President William Ruto has allayed fear that the cost of electricity will go up this month.
Reports had indicated that consumers are likely to dig deeper into their pockets from January 1 as the cost of power had been predicted to go up by 15 percent due to the end of subsidy.
But in a rejoinder, the President on Saturday dismissed the reports noting there will be no additional charges on electricity adding that the government had already made the right decisions on ensuring that a predictable platform on how to run the economy.
“I want to allay the fears that are being spread by people that there will be an increase in electricity costs. I want to assure the country that there will be no additional charges today or going into the future on electricity bills to the people of Kenya,” Ruto said.
“Contrary to the stories being peddled around that there will be job losses, there will be additional cost of living…those are just people who are speculators,” he added.
Ruto said there is an ongoing tariffs review of tariffs on all our energy requirements and in three months’ time there will be public consultations in an effort to ensure the tariffs are sensitive to those with minimum earnings.
This, he said, will also help ensure that those at the bottom of the pyramid are not affected while at the same time supporting the manufacturers.
“We have already taken care of all the subsidies that we removed in August and we are going to make sure that our manufacturers, our value addition and processors and all Kenyans including those on flying tariff are taken into consideration as we review the tariffs going into the future,” the President assured.
Ruto has been against subsidies imposed by his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta on items like petrol and staple maize food, terming them unsustainable.
