• According to Ruto, Uhuru could have expended a lot of time in the handshake and the BBI at the expense of development.
• Ruto said he was at the centre of Jubilee’s remarkable performance in first term.
Image: PSCU
Deputy President William Ruto has claimed the government could have made huge strides in the delivery of the Big Four Agenda if he was not shoved aside from the heart of power.
In a clear vote of no confidence against the President and top officials in his administration, Ruto said Jubilee’s second term performance is dismal.
According to Ruto, President Uhuru Kenyatta could have expended a lot of time in the handshake and the BBI at the expense of development.
“I was part, to a large extent, of what happened in the first term and in my rating, we did very well in our first term,” Ruto said. “I can tell you for free that if I had the same latitude as I did in our first term, the story would be very, very different.”
Ruto’s statement is a contradiction of the President who had two weeks ago declared that he has been able to perform better in his second term because of his decision to ignore “politicking”.
“I have done much more than I was able to do even in my first term. Why? Because I have been able to focus myself working in conjunction with my colleagues and being able to focus on the development agenda and not the political agenda,” Uhuru said.
But speaking during an interview on KTN on Thursday night, Ruto said he was at the centre of Jubilee’s remarkable performance in first term.
“As an insider in this administration, I know what works and I have participated in making things work,” Ruto said.
According to the DP, he engineered the classification of roads that Jubilee used to roll out what he termed a “robust road network in Kenya”.
“The whole concept of changing the building code, I sat in my boardroom with Micahel Kamau (former Transport CS), Engineer Mosonik (ex-Principal Secretary Infrastructure) and then Director General of Kerra and that is how we arrived at the categories of roads,”Ruto said.
He went on: “If there is a person who is best placed to carry through what worked and to change what did not work then it’s the person speaking to you…I do not think any other leader in Kenya today occupies that space.”
Ruto said the government is yet to deliver on what it promised Kenyans —affordable housing, food security, universal health care and manufacturing.
Pressed to explain why the government was yet to deliver, Ruto retorted: “There are people the President assigned the implementation of the Big Four…they are best placed to answer why.”
In January 2019, Uhuru issued an Executive Order that allowed Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi to take charge of the implementation and monitoring of all development projects initiated and funded by the national government.
According to Ruto, Jubilee has done well on the delivery on infrastructure, citing the Standard Gauge Railway and several road networks.
“However, we have not done well with our housing programme because we have not rolled it out as we should. We have not rolled out UHC which we promised and the whole area of agriculture and value processing, all the way to manufacturing hasn’t come out,” Ruto added.
-Edited by SKanyara