Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro has stated that aside from higher education loans, he has never taken any other loan.

Speaking on Friday, November 21, 2025, at Radisson Blu, Upperhill, with the Nairobi City County Dental Stakeholders, Nyoro addressed loans, investments, and optimisation of investment resources. He shared his experience and observations about how Kenyans handle debt.

“I don’t know whether somehow we are conditioned around it,” Nyoro said. “It’s a pitfall I have seen all of us getting into. When we get our first job, when we move to the next position, it’s the pitfall of leverage, the pitfall of loans. I don’t know where it came from.”

“If I say in this hall, anyone has a loan, it would be a picture. I know almost all of us in this room have one form of loan or the other, either in a circle, a bank, a SACCO, or all. I’m not even talking about Fuliza. And by the way, you are laughing-I think all of you are there.”

Nyoro said that many new employees, whether in Parliament, county governments, or the private sector, face pressure to take loans immediately.

“And in most of the conversations I have with people, including my colleagues in Parliament, once you get into Parliament, the orientation you get, take a mortgage, I don’t know of how much, because you are told that there is a loan. Second one, you are given something called a car mortgage, also take.”

“When you get your first job in the county, the first thing you want to do, take a loan to buy a Subaru. Take a loan to start buying the many things I talk about, especially that. Now, you don’t feel like you have gotten employed until you have taken a loan.”

“And you know, once you are employed in the county, or in the national government, or even in the private sector, it’s not you who looks for the banks, it is the banks who look for you. Why are they looking for you? Why?”

“Please allow me to address this issue, because I think we need a change of pace also in that area. That every new entrant in the job sector in Kenya, your first three months, you are feeding loan forms. Whether you are a doctor, a teacher, an M.P., a minister, even ministers in Kenya, once you get your job, you are told stories.”

“And I am not talking because I am an outsider, or I am not talking to you because I am better off. We come to this kind of a function to share ideas. And I can guarantee you, other than HELB, me I have never taken a loan. Other than higher education loans.”

Careful planning

He noted that the first loan most Kenyans take is often a car loan.

“You get a job, people will know, so you fill a form and get a car loan. But do we ever sit down to analyse it? A loan of 2.5 million shillings—how many times will you use this car? What are the terms? Five years, at 18 per cent reducing balance. Can you afford that?”

“By the time you include interest and charges, your car is no longer worth 2.5 million. You bought a car of 4 million shillings. And then people go on to buy apartments and homes on loan, without proper planning.”

Nyoro said that most loans are taken without careful thought.

“You spend years in school, thinking about other people’s oral health, but rarely think about your finances. You meet in groups like this or chamas, and you get your financial information there, without filtering it.”

“You take loans for items like floats, which may not be wise decisions. You park your future money before thinking logically. Why not sit down with a calculator on a Saturday afternoon and plan your finances critically?”

He emphasised that careful planning matters more than following what friends say.

“Forget about what Peter told you, your friend.”