The Mt Kenya Times 
President William Ruto leaves the country for a visit to Europe. File photo
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Worth Noting:
- During the campaigns, Dr Ruto promised to implement the Kenya Kwanza’s bottom-up economic model to the letter and spirit. He has so far made great strides. This is while noting he took over at a time when the country was being confronted by five main challenges including a dilapidated economy.
- In trying to justify their story, the authors did a comparative analysis of what Dr Ruto’s predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta spent in these trips. The amount exceeded by Sh1.6 billion.
- This comparative left a lot of be desired. In my considered view, the allocations of revenues to all public sectors depends on parameters of the economy growth.
A few days ago, I read a story published by one of Kenya’s mainstream newspapers.
This was a replay of an earlier script that President William Ruto was spending a huge chunk of taxpayers’ money in foreign trips.
As a result, this story suggested that Kenyans were not getting value for thier money.
The paper wrote. Sh14 billion have been allocated in this financial year for the ‘globe trot’.
A keen observer would not fall prey to this trick.
Notably, the budget covered three main areas; the president’s travel expenses, hospitality, fuel and maintenance of the presidential vehicles. The newspaper only mentioned the other two items in passing.
The truth of the matter is. This budget is meant to run all the duties assigned to State House.
This is in furtherance of ensuring that the President lived up to his constitutional mandate.
During the campaigns, Dr Ruto promised to implement the Kenya Kwanza’s bottom-up economic model to the letter and spirit. He has so far made great strides. This is while noting he took over at a time when the country was being confronted by five main challenges including a dilapidated economy.
In trying to justify their story, the authors did a comparative analysis of what Dr Ruto’s predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta spent in these trips. The amount exceeded by Sh1.6 billion.
This comparative left a lot of be desired. In my considered view, the allocations of revenues to all public sectors depends on parameters of the economy growth.
Here I want to give simple mathematics.
Former president Moi left a debt of Sh600 billion. This is despite the fact he left at a time when the economy was on a verge of total collapse.
His successor Mwai Kibaki left a debt of Sh1.8 trillion. Remember Kibaki left a big mark in the field of rebuilding and returning the economy back on track.
As for President Uhuru Kenyatta, he left a debt of Sh9 trillion.
What lessons do we learn here? When the economy grows, the budgetary allocations goes up.
To me, this explains why the budget for State House and President Ruto’s travel had been increased. The same case applies to budgets for other sectors.
Putting this aside, the big question is. Does Kenya benefits from these trips? To me, the answer is yes. The benefits exceeds the expenses by far.
As a developing country, Kenya is required to build strong ties of friendship and partnership with the community of nations.
Besides the stipulations of the constitution, the tradition has been that these efforts would only bore the fruits if President plays a leading role. President Ruto’s eyes are particularly trained on reaching out to rich and industrial nations.
We have so far seen him signing a raft of financial agreements worth billions of dollars which are meant to power takeoff of Kenya’s economic growth.
This is after the world leaders invited and hosted him for bilateral and multilateral talks.
The president would also take advantage of these trips to meet top executives of big companies and industries.
He would showcase our potentials and invite them to come and invest in Kenya.
One can argue that this is not the work of the president. He had appointed state officers and delegated them to undertake certain duties. The officers should handle these matters.
I beg to differ. Some of these executives suffered from what I would call inferiority complex.
They considered themselves to be very big and influential. So, a cabinet secretary is a small person and cannot play in thier league. They can only open up and talk serious matters the President.
For Dr Ruto, these trips would also present him with an opportunity to secure markets of our agricultural products particularly cash crops.
We know the campaign to discredit President Ruto’s trips is being spearheaded by the opposition outfit Azimio La Umoja-OKA party. This reeked of hypocrisy and insincerity. Why? First, it is because Ruto defeated them hands down at the ballot. They are yet to come to terms with this big loss.
Secondly, we recall that President Uhuru Kenyatta made a raft of foreign trips during his second and final term in office.
At the time, I never heard Azimio leader Raila Odinga faulting him.
We know President Uhuru had agreed to shake hands with him and this heralded in birth of the handshake government.
Apart from occupying a seat on the high table, Raila took advantage of this political dalliance to increase his foreign trips.
Report indicated the State was catering for his travel, accommodation, out-of-pocket money. He also received per diems whenever he represented President Uhuru in some international assignments.
The most famous trip is the one when the duo travelled to China. They reportedly came back empty handed after the Asian nation declined to renew the contract for the construction of Standard Guage Railway (SGR) from Naivasha to Busia.
For President Ruto, the story is different. I have never heard him flying out and returning back empty handed.
This is point that the deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was putting across when he told the President. Continue to make these foreign trips. Kenya is reaping huge benefits from them.
Gachagua has lately been on a warpath with some of the mainstream media houses accusing them of peddling propaganda, distortions and misrepresentation of the government’s stand on matters of national importance.
The media is working at the behest of Azimio and the ultimate goal is to bring down the government of President Ruto, he further asserted.
With this, I hope the media house will not twist his remarks to hit back at him.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi
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