Moses Kuria said cooking oil prices are much lower, Citizen TV went live from a supermarket and proved him wrong

Investment, Trade and Industry Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria on Wednesday night found himself with an egg on the face after he made an unsubstantiated claim on live TV, and was fact-checked only a few minutes later.

CS Kuria was part of a Cabinet team during a joint Royal Media Services production dubbed ‘The Big Conversation’ covering President William Ruto’s achievements and failures one year in office.

The matter started when Citizen TV news anchor Sam Gituku presented an approximate cost of cooking oil in the country as at September 13, 2023 being Ksh.340 per litre, down from Ksh.450 on the same date last year.

The CS however took issue with the figure, claiming that measures put in place by the Kenya Kwanza government had brought it down by a lot lower than the said projection.

“I wish your figures were factual. You pride yourselves that your TV is the most watched in the country, so don’t forget that somebody is watching you from a supermarket, so be careful,” he said.

“Cooking oil is much lower than what you project there, and Kenyans know that. You’ve said correctly that the price has come down, but it’s not even to the level you have said. It is by 50% since we came to government.”

When tasked by Gituku to present his own figure to rival the Ksh.340 he had presented, CS Kuria went ahead to claim he had it on good authority that the price of cooking oil was at least Ksh.100 lower than the decorated journalist's approximation.

“It is much lower than that, it’s in the region of Ksh.230 to Ksh.240…everyone can be entitled to their own opinions, but not everyone can be entitled to their own facts. Facts are universal,” he said.

Less than 20 minutes later, Citizen TV’s Eldoret-based reporter John Wanyama went live at a Naivas supermarket outlet in the North Rift town and showed some of the costs of the different varieties of cooking oil brands in store.

Some of the figures were lower than Gituku’s projection, others were higher, but none was anywhere near CS Kuria’s alleged authoritative figure.

The spot-check by Wanyama revealed that one brand was selling it’s one litre price of cooking oil at Ksh.355, another at Ksh.347, while the relatively cheaper ones were Ksh.307 and Ksh.325.

When confronted with these new figures, CS Kuria’s only defence was for the Citizen TV crew in Eldoret to “now go to Ruiru” and also check out the prices there because “we’re here for two hours, what’s the hurry for?”