Deputy president William Ruto will publish government contracts with China and deport Chinese nationals working illegally if he is elected on August 9, promises likely to resonate with citizens pummelled by mounting debt and the skyrocketing cost of living.
Kenya, whose 2022/23 budget of Sh3.3 trillion shillings has a deficit of 6.2% of gross domestic product, owes China about Sh1.04 trillion.
Ruto has promised to slash the government borrowing that has funded President Uhuru Kenyatta’s infrastructure building spree.
The contracts are not public and some Kenyan organisations have lodged court cases to try to force full disclosure of the deals.
Ethiopia has restructured its Chinese debt and Zambia is seeking to do – something Ruto said he would not do, insisting Kenya has the capacity to handle its debt situation.
Ruto, 55, paints the election as a clash between “hustlers and dynasties” – a jab at Raila Odinga and Kenyatta, son of the nation’s first vice president and president respectively.
Instead of planning mammoth expressways or new railways, Ruto’s campaign is touting a plan to dish out loans to “hustlers” or small businessmen and women, symbolised by his campaign symbol of a wheelbarrow.
The DP has said he will look for more money to overcome shortages of judges and magistrates, independent budgets for investigating bodies, and making sure parliament has an active opposition, as some ways of tackling graft.
“The challenge we have at the moment is the weaponization and the politicisation of corruption,” the Deputy President maintains. (
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