•The President conceded to the demands of the protesters countrywide and dropped the contentious tax proposals.
Image: MATHEWS NDANYI
President William Ruto has extended an olive branch to the young people who have protested against the excesses of his administration.
The head of state announced on Wednesday that he would facilitate dialogue with the young people as well as action groups and religious bodies.
“I will hold a conversation with them so that we speak to the future of our country together,” the President said.
The President conceded to the demands of the protesters countrywide and dropped the contentious tax proposals.
“I am proposing that because we have gotten rid of the Finance Bill, 2024, it is necessary for us to have a conversation going forward on how we manage the affairs of the country together,” he said.
The President said the country’s debt situation, which has worsened the budget deficit is among the issues that will feature in the dialogue.
“As I committed last Sunday, I will be proposing an engagement with the young people of our nation for us to listen to them.”
“I will listen to their views, proposals, ideas and concerns and what they think we should do better as we go forward,” President Ruto said.
He said the dialogue “will be on the matters on the bill and the issues the people of Kenya have canvassed in the protests.”
President Ruto, while disclosing he was behind the tax bill, said the move was a result of the threat the public debt continues to pose to the economy.
The president, in an attempt to explain what his team has achieved, said that despite the budget constraints, they have reduced the price of fertilizer, petrol prices, and other commodities and that his interventions have seen the shilling gain against the US dollar.
“We have managed to pull the country out of distress. The economy has grown by 5.6 per cent and inflation figures have fallen from nine to 5 per cent,” President Ruto said.
He indicated that he had held discussions with many stakeholders on the way forward to end the chaos and mayhem that rocked the country.
“I will be meeting some of them shortly on charting a way forward to make sure we carry the whole nation in this important journey as we go into the future as a country,” the president said.
On the concerns about police killings in the protests, the president said the incident which left six people dead [Tuesday] was unfortunate.
He restated that there “will be no extrajudicial killings going forward” explaining that those that the civil society groups had cited were all traced.
“All the people they mentioned were found in police custody and those processed were released,” the president said.
He spoke at a time when the youths who have been leading the protests insisted that they would be on the streets to push for justice for their departed compatriots.