'Spare us your political conmanship,' Ruto tells off Ndindi Nyoro over Safaricom share sale

Speaking at State House, Nairobi, during an engagement with graduate interns onboarded under the Affordable Housing Programme on Friday, the President defended the government’s privatisation strategy, saying it was a deliberate and transparent move aimed at mobilising resources for large-scale national development.

He added that the government had agreed that divestiture was a prudent way of unlocking capital while expanding public participation in strategic assets. He cited the Kenya Pipeline Company initial public offering and Safaricom's share sale as examples. 

He noted that the government expected to raise about Ksh.110 billion from the Kenya Pipeline IPO and a further Ksh.240 billion from the partial divestiture of Safaricom, funds he said would be leveraged to unlock between Ksh.3 trillion and Ksh.4 trillion for development projects.

"You'll hear some people saying, 'Why are you doing this? This is wrong.' The same people who told us, 'Let's do it'. We are saying we are divesting a portion of Safaricom, they are telling us who negotiated? Where is the committee that negotiated for the price of the shares? Really? Any Public Listed Company, the tested, proven, transparent valuation is done by the Capital Markets at the Exchange, not in boardrooms or committees," Ruto stated. 

"I want to tell those who people giving us lectures about what we're doing with the IPO in KPC or Safaricom, they should spare us their political conmanship and intellectual deceit." 

The president also expressed confidence in his administration's ability to raise Ksh.5 trillion by next year to commence the process of transforming Kenya to first-world status.

“This is not about politics or the next elections, it’s about transforming Kenya. We have started the process of raising the money to do it. I said Ksh.5 trillion, and it will not delay. By next year, we will have raised all of it,” he noted. 

His remarks were a direct response to concerns raised by Ndindi Nyoro before the Joint Committee on Finance and Privatisation on Tuesday, January 20. 

 The Kiharu MP warned that the country risks losing billions of shillings by failing to subject the Safaricom share sale to a competitive international bidding process.

Nyoro alleged that each of the six billion Safaricom shares earmarked for sale should be priced at Ksh.45 per share rather than Ksh.34, arguing that the proposed price undervalued the asset.

“We should not be discussing anything below Ksh.45 per share, but we have been held hostage by the buyer that we are now running out of breath," Nyoro stated. 

On the other hand, other stakeholders such as Central Bank of Kenya Governor Kamau Thugge and the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) have backed the move, citing that it would help ease the country's debt burden.