Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Chairperson Ndiritu Muriithi has called on political leaders to end what he termed as “perpetual blame games” over the country’s economic challenges, warning that the current discourse is increasingly being reduced to ethnic and partisan finger-pointing instead of addressing structural issues affecting productivity and growth.

Speaking in a morning interview on a local radio station on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, Ndiritu said that political conversations today are dominated by accusations over who is responsible for the economic strain facing citizens, with leaders often shifting blame between the current administration and previous governments rather than focusing on the actual cause of the crisis.

The former Laikipia governor noted that in some cases, the debate has degenerated into ethnic scapegoating, a trend he cautioned is dangerous for national cohesion and distracts from meaningful solutions.

“Today, if you listen to the political talk of today, it’s often about who is to blame. We are in problems; who is to blame? Blame the current government, blame the previous one, and sometimes blame one another. If you see these debates about ethnicity, that is what it is about,” Ndiritu noted.

Muriithi hits at ethnic profiling

Muriithi, on the same note, argued that Kenya’s economic challenges should not be viewed through an ethnic lens, insisting that stagnation in productivity is a national crisis affecting all regions equally. According to the KRA boss, attributing economic underperformance to specific communities or regions is misleading and counterproductive.

“There is no ethnic dimension in the economic problems we are having. Stagnation of productivity at the company level is not a Mount Kenya issue or a lake basin issue; it’s a Kenyan issue. In fact, it’s a regional issue for many,” he added.

Ndiritu further drew parallels with global trends, suggesting that similar patterns of political blame games can be observed in other democracies, including the United States and the United Kingdom, where economic dissatisfaction is sometimes channelled into scapegoating rather than policy-driven solutions.

“There could be a bit of disconnect, and this could be happening across other parts of the world; it could be in America and the UK, where, instead of figuring out truly what is causing the economic problem, it is easier to scapegoat,” Ndiritu said.

Muriithi urged leaders to shift focus toward addressing the root causes of economic stagnation, particularly low productivity at the enterprise level, inefficiencies in production systems, and policy bottlenecks that continue to limit growth.

The remarks from the Kenya Revenue Authority Chairperson come at a time when the country is grappling with rising living costs, fiscal pressure, and heated debate around taxation and economic reforms, with political rhetoric increasingly shaping public views of the crisis ahead of the Finance Bill 2026 and the campaigns for the 2027 general elections.