Kenya Kwanza is redistributing wealth to hustlers, let's use the model to mobilise crowds
Peter Kimani
By
Peter Kimani
| May 23, 2025
I fully associate with the regular sentiments from Prezzo Bill Ruto that his government’s main failure is its inability to communicate its successes. As the Principal Secretary for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development—honestly, I had no idea we have such a ministry, but then, there is so much that I don’t know—Susan Mang’eni reported that millions of hustlers had defaulted on payment of some Sh6 billion.
And it’s been so long ago, enyewe, it feels like the KK government has been in power for 15 years, that the government now considers the Sh6b to be bad loans and will write them off.
I don’t know why Mang’eni wore such a long face while delivering such wonderful news. It means that the Kenya Kwanza government is effectively redistributing wealth by taking our taxes and dispensing it freely to the so-called hustlers.
That is exactly what they promised during campaigns, and they should toot their horn proudly.
The numbers involved are impressive: Some ten million hustlers took small loans of Sh500 once or twice, but never repaid and have no intention of ever repaying. And the government apparently has no way of ever finding them, because they probably had no such intention, right from the start.
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We know similar amounts of cash is dispensed whenever politicians converge in rallies across the country. The risk of not dishing out anything, we all saw in Kuria, can be pretty steep.
Shoes could float aimlessly in the air and land on Prezzo himself, so hiring crowds should be considered a strategic investment.
And we should dignify our people so that the disbursements are made via the phone by replicating the Hustler Fund model.
This would ease other logistical issues since the hired crowds would be easy to verify. Moreover, dispensing bribes electronically would cut the middlemen loose and boost accountability and credibility.
In any case, the electronic cash disbursements would enhance safety as the risks of crafty middlemen taking off with the loot would be a thing of the past, completely removing the risk of politicians being left to deal with incensed crowds, after their “allowances” disappear.
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