Ruto: My decisions may not be popular but I will make them

A confident President William Ruto reiterated that he will not cower from taking the unpopular leadership route to secure development for Kenyans.

Speaking during the 60^th Labour Day celebrations at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi on Thursday, President Ruto affirmed that his unpopular decisions have significantly propelled the nation to achieving exponential growth.

He maintained that since taking power in 2022, his leadership has managed to make Kenya the 6^th largest economy in Africa.

“I want to promise the people of Kenya that I will always make the right decision to make sure that Kenya makes progress because I owe it to Kenyans to make the right decisions,” Ruto stated.

“Sometimes they might not be popular but they are the right decisions that will change the destiny of our country. I am very confident in the future of our country.”

President Ruto added that he will not shift focus from working on bolstering the nation’s economy, even if it takes unwelcome leadership choices.

 “We want to build a strong, democratic, united, prosperous nation that all of us can live in and be proud of. And it’s going to be a product of the decisions that we make. We cannot be prosperous if we don’t make the right decisions,” he noted.

President Ruto’s administration has anchored its development model on the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).

It is anchored on five key pillars among them agriculture; micro, small, and medium enterprises; universal healthcare; affordable housing; and the digital and creative economy.

President Ruto said that the pillars are targeted to transform lives and livelihoods across Kenya.

He added that this will be made feasible by the 2025 Finance Bill, which he said “has been carefully crafted to stimulate economic growth, deliver efficiency, enhance competitiveness, and expand opportunity”.

The government has said that no new taxes will be introduced in the 2025 Finance Bill.

Treasury CS John Mbadi has intimated that the government is introducing measures that will give more relief to the taxpayer as it targets to reduce the current budget proposals by Ksh.130 billion from the original Ksh.4.3 trillion budget.

Speaking to Citizen TV, CS Mbadi said that the government has reduced the existing burden, including exempting tea and coffee packaging from tax, reducing the crypto tax rate from 3 per cent to 1.5 per cent, and exempting retirees' gratuity payments from tax. 

Similarly, changes have been made to the Income Tax Act, VAT Act, Excise Duty Act, and the Tax Procedures Act.