President William Ruto: There’s no turning back, Kenyans will have to wait
President William Ruto during a joint media interview from State House, Nairobi on Sunday, December 17.
The President William Ruto has urged Kenyans to persevere as he embarks on transforming the country.
He was speaking during a joint media interview from State House, Nairobi, when he told Kenyans to "keep on keeping on things will be better".
"I have every intention to keep it here until things change," Dr Ruto added.
Faced with a myriad of challenges, including the spiralling cost of living, President Ruto said he was determined to make things better.
Acknowledging that many Kenyans are financially constrained, Dr Ruto said he had no control over factors that exacerbate the cost of living.
At the same time, if all factors had remained constant, the Kwenya Kwanza government would have fully delivered on it's promises to the electorate, especially to tame the cost of living, President Ruto said.
But for now, Dr Ruto said, Kenyans will have to wait a while "for the dollar/shilling rate to get better," he explained.
"There is no miracle that is going to happen. We live in a global economy. The price of fuel is not controlled by the Kenyan government. It is controlled by the producers. I made a promise in the context of where we are. If things remain constant, I would have fulfilled my promise (to stabilise the dollar)," Dr Ruto said.
The government, Dr Ruto said, has had to take very difficult and painful decisions, but "it is better to take these decisions today than to put Kenyans in debt distress".
The price of fuel, the President said, was not determined by his government but by external factors.
He also insisted that the price of fuel in Kenya was the same as in Uganda and Tanzania "because we buy fuel from the same producers".
The president also claimed that while he had reduced the Road and Rail Development Levy and two other taxes, the price of fuel was set by producers and influenced by other global changes.
On the spiralling cost of living and the skyrocketing dollar, President Ruto said: "The issue of the exchange rate is a factor of many aspects. I came into office when there was a serious situation caused by Covid-19, a big war in Europe and a huge drought caused by climate change. All these factors combined to create a global situation that increased the price of the commodities we import."
He explained that the US Federal Reserve had raised interest rates from 0.25 to 5.25 per cent.
This, he said, was the highest interest rate in its history. "Every country has tried to increase liquidity, but they have increased inflation in the process. Ours was close to double digits. What the world has been doing is managing liquidation."
According to the head of state, Kenya was only maintaining an artificial exchange rate that was flattering.
He was referring to the rate of one dollar to Shh130, and that the government was spending Sh206 billion to prop up the Kenyan shilling so that it didn't fall to the real exchange rate. But this was unsustainable, he said.
He said the government has reduced the levy on imports of products that can be manufactured in the country and is concentrating on exports. His regime, he said, "is importing Sh500 billion worth of food items ranging from cooking oil to maize, rice and so on".
In his view, Kenyans - and the government in general - have not paid enough attention to agriculture, resulting in the skyrocketing cost of living.
Despite his regime's interventions, the president admitted that "there is still no money in people's pockets".
The government, he said, had spent an extra Sh120 billion on education and was putting more money into the health sector.
"We have recruited 56,000 teachers. By the end of next year, we will have an additional 250,000 Kenyans working," he said.
Responding to concerns that the government is broke but extravagant, he defended the many foreign trips he has made, touting them as yielding results.
And he admitted to being the most travelled president.
"Would you rather I sit in Nairobi and watch Kenya burn or go to America? Would you rather I don't travel or go to South Korea to sort out the problems of electricity and power transmission? I can account for every shilling I have spent on my travels," he said.
He also touched on some of the roadside proclamations he has always made, which have been interpreted as threats.
"Mambo Matatu", a statement he made during a tour of Western Kenya, was a figurative statement to drive home the point that it was no longer business as usual, President Ruto revealed.
This, as Kenyans who are unable to pay for their health insurance under the new SHIF will have their contributions paid by the government. The number is about two million, the President said.
He also revealed that the government intends to take the companies that defrauded the NHIF to court.
President William Ruto has blamed the media for fuelling the notion that the housing levy is unconstitutional.
"The issue that it is unconstitutional was created by the media," said President Ruto. He was referring to the controversial housing levy.
The levy hit a snag when the court declared it unconstitutional but maintained that the government should continue to collect the levy.
However, he said, the court had ordered the government to come up with a mechanism to use the money.
"We have a housing problem in our country. Housing will help create jobs, reduce the problem of land fragmentation at the expense of arable land, solve our manufacturing problem. I'm very confident that the court will look at the public good that comes with housing," he said.
"We are giving an opportunity for a mama mboga or bodaboda guy to buy a Sh400,000 house where they can pay Sh4,000 a month and own a house. The housing programme was in the UDA manifesto [and the opposition manifesto].
He has said in recent days that he will do what is necessary to ensure that the housing programme succeeds. He added that the change from the Housing Fund being a contribution to it being a tax was for the greater good.
And the people who benefit from corruption, he said, are those who go to court to stop the implementation of public programmes.
On the digitisation of government services, Kenya's Kwanza administration has doubled its revenue collection tenfold as a result of a unified revenue collection system and the digitisation of government services, the president revealed.
"We were collecting 60 million from government services every day. Today we collect 600 million. By next year, we will be collecting at least Sh2 billion every day from e-citizen [payments]. This will stop corruption. It will stop theft."
Some organisations, he said, were now dodging e-citizen payments and asking for bank transfers or cheques to avoid accountability.
The president also said he had never influenced the judiciary by making phone calls.
"I promised Kenyans that the independence of the judiciary would be sacrosanct. They have never received a phone call from the president on how to handle a case. They ask me for support and I have given them as much support as I can muster," he said.
On the Arror and Kimwarer dam case, Dr Ruto said when the project was stopped, the contractors "went to court... Whoever was handling it frustrated them. I had to negotiate with Italy because we would have paid Sh40 billion yet we have nothing on the ground".
He declined to say whether there were feasibility studies for the two dams, but says the contracts were signed legally.
The president also dismissed TIFA's opinion polls as a fraud.
" If it were TIFA, I would not be president".
According to the president, the privatisation of KICC is expected to generate Sh3 billion annually. It is one of the State parastatals listed for privatisation.
