President William Ruto has defended his administration’s tough economic measures, saying he was forced to make “very difficult and sad decisions” to save Kenya from defaulting on its debts.
Speaking at State House on Tuesday when he received the Jukwaa la Usalama report, the President said he takes his job seriously and owed Kenyans honesty about the challenges the country faced when he took office.
“There is a job you people gave me to be the President of Kenya and that work, I want to address you about it,” Ruto told the security teams.
“When someone is given work, they must do the work.”
Ruto said he welcomed the opportunity to meet grassroots leaders under the Jukwaa la Usalama forum, adding that such meetings are often mistaken for political rallies but were instead aimed at discussing real security concerns raised by citizens.
“Ordinarily, these gatherings are for politics, but we said we wanted a gathering of Kenyans to talk about issues of security,” he said. “I thank you for coming out and talking to us without any barriers.”
Ruto said Kenya was in deep economic difficulty when he assumed office, citing rising inflation, dwindling foreign reserves and a weakening shilling.
“We had debts, inflation was 9.6 per cent, the dollar had gone to 167, and our foreign reserves had gone down to 5.7 billion dollars,” he said.
He recalled a meeting with the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who asked what Kenya would do if it reached a point where it could not pay its debts.
“I told him Kenya will not be defeated. I came back and sat in my office, and we said we cannot be the country that is going to go to shame and default on our debts,” Ruto said.
The President said he then made several unpopular but necessary decisions.
“I had to make very difficult decisions, and we removed subsidies; we removed the fuel subsidy, the flour subsidy, and I was forced to stop paying some debts so that we did not falter,” he said.
“I did all these, but they were difficult and very sad decisions.”
Ruto stressed that the choices were driven by his sense of duty and responsibility.
“I take my job very seriously. You understand me, and that is why sometimes it is good to hear from the horse’s mouth,” Ruto said.
He added that despite intense criticism at the time, the decisions prevented Kenya from becoming one of the countries that defaulted on their sovereign debts last year.
“During that time, it was said that six countries would find it hard to pay their debts,” he said. “Out of those six, five defaulted — but Kenya did not.
Ruto said the economy is now stabilising and the country stands on “sound footing,” thanks to the sacrifices made.
“Today, I can confidently tell you that our economy is on a sound footing,” he said. “If I had not made those hard decisions, we would have been put to shame.”
