President William Ruto has lauded the MPs who supported the contentious Finance Bill 2024, which was withdrawn after massive protests.
In a roundtable media interview on Sunday, he described them as the 'true heroes of Kenya'.
"MPs are the representatives of the people, they are not fools and are not mad, and I'm going to say, that one day Kenya will know that the MPs who voted yes are the true heroes of Kenya," he said.
"Those are the people who saw the opportunity for us to unchain our country from the debt trap and take our country to the future."
The Head of State said that he had a plan to stabilize the country's budget in a couple of years to come.
"My plan was to make sure in the next three to four years maximum, we have a balanced budget, where Kenya is not the Country we are today," Ruto said.
According to Ruto, the bill would have freed Kenyans from the debt burden, but its withdrawal now meant the government would have to borrow Sh1 trillion.
"I have been working tirelessly to bring Kenya out of this debt trap, it is easy to say let us drop the bill, and I have accepted that decision because it has significant consequences," Ruto said.
Ruto said that the criteria the government will use after the finance bill withdrawal is that instead of borrowing Sh600 billion, they are going to borrow close to a trillion.
"The funding gap we have done with the finance bill going down is that instead of borrowing Sh600 billion, we are going to borrow closely to a trillion," he said.
He said that the country is in a very difficult financial state and thus the people should get to understand the situation.
"I'm happy that we are in a crisis, this crisis will help us be candid to each other properly and contextualize where we are, " he said.
