When President William Ruto took office a year ago, he inherited a number of major challenges including a wrecked economy, huge debts, unemployment, and an almost irreparable cost of living.
Ruto promised on the campaign trail that he would fix all of these, stabilise the economy, and build a Kenya for all.
Kenya’s fifth president now marks his first twelve months in office after coming to power on September 13, 2022, following a bitterly fought election against former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Speaking on Sunday evening at the Kiririmbi Show on Inooro TV, Ruto listed his scorecard and the interventions he has taken within the past year, to not only stabilise the economy but also to lower the burden of the high cost of living among Kenyans.
”The govt has made a number of interventions to stabilize the country’s debt. Interventions reducing the fiscal deficit from Ksh 1tr to Ksh 1.7b. The National Treasury has cleared all arrears owed to the Counties, for the first time in ten years,” Ruto said.
”Kenya’s savings base has grown from 5b to 6b per month. Govt has reduced its borrowing in the first year, from Ksh 1.2Tr to Ksh 700b. Kenya had a 6% fiscal deficit last year, this year it is 4.4% with a plan of having it at 3.6% next year and a vision of a 0% deficit in ten years,” he continued.
In efforts to lower the cost of living and improve food production in the country, the new administration has spent Ksh12 billion in fertiliser subsidies and for the first time in a decade, the government has successfully registered over 5 million farmers to its database.
”Last year Kenya harvested 44 million bags for the whole year, this year the country is expecting 61 million bags of grain because of the subsidised fertiliser,” Ruto said. More than 2 Million farmers have so far received these fertilizers.
The Head of State also listed the ongoing reforms in the coffee, milk, and tea sectors and what the new administration has so far achieved in its efforts to make the three sectors profitable to farmers.
To improve value addition and processing, the government has removed all the VAT on tea as well as on tea packaging materials. The Ruto administration will also be releasing Ksh 1b annually to support close to 1, 000, 000 tea farmers across the country.
On the other hand, coffee farmers have a reason to smile after the government of Kenya resolved to process the coffee locally before releasing them to the international markets in an effort to eliminate brokers who have exploited Kenyan farmers for decades.
”Kenyan coffee is to be processed in the country before exportation. We have set aside money for the Coffee Cherry Fund and money is likely to be released in a few days, after the Coffee Auction to be held on August 15th,” Ruto said.
On education reforms, the new administration has introduced a new funding model and according to President Ruto, his government this year made the largest allocation of funds in history to the Ministry of Education (Ksh 630b).
To solve the problem of lack of enough human resources to successfully help implement the new CBC, the government has hired more than 56,000 new teachers, an unprecedented number in just under one year.
Funding to public universities has also increased from Ksh 44 billion to Ksh 82 billion.
”The government now provides full scholarships to all university students, as opposed to a loan, as witnessed in the previous model,” the President explained.
TVET Funding is raised from Ksh 5b to Ksh 10b annually, to fully cater to students in TVET institutions as well as more employment of TVET teachers (1,700).
