President William Ruto has reiterated that his administration has successfully achieved economic stability within one year of assuming office.
While addressing fellow leaders and residents at Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri on Tuesday, the president noted that his administration’s first priority was to address a budgetary shortfall of Sh300 billion for the fiscal year 2022/23.
“We now have a firm foundation and I want to announce that we have stabilised the economy. We are going to be prudent in the management of our resources,” the president said.
Adding: “Our first assignment when we took over power was to deal with the Sh300 billion hole in the budget. In our new budget (2023/24), we have reduced borrowing by up to Sh500 billion. One cannot improve the economy by taking loans unnecessarily.”
President Ruto at the same time underscored the importance of all Kenyan citizens fulfilling their tax obligations.
“We should pay taxes to achieve self-sufficiency. We are on the right track and we will succeed as a nation,” he said.
The Head of State also announced that his government is currently engaged in negotiations for a preferential trade agreement with both the United States of America (USA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The aim of these negotiations is to secure markets for domestically produced goods from the country.
“Our goal is to increase the manufacturing sector’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) from the current 7 per cent to 15 per cent in the next five years. By 2030, we want to reach 20 per cent of GDP. We also want to increase our exports as a percentage of GDP from 10 per cent to 30 per cent. These two paradigms are driving our economic conversation,” he said.
Dr Ruto further reaffirmed his government’s commitment to eradicating cartels within the agricultural sector and safeguarding farmers from experiencing inadequate earnings.
“In our Kenya Kwanza Plan, we want to eradicate cartels in the agricultural sector and revamp the entire mechanism. We need to clean up the agriculture sector and I must tell you that we will not continue like this,” he said.
Ruto highlighted the importance of prioritizing value addition for all domestically produced tea and further implementing reforms within the sector.
“Currently, we are only doing five per cent value addition on all the tea we produce. In five years, we want to do a 50 per cent value addition of all our tea here in Kenya so that we can improve the income of our farmers,” he said.
“We are going to review the Tea Act so that we sort out the whole ecosystem. The tea sector earns the country Sh120 billion a year. We want to improve it to Sh150 billion so that we can ensure that farmers get more money,” Ruto added.
