A lobby group has castigated President William Ruto’s administration on appetite of expenditure than addressing cost of living
According to analysis from governance experts and economists is that investors have shun away from investing on loss making Nairobi Stock Exchange
The Operation Linda Ugatuzi and Jamii has accused President William Ruto for overspending everything collected from Kenyans and excessive borrowings through luxurious travels and transport
In a statement sent to newsrooms on Wednesday 4th October, the lobby group advised Kenya Kwanza Administration to reduce the cost of transportation by two-thirds which is costing taxpayers a whopping Sh 1 trillion annually
The umbrella body for civil society has recommended that by doing so, Ruto’s administration would realize substantive savings totalling to Ksh 64 Billion
According to Prof Fred Ogola led team, the savings could build equivalent of 3 Nairobi Express Ways, Dual-Nairobi Mau summit and build an equivalent of Thika Super Highway
“We have a Cabinet where the Deputy President moves on 30 fuel guzzlers, the Prime Secretary moves on 15 guzzlers, the Attorney General moves on 10 , the 23 Ministers (added 2 who are at illegally at the Cabinet level) uses 7 guzzlers each, the 51 Permanent Secretaries uses 5 guzzlers each, the 10 Presidential economic council advisorz uses 5 guzzlers each. That gives us a total of 6134 guzzlers for the Cabinet,” They analysed
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Prof Ogola, whobus an expert on governance, stated that guzzlers are serviced with Sh300,000 per month per guzzler, thus costing taxpayer’s another whopping Ksh 23 billion to service those guzzlers per year
“We have also found out that these guzzlers swallow 150 litres per day at the rate of Sh 211 per litre. It costs the government in terms of fuel Sh 72, 363,294, 000 billion per year. Adding the cost of fuelling to the cost of service, not even adding the cost of repair and maintenance, the cost of keeping the Cabinet on move will be Sh 949, 136, 940,000,” The remarked
They argued that Kenya does not have a problem with revenues since the economy was better before the increased tax rate, arguably the problem is expenditure at rate higher than Kenya’s GDP
“President Ruto has not learnt that the simple economic imperative that money in the hands of the citizens especially the commoners is money for the government.
In that regard, instead of burdening our citizens with increased taxes, we suggest that the government should consider a reduction or reassess its expenditure, particularly in the one of transport,” He added
According to lobby group’s economic analysis and recommendations is that if the government could cut taxes down by 30 per cent, the price of petrol, unga and cooking oil will go dowm to Sh147, 105 and 196 respectively