President William Ruto told Kenyans on Sunday that they must bear the pain of paying taxes if the country’s economy is to grow.
The President stated that in economic matters, he is a student of former President Mwai Kibaki, who inherited a deplorable economy from his predecessor but grew it through taxation.
President Ruto told residents of Nyeri County at Sagana State Lodge during a Thanksgiving service that the country would reduce borrowing, which he described as unsustainable.
“When we took power, I told you that our first task would be to stabilise this country’s economy, which was in a bad state.” We have now accomplished this, and we have decided never to rely on borrowing to sustain our economy again. This issue of borrowing left, right, and centre must be resolved. “We must build this country on a solid foundation, not a debt foundation,” he said.
The President bemoaned the fact that some international credit rating agencies were impeding Kenya’s efforts to make early payments on its foreign debt.
“We have debts due to mature in June of next year.” Last week, my finance CS, Prof Njuguna Ndung’u, and I devised a plan to repay the debts sooner rather than later because we did not want to wait until next year. But, strangely, some rogue credit rating agencies, which are used to inflating our debts through unconventional means, wrote a letter demanding to know why we want to repay earlier than scheduled, but I know they wanted us to default,” he explained.
“We will build our country on a solid foundation of taxes paid.” Kibaki, one of my teachers, discovered a country with a budget of only $200 billion and helped raise it to $1 trillion. “His clarion call was to pay taxes, and I will follow in his footsteps to build our economy,” he said.
Kenya Kwanza and Azimio la Umoja One Kenya’s proposed talks dominated the meeting, with leaders maintaining a hardline stance on the agenda.
Kimani Ichung’wa, National Assembly Majority Leader and Kikuyu MP, who is leading the Kenya Kwanza team in the proposed talks, has stated that they will not accept any talks that could lead to power sharing.
“We will hold talks with opposition leaders in the spirit of a united nation, not through threats and intimidation,” he said.
He urged President Ruto to stand firm against Azimio-organized protests.
Anne Waiguru, Chairperson of the Council of Governors and Governor of Kirinyaga, stated that the Mt Kenya region was fully behind President Ruto in order to reap the greatest benefits from his administration.
She stated that residents in the area have faith that the administration will keep its campaign promises.
“The love and commitment of the Mountain people to our President is unconditional and unwavering,” she said. She praised the President for launching development projects in the region and expressed confidence that the government would keep its promises.