William Ruto: I am not competing with Uhuru Kenyatta

Deputy President William Ruto during a political rally in Githunguri Town. [George Njunge, Standard]

Deputy President William Ruto now says that he is not competing with his boss President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Ruto said that together with the president, they have achieved so much under the Jubilee Party and therefore there is no competition between him and Uhuru.

“Naysayers imagine that I am in competition with President Uhuru Kenyatta and they are very far from the truth,” Ruto said in Githunguri, Kiambu County.

The deputy president insisted that his administration will set aside Sh50 billion shillings to help resuscitate the economy and particularly the small businesses.

”We are very serious in our bottom-up economic model, we must see to it that what we have been preaching about empowering small business will be actualized,” Ruto said

Ruto said that Kenyans are suffering from soft loans from online lenders and that his administration will emd this problem by injecting money in the informal sectors

The DP who spoke at Githunguri town took a swipe at Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga whom he accused of derailing the Big Four agenda laid down by the Jubilee administration.

Garissa Township MP Aden Duale, who had escorted the DP to Githunguri, said Kenya has surpassed the borrowing limit capped by Parliament at Sh9 trillion.

Duale added that borrowing should be stopped immediately as Kenya will plunge into economic woes.

He said Kenya risks becoming a slave of lender countries if the borrowing trend continues.

ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi said he joined Ruto to make a formidable force that will floor the Azimio team in the August polls.

He asked Uhuru to leave Kenyans in peace and not showing them his preferred candidate.

“Kenyans do not want any endorsement or a State project. We are capable of making our choice during the polls. The project that Uhuru is fronting is a project we know so well,” Mudavadi said.

“It is Raila Odinga whom we have tried to help since 2013 and we cannot push him anymore.”

He added that Kenyans do not want a president controlled remotely by certain powers.

“I ask my brother Uhuru to also drop Raila like a hot potato,” Mudavadi said.

Meanwhile, religious leaders in Trans Nzoia County have urged Uhuru and Ruto to help calm the rising political temperatures by burying the hatchet.

The leaders drawn from Islam, Christian and Hindu communities regretted that the exchange of insults among politicians and their supporters was a worrying trend.

Reverend Aggrey Olumola of National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) said that the public spat between Uhuru and Ruto is bad for the security of the country.

Addressing the press after a joint meeting, Rev Olumola read out a seven-point resolution they made on what the State ought to do to realise peace ahead of the August polls.

“We are deeply concerned with the fallout between the president and his deputy as it has caused tension among communities,” said Olumola.

He regretted that politicians exposed citizens to moral decay through their insults that also tend to cause division among people of different social status or ethnic backgrounds.

He challenged religious heads to do soul searching and help provide spiritual guidance and direction so that their followers can sift the right from the wrong and ignore inciting statements made by the political class.