Fun fact: The raw material that makes fuel is the same that is used to make most flip-flops.
That fact may or may not be relevant to these proceedings, considering Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro’s flip-flopping on fuel pricing.
Over the past few years, as he crossed from opposition to government and later to opposition, his position has been as slippery as grease, another petroleum product.
It depends on the season. The Mr Nyoro of September 2021 (“the prices must fall”), June 2023 (“it is because of the global economy”), and March 2026 (“Epra tutaonana na nyinyi”) are three sides of the same flip-flop.
When he was in Parliament’s Budget and Appropriation Committee, including as chairman, in the Kenya Kwanza administration until July 2025, he never spoke ill of the policies that led to increased taxes on fuel. Now, among the leaders opposed to President William Ruto’s government, he has emerged to expose the actions that led to piling more taxes on fuel.
Speaking on March 9, he revealed that in the first two years of Dr Ruto’s administration, the government added eight per cent VAT on fuel.
“It used to be eight per cent, and they added another eight to make it 16 per cent,” he said. “Then in 2024, after the protests, the government introduced a Sh7 fuel levy. They timed it with a drop in global prices…So, as it stands, fuel can only get costlier.”
In an apparent address to Dr Ruto, he said: “The VAT (you added), you must remove it because you cannot transfer the rising prices entirely to consumers.”
Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro makes his remarks during the launch of the 2025 Mid-year economic report themed “A mid-year diagnostic of Kenya’s crossroads in 2025: Navigating the 2024/2025 public debt overshoot at Sarova Hotel, Nairobi, on September 15, 2025.
It was in the same speech that he warned Epra (the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority) against increasing fuel prices for the period of March 14-April 14, using the US-Israel war on Iran as an excuse. “As Kenyans, we do not expect Epra to lie to Kenyans and to start increasing the price of fuel,” said the Kenyatta University-trained economist.
“Ile ukora mnapanga ya kuongeza mafuta this week, tutaonana na nyinyi (The chicanery you are planning in order to increase fuel prices this week, we will deal with you),” he told Epra. He further revealed that the Kenya Kwanza administration would typically drop local fuel prices by a shilling or two even when the price of a barrel of oil had reduced significantly on the global market.
“The way you were lowering the price of fuel by Sh1 as if it were a sweet, now that it is increasing, remove the eight per cent VAT and the Sh7 fuel levy that was signed by the minister (Kipchumba Murkomen) in the last quarter of 2024,” said Mr Nyoro.
Before he broke ranks with the Ruto administration and was subsequently booted from the influential budget committee, he was a staunch defender of the government’s policies on fuel pricing. One instance is a June 7, 2023, televised forum where he tried to explain the pricing rationale.
“Kenya plugs into the global economy. All our fuel products are imported, and therefore, when there is a variation in terms of the currency with which we pay, that cost also spirals to what we pay at the pump. And that is part of the reason why fuel prices are high,” he said.
And in March 2024, as he addressed traders in Nairobi’s Nyamakima, the MP said that the falling fuel prices were an “indicator that behind the scenes, the economy is being fixed”.
Years back, in 2021, when he was part of the Jubilee Party faction that had broken away from President Uhuru Kenyatta, and which included Dr Ruto, Mr Nyoro vehemently opposed increases to fuel prices in Parliament.
Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro delivers a keynote address at Tangaza University in Nairobi on May 15, 2025.
A contribution on September 21, 2021, is the most poignant.
“It’s not just insensitive, but it’s very inconsiderate to the people of Kenya. At such a time that our economy is at its knees, it was despicable to see our government increasing the cost of life to Kenyans,” he charged. “An increment in fuel prices of petrol, diesel, and kerosene, and recently, Mr Speaker, the LPG gas is a very, very despicable act.”
“I want to tell this government, and especially Epra, that sets these prices, that the prices of fuel products in Kenya must fall. As we sit in this House, we are going to do whatever it takes,” he added.
“Fifty-five per cent of the pump prices is actually money that goes to our government through taxes,” he further said. “The government must (reduce) the appetite for money, the appetite of taxation, Mr Speaker, so that we can pass the benefit into the consumers of fuel.”
So much for passing benefits.
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