President William Ruto has commissioned a power substation in Athi River, Machakos.
Ruto commissioned the Athi River substation located barely a kilometre off Nairobi - Namanga road in Mavoko subcounty on Tuesday.
It's part of 220Kv Nairobi Ring substations and a Vision 2030 flagship project.
Ruto said the substation will sort out power outage problems often experienced in the country.
“Power outages will no longer be experienced in the country. There will be no more power blackouts,” he said.
He addressed the public shortly after commissioning the project.
Ruto said his administration had added that power station since it wanted to expand the Athi River Special Economic Zone.
“Export Processing Zone–Athi River has employed more than 20, 000 youth. But, we intend to add 15, 000 more youth to work here in Athi River,” Ruto said.
Ruto said his government had allocated Sh1 billion to expand EPZ Athi River because they were doing negotiations with Americans on the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.
It gives the country an opportunity of exporting locally-made products to America.
Ruto told the youth to organize themselves stating that he had banned importation of goods like furniture that can be locally made.
He said all furniture will be made by the Kenyan youth.
Ruto also cautioned the Azimio leadership against holding their planned nationwide demonstrations on Wednesday.
The President said his administration won’t watch demonstrators destroy innocent Kenyans’ hard-earned property as others lose their lives due to protests as witnessed last week.
“There will be no demonstrations. There will be no more Kenyans’ lives that will be lost,” Ruto said.
“They held demonstrations last Friday, six Kenyans lost their lives. They want to conduct more demonstrations tomorrow. We won’t allow them to continue with demonstrations for more Kenyans to lose their lives,” Ruto said.
Ruto made a stopover along Nairobi–Namanga Road in Vanillas area where he addressed the public on his way back to Nairobi.
The President was accompanied by Deputy Rigathi Gachagua Rigathi Gachagua, Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti and Mwala MP Vincent Musyoka.
“Waachane na maandamano. Kama wanataka mimi wanitafute, wanajua pahali mimi niko,” he said.
“Wachana na hawa wananchi wengine. Kwani nyinyi mmewakosea nini? Wanakuja, wanaharibu mali na maisha ya watu. Wanakosesha watu kuenda kazi. Wanaleta fujo mpaka watu wengine wanapoteza maisha yao kwa nini?” Ruto said.
Ruto maintained that demonstrations weren’t a solution to the high cost of living, but supporting farmers to produce food was.
“This year, I bought 3.5 million bags of fertilizers and distributed them to farmers. We will in the next two to three months harvest lots of food in our farms,” Ruto said.
He said he had increased the budget to increase bags of fertilizers to distribute to farmers from 3.5 million to 6 million to completely solve the hunger issue in the country once and for all.
