After Parliament approved the plan to sell 65 percent of the government stake in Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), the deal now looks like a foregone conclusion. The National Treasury expects to raise approximately Sh100 billion from the transaction.
The language used by officials to frame the policy is telling. This is not ‘privatisation’ in the ideological sense of rolling back the frontiers of the state. Instead, it is described as ‘liability management;-a tool to raise cash, restructure the balance sheet, and contain public debt. The narrative is that Kenya is not selling assets out of conviction but out of necessity.