Former Attorney General and Democratic Party (DP) leader Justin Muturi has sharply criticised Parliament for passing the Government-Owned Enterprises Act, warning that the law poses a serious threat to Kenya’s sovereignty.
The Act, which was passed late last year, paves the way for the privatisation of state agencies. Muturi argues it was rushed through Parliament without meaningful public participation and quietly assented to and gazetted amid political distractions such as by-elections.
“A state that converts public wealth into corporate assets without national debate is not governing. It is transferring. It is not reforming. It is retreating. It is not building capacity. It is outsourcing sovereignty,” Muturi said.
He noted that the legislation has fundamentally altered the ownership structure of the Kenyan state, converting 65 public corporations into limited liability companies. These include airports, ports, power utilities, development banks, sugar factories, financial institutions and other strategic national assets.
According to Muturi, the Act centralises power over appointments, funding flows, governance structures and oversight in a manner that bypasses Parliament, weakens public accountability and blurs the line between public interest and executive discretion.
The former Attorney General said public assets should not be viewed purely as economic instruments, but as moral constructs that represent collective sacrifice across generations.
“Kenya’s founding generation understood this instinctively. When our population was under 20 million, with a weaker tax base and limited infrastructure, they built airports, ports, power stations, banks, sugar mills and development corporations. They did not outsource sovereignty. They pooled it,” he said.
Muturi warned that what is at stake is not merely the ownership of institutions, but the ownership of the future. He argued that a society that sells its infrastructure before exhausting its collective capacity to build it is not modernising, but surrendering.
“A nation that turns public goods into corporate goods without citizen consent is not reforming, but is privatising citizenship itself,” he added.
He further lamented the lack of democratic consent surrounding the passage of the law, saying Kenyans were never consulted on such a far-reaching transformation.
“There was no national debate. No referendum. No white paper. No public hearings of consequence. Only procedural passage. Only gazettement. Only silence,” Muturi said.
The former National Assembly Speaker warned that history shows nations often lose their wealth not through invasion, but through legislation.
“Not in war rooms, but in committee rooms. Not through conquest, but through compliance. Not with violence, but with silence. Kenya is at such a moment,” he said.
Muturi concluded by questioning the legitimacy of the Act, arguing that when public assets become corporate assets, democracy risks being reduced to a spectator sport.
