that way. Kenyans are very intelligent. They will know you want to misuse them,” he said.

Mr Musyoka has called for the total rejection of the Finance Bill 2026 as it is.

“It introduces quietly leasehold. It means you will start paying rent on your land. It will be like Dedan Kimathi died for nothing when he was fighting for land. Our position is: reject it as it is,” he said during a church service in Maragua, Murang’a County.

Apart from leasehold, other contentious issues associated with the bill that CS Mbadi is fighting are to do with taxes on bank cards, rental income tax, taxes on mobile phones and second-hand clothes.

While some like the five per cent tax on mitumba did not make it to the bill, those that were published have ignited a storm either due to propaganda as the CS alludes or just misunderstanding.

“We need to talk about the positives in the bill. I have noticed that a number of things that are not in the Finance Bill 2026 are being imported into it and so they say reject,” he said.

But what might be complicating CS Mbadi’s gospel is the fact that, when he is not fighting to prove to Kenyans that the government’s economic policies are good for the country, he is battling to attest his position as not only a loyal member of ODM but also a carrier of former party leader Raila Odinga’s legacy.

Like other ODM-affiliated leaders, his ascent to a cabinet position, which he has acknowledged, has everything to do with the late Raila Odingas’s influence. And now that ‘Baba’, as he is fondly referred to, is late, CS Mbadi’s lifeline seems to be precariously standing on quicksand.

Some of his ODM-affiliated leaders have called him out due to his double standards oscillating between a government appointed official and a party member who is torn between the two halves of the orange.

“The National Treasury is not a political office. The National Treasury is not a personal office. It is not a platform to abuse us and talk to us the way you want,” said Winnie Odinga, East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA) MP, who called him out during the burial of Senator Richard Onyonka’s mother in Kisii County.

On hearing this, CS Mbadi put on the typical political punching gloves and issued his own receipts.

“They are trying to advise me on how to be a Minister for Finance. You can’t; you have no capacity. I have been chairman of ODM under Raila Odinga for 10 years. It is not a mean achievement. I was Assistant Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister. I have been Minority Leader for five years. I am now a Minister for two years,” he said. “You can’t come from nowhere to start advising me. First, seek an elective position.”