Media Seeks to Crack the Vault on Spiraling Debt and High-Risk Financing
By Anchor Writers
NAIROBI — Public finance must no longer remain an obscure, technical maze shrouded in secrecy.
That was the resounding message from Kenya Editors Guild (KEG) President Zubeidah Kananu( Pictured Below) during the continuing KEG-International Republican Institute (IRI) Institutional Dialogue held at the Sarova Stanley Hotel.
Bringing together editors, journalists, key institutional figures—including Senator Okiya Omtatah and Deputy Auditor General FCPA Edwin Kamar—and technical partners like TISA and the Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ), the dialogue tackled the critical challenges journalists face in reporting on complex public borrowing and high-risk financial commitments.
Opening the sessions, Kananu emphasized that public finance directly impacts the everyday lives of citizens.
Every government loan, financing agreement, and expenditure commitment influences public services, taxation levels, and the economic burdens inherited by future generations.
As journalists, our responsibility is to make those connections clear, Kananu noted, adding that reporters must be able to tell Kenyans what the government is committing them to, why a particular financing option was chosen, what the risks are, how much it will eventually cost, and whether citizens are getting value for their money.
However, robust investigative reporting is severely hampered when records are difficult to obtain, figures across government entities conflict, and highly technical documents are released without adequate explanations.
Kananu warned that when credible information is hard to access, it breeds speculation, misinformation, and public mistrust.
Following previous peer-to-peer engagements and stakeholder roundtables, the guild has formulated a 24-item Issues, Referral and Follow-up Matrix.
Kananu urged participants to move past merely identifying problems and instead focus on securing clear institutional responses, commitments, and practical timelines.
The discussions spotlighted three core areas requiring urgent attention.
First, concerning confidentiality in bilateral deals, Kananu called for greater clarity on what information can legitimately be protected versus what must be disclosed in the public interest, citing the intense public interest surrounding the Dangote refinery agreement as an example where questions of confidentiality and public rights collide.
Second, addressing citizen-centric communication, Kananu argued that accessibility remains a major hurdle because simply uploading hundreds of pages of complex financial documents online does not equate to true transparency.
Institutions must develop systems that communicate public data in language ordinary citizens can understand, accompanied by two-way feedback frameworks for public participation.
Third, highlighting journalistic safety and editorial independence, Kananu stressed that reporters investigating sensitive debt, infrastructure, and financing matters must be able to work free from intimidation, legal threats, or retaliation, while reaffirming that regular engagement with public bodies must never compromise a journalist’s independence to investigate and question independently.
Kananu stressed that the true value of the dialogue will be measured by tangible post-meeting results—whether information becomes easier to access, whether institutions honor their commitments, and whether ordinary citizens can better understand how public resources are managed.
Speaking at the forum, Mr. Francis Rogers, the IRI Resident Program Director urged journalists to be objective when engaging on issues of public debt and public financing.
“The role of journalists is to ask the right questions to the right actors, get the answers, and engage further “, he said.
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