RUTO LIED TO KENYANS ON THIS CRUCIAL ISSUE DURING LIVE INTERVIEW

President William Ruto got it wrong when asked the current debt ceiling by KTN Journalist Eric Latif during yesterday’s interview at State House whereby the president responded on current issues affecting the country.

The president quoted that the current country’s debt ranges at a region of Ksh 8.8 Trillion as he talked about how his administration has gone against the advice of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to borrow more. This is contrary to the statistics given by the ministry of Treasury.

“Our public debt is about Sh8.8 T. I have made a deliberate decision against the advice of IMF who wanted us to borrow more. There are countries in Africa that have defaulted on their payments. Kenya will not go that route,” President William Ruto said as he responded when asked the current debt ceiling by Eric Latif.

However, according to the Ministry of Treasury, as of January 2023, the public debt stock amounted to Kshs. 9.182 trillion. In March, the Treasury said that the debt had jumped to ksh 9.39 Trillion. These is projected to be at the region of 9.4 trillion by the end of June this year. These trajectory indicates that the government will be borrowing at a space of 587 billion.

“The public debt is projected to be Sh9.413 trillion as at end of June 2023 implying a borrowing space of Sh587 billion in the financial year in the financial year 2023/24,” Dr Kiptoo said back in March while talking about the Medium- Term Debt Management Strategy for financial year 2023/2024.

Other issues the president talked about include the Shakahola massacre, his recent meetings with Raila Odinga, the hard economic living faced by Kenyans and the Financial Bill 2023.