By Kepher Otieno - Reporter
Kenya, 16 January 2026 - The National Treasury has signalled a renewed push to anchor Kenya’s economic recovery on political consensus and fiscal discipline, as Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi met members of the Committee on the Implementation of the Ten-Point Agenda (Coin-10) to align reform priorities with budget realities.
At the centre of the talks was the Ten-Point Agenda and the NADCO report—products of the March 2025 détente between President William Ruto and the late ODM leader Raila Odinga—which have increasingly become a policy blueprint for easing the cost of living, strengthening devolution and restoring confidence in public finance management.
Mbadi framed the agenda not as a political compact but as an economic stabilisation tool. With Kenya grappling with high public debt, squeezed household incomes and strained county finances, Treasury’s backing of reforms on equitable revenue sharing, predictable disbursements and tighter expenditure controls points to an effort to stabilise both macro-fiscal and grassroots economic conditions.
Mbadi by assuring Coin-10 of Treasury’s technical and financial support, effectively placed the ministry at the centre of translating the reform agenda into budgets, debt strategies and cash-flow planning. The emphasis on Article 43—covering socio-economic rights such as housing, health and food—also ties fiscal policy more directly to household welfare, a sensitive political and economic pressure point.
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The memorandum presented by committee chair Dr Agnes Zani outlined far-reaching proposals: higher equitable share to counties, ring-fencing funds for independent institutions, and tighter control of national and county spending. If implemented, these could shift billions of shillings within the inter-governmental system, with direct implications for service delivery, local investment and political stability in devolved units.
Perhaps most telling was Mbadi’s call to constitutionally entrench the NG-CDF and the Affirmative Action Fund. From a business and governance perspective, this would reduce legal uncertainty around two major funding streams that drive local development spending, but it also locks in long-term fiscal commitments that Treasury must accommodate within already tight budgets.
Mbadi’s promise to table a technical report by the end of the month suggests Treasury is moving to quantify the cost and sequencing of these reforms—an important step for markets and development partners watching Kenya’s fiscal discipline.
As Coin-10 prepares to tour the country to collect public views, the stakes are high: whether this consensus-driven reform push becomes a stabilising anchor for Kenya’s economy or another ambitious agenda colliding with fiscal reality.
