Fact or Fiction? Breaking Down Gachagua's US Tour Claims On Bills, Education and Health

Source: Africa Check

Fact or fiction? Breaking down Gachagua's US tour claims on bills, education and health

• Gachagua claimed the government owed long-suffering contractors and suppliers KSh900 billion (US$6.93 billion), but the latest government data places this at KSh684 billion - a still significant, if smaller, burden.
• He was correct that former president Mwai Kibaki launched free primary education. But the record also shows it was Kibaki, not successor Uhuru Kenyatta as Gachagua claimed, who introduced free day secondary schooling.
• His claim that health insurance reforms should have cost only KSh800 million is inaccurate as available data shows far higher expenses, including KSh700 million for system upgrades alone. But Gachagua was correct that Ruto's new social health insurance plan is projected to cost taxpayers at least KSh104 billion.

During his six-week US tour which ended on 21 August 2025, former Kenyan deputy president Rigathi Gachagua sharply criticised the record of his ex-boss turned rival, president William Ruto.

The two fell out publicly, culminating in Gachagua's impeachment in October 2024.

On the trip, Gachagua staged campaign-style events in cities including Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, Missouri, Kansas City, Dallas and Baltimore, urging Kenyans abroad to reject Ruto's administration.

In Kansas City, he cited pending bills, the education funding crisis and corruption as hallmarks of Ruto's rule, while also accusing the government of runaway abductions, torture, killings and repression of critics.

We examined some of Gachagua's claims to see how they stack up against the facts.

Pending bills are government debts for completed work or goods. Though legally a first charge on the budget, their non-payment has long strained small businesses and remains a major headache for both national and county treasuries.

The payment delays have rippled through the economy, becoming a prominent talking point in the country. Facing a cash crunch, the Ruto administration is juggling supplier arrears with debt service.

Gachagua said that Ruto had "refused" to pay suppliers who had worked with the government for years, claiming that they owed "more than KSh900 billion".

But official data from the national treasury and the controller of budget says otherwise. In September 2022, when Ruto took office, treasury data shows pending bills were at KSh439.2 billion (US$3.72 billion at the average exchange rate that year).

The latest controller of budget data (to 31 March 2025) puts national pending bills at KSh511.75 billion, while the national treasury reported KSh421.63 billion.

Even adding county arrears of KSh172.5 billion gives a maximum of KSh684.25 billion. It is still a lot of money, but well below the "more than KSh900 billion" Gachagua claimed.

We rate his claim as exaggerated.

Gachagua next turned to Kenya's education funding crisis, blaming it on mismanagement by the Ruto government.

In November 2002, opposition candidate Mwai Kibaki pledged that if elected in the 27 December elections, he would make primary education "free and compulsory" to all children.

In his inaugural speech three days after winning the elections, Kibaki set free primary education as an "immediate goal". He delivered on the promise in January 2003, a move that drew global headlines.

Under the new policy, the government abolished tuition fees and began channelling funds directly to schools, calculated on a per-pupil basis. The programme has faced hurdles but is credited with boosting enrolment.

Education experts, researchers and donor records all date the launch of the policy to 2003, under Kibaki. On this, Gachagua was correct.

Gachagua claimed that Kibaki's successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, extended the policy to secondary education.

But it was Kibaki who pledged free secondary schooling during his 2007 re-election campaign, and launched the programme in 2008. Under this model, the state paid tuition, while parents covered other costs including uniforms, boarding and personal effects.

By the time Kenyatta became president in 2013, free day secondary education was already in place.

Kenyatta did not abolish the policy; instead his administration increased funding by 25%, raising per-student support to KSh12,870 in 2015 and later expanding allocations in 2017.

During his re-election campaign that year, Kenyatta promised to make day secondary schools "free" from 2018, but in practice the policy continued much as before.

On taking office, Ruto also kept the programme and in January 2023 raised funding to KSh22,244 per secondary school student.

But in 2025, finance minister John Mbadi said the government could only afford KSh16,900 per learner.

Gachagua's claim is misleading. Free day secondary education began under Kibaki. Kenyatta and later Ruto only adjusted the funding.

The transition rate measures the share of pupils completing primary school in one year who enroll in secondary school the next.

Kenyatta's second-term education strategy, released in 2019, set a policy goal of ensuring a full or "100% transition from primary to secondary education".

But by the time he left office in 2022, the transition rate had dropped from a high of 91% in 2020 to 78.6%, according to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics data. Gachagua got it wrong.

The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), Kenya's public health insurer until its closure in 2024, was long plagued by mismanagement.

Speaking in Kansas City, Gachagua said Ruto "found a system called NHIF that was struggling, but working, that needed improvement".

He continued: "The people at NHIF had come up with a programme that needed KSh800 million to reform it and make it workable and compliant with the present times."

Gachagua has made this claim before, suggesting reforms would have cost only a fraction of what its replacement was expected to require.

But is his figure accurate?

A 2011 strategic review for the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC), prepared with the NHIF and the Kenyan health ministry, estimated consultancy fees for reforms at KSh161.5 million.

This excluded major costs such as redundancy payouts (with 71% of administrative costs tied up in personnel), actuarial reviews, asset valuations and efforts to expand into the informal sector.

In 2015, the IFC reported that the World Bank had provided $20 million (KSh1.96 billion at the average exchange rate then of KSh98.18 per dollar) for the first phase of NHIF reforms. Germany also pledged €20 million (KSh2.12 billion at the then rate of KSh108.96 per euro).

More recently, in the 2023/24 fiscal year, the NHIF itself budgeted KSh700 million for IT upgrades, a figure Gachagua has previously rounded up to KSh800 million.

No expert review has ever costed NHIF reforms at KSh800 million. Gachagua appears to have misstated the cost of a system upgrade, and then misrepresented it as the cost of full reforms.

The evidence from IFC reviews and donor funding so far shows the true bill would have run well above his figure.

"Kasongo" is one of the many nicknames Kenyans use for Ruto, seemingly drawn from the title of a Congolese song about loss and heartbreak.

Back in 2015, the World Bank noted that NHIF was Kenya's main health insurer, covering over 90% of the insured population, and suggested it should be reformed.

But in November 2023, the NHIF Act was repealed, effectively killing the fund and replacing it with the Social Health Insurance Act. Under it, the Social Health Authority (SHA) replaced the NHIF.

SHA now administers the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), which pools resources to provide all Kenyans with an essential benefits package toward universal health coverage.

On 1 October 2024, Dr Robert Pukose, chair of the national assembly's health committee, notified lawmakers about the transition from NHIF to social health insurance.

He said that an "Integrated Health Information Technology System" was being procured at a contract worth KSh104.8 billion ($800 million). This covered both its development and implementation, including digital healthcare platforms.

The tender was broken down into KSh34 billion in initial partner investment over two years, and KSh70.8 billion for support and maintenance over 10 years.

Gachagua is correct: Ruto's administration scrapped the NHIF in favour of SHA, and the transition carried a KSh104 billion price tag.