•From police brutality, education system in chaos, high cost of living and sustained borrowing, the groups ask Kenyans to belt up for a bumpy ride.
The civil society has described President William Ruto’s reign as "turbulent, disorganised and finding pleasure in making life economically harder for the common man".
The group of 14 lobbies say “we are possibly witnessing one of the most challenging presidencies in our history”.
They told reporters on Wednesday that Kenyans must organise to push back against any move that negates provisions of the law and the Constitution.
The group’s assessment was based on 10 thematic areas that include corruption, capture of independent offices, public debts and police brutality.
Others are freedom of the press, devolution, education, land and natural resources, fate of youths, and civic space.
On corruption, the withdrawal of high-profile corruption cases by former DPP Noordin Haji weighed heavily in the assessment, with the lobbies claiming the justice system has turned to serve the politically connected and the rich.
On independence of institutions, they complain that although the Kenya Kwanza regime campaigned on ensuring institutionalised political parties and major offices, their practice has been to "cannibalise" the parties, including undermining opposition parties that should provide oversight.
“Kenya Kwanza promised to institutionalise political parties and depersonalise and depoliticise state institutions. The regime has an insatiable appetite to capture political parties and independent commissions and offices contrary to Article 250 of the Constitution,” the group says.
They say the administration has an appetite to undermine institutions and make them personality based so they can be manipulable.
“A case in point is the President's role in the National Land Commission on valuation and compulsory acquisition of land contrary to the provisions of the Constitution and the Land Act 2012. [Also], the regime interfered with the appointment of the Inspector General of Police, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and created many illegal offices,” they say.
They also criticised the claim by politicians that the administration was being influenced by shareholders, which it says has divided the country along ethnic and regional lines.
Public appointments have been tribal, weakening entities like NCIC, they claim.
“The assertion that Kenya operates as a country of shareholders, which is in violation of Articles 4 and 27 of the Constitution, has increasingly led to divisions along ethnic and regional lines. This is an entrenchment of the language of exclusion in public service delivery. The appointments to public offices are clearly skewed into ethnic hegemonies,” they say.
On Public debt, the lobbies say the Ruto administration has sustained unfettered borrowing despite campaigning against it and telling Kenyans that borrowing has stopped.
“Kenya Kwanza committed not to borrow more and burden Kenyans with extra debt. As of September 2022, Kenya's public debt reached Sh8.7 trillion, equivalent to about 69.4 per cent of the GDP.”
“In just the first seven months of the current government's tenure, the public debt ballooned to Sh9.63 trillion, comprising Sh4.54 trillion in domestic debt and Sh5.09 trillion in external debt," they add.
"These figures reflect a total borrowing of Sh933 billion, with Sh176 billion sourced domestically and Sh757 billion externally under the Kenya Kwanza administration.”
On police brutality, they say they have documented at least 75 cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances between March and August 2023.
They claim the police illegalities have been “normalised in this administration, with President Ruto publicly endorsing these extrajudicial executions, commending the officers responsible for their actions”.
“The utterances of the President, especially the infamous 'mambo ni matatu' phrase, a confirmation of the regime’s hand in perpetuating police brutality,” they say.
On press freedom, the groups says the administration has maintained hostile public stance against the media to delegitimise it.
On devolution, they complain that the administration “opted to allocate a reduced sum of Sh385.4 billion as shareable revenue to counties, a departure from the Commission of Revenue Allocation's (CRA) recommended figure of Sh407 billion.”
On education, the group says the administration was presiding over the collapse of the system and that the “much-hyped presidential working party reform initiative that was to help fix the problems in education has instead exacerbated the problem from basic education to tertiary level”.
“The curriculum review process is haphazard, the infrastructure development is lopsided, and financing is wanting. The higher education financing framework is a tool to block the children from poor families from accessing tertiary education.”
On land issues, they claim that the "national land management information system continues to be a mirage shrouded in secrecy.
The implementation of the Community Land Act has hit a snag and there is an aggressive annexation of community land for mega projects, they say.