Former Central Bank of Kenya Governor and former Treasury Cabinet Secretary Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u has accused President William Ruto of weakening Kenya’s public institutions by concentrating excessive power in the Presidency.
Speaking at a development cooperation conference in Sweden, where he attended as a professor at the University of Nairobi, Ndung’u argued that many State institutions no longer operate independently because officials fear challenging the President.
“Right now, the current president overruns all the institutions, and that’s why everybody in those institutions has to conform out of fear. But I refused to do deals in the Ministry of Finance. I can’t do deals. It follows you to your grave. It doesn’t go away with a regime.”
Former National Treasury CS, Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, says whereas institutions in Kenya have the capacity to do the right thing, “the current President overruns all the institutions and that is why everybody in those institutions will have to conform, for fear” pic.twitter.com/uuSv7QHDZH
— Julians Amboko (@AmbokoJH) July 30, 2026
Ndung’u said weak institutions create an environment for the misuse of public resources.
He cited a 2005 World Bank publication that featured Kenya as a case study on how public office had become a source of personal enrichment through the manipulation of laws and State resources.
He added that claims of limited government capacity often stem from poor leadership and a failure to recruit qualified personnel.
“It is only capacity at the individual and institutional level that can give you the courage to say no. Regimes change, and the rules of the game change. That’s the biggest lesson. There was a Minister for Finance who almost stopped M-Pesa. It was only because I reminded him that the Central Bank was independent. Even after saying that, I still had to do what he wanted because two banks were fighting,” Ndung’u said.
Ndung’u also reflected on the early days of M-Pesa, saying the mobile money platform launched in 2007 without a comprehensive legal framework.
He said the Central Bank initially viewed the service as a potential money laundering risk, while Parliament and the International Monetary Fund questioned its viability.
According to Ndung’u, the regulator later worked with the Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) network to develop a framework for retail electronic payments, paving the way for M-Pesa’s success.
He added that support from the UK government and the US Treasury helped address concerns raised by the IMF, enabling the platform to become a model for digital financial inclusion across Africa.
Ndung’u’s tenure as Treasury Cabinet Secretary ended in July 2024, when President Ruto dismissed almost his entire Cabinet to quell violent anti-tax protests.
