President William Ruto has bowed to pressure and said he will not sign the Finance Bill 2024.
The president said the people have spoken.
“Listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this Finance Bill 2024, I concede and therefore I will not sign the 2024 Finance Bill and it shall subsequently be withdrawn,” he said.
President Ruto further said his administration has worked hard and consistently so that the price of essential commodities like ‘unga’ has dropped from Sh240 to Sh100.
“We reduced the cost of fertiliser from Sh7,500 to Sh2,500. The Shilling has also strengthened against the Dollar,” he said.
Ruto said Kenya is on course to detangle itself from the debt burden that has hung around its neck for decades.
In a televised address to the nation from State House, the President said for every Sh100 the government collects in taxes, Sh61 go into paying off the country’s debt.
“We have paid Kenya’s Eurobond debt that was borrowed in 2014 of $2 billion dollars that has been hanging around our neck. We paid the last instalment of $500 million last week,” Ruto said.
Ruto said given the sustained commitment to rid itself of the debt burden, the country’s debt obligation is today much less and more sustainable.
State House sources earlier told the Star that the Head of state has also declined to assent to the Bill.
