Ruto open to Russian fuel as the West shun away engagement
Ruto open to Russian fuel as the West including the US shuns away engagement following the invasion of Ukraine.
President William Ruto has disclosed that he is open to buying Russian fuel if it is an option for Kenya.
This occurs at a time when a number of countries, including the United States, are avoiding interactions with Russia as a result of that country’s invasion of Ukraine.
President Ruto hinted in an interview with BBC that he would be looking at all possibilities in an effort to rein in the increasing fuel prices that have caused Kenyans to dig deeper into their wallets after the fuel subsidy was eliminated.
“All options are available to us as a country. East Africa would be a good option but Kenya is what we are going to be focusing on,” he said.
Ruto further noted that he intends to align with the market forces to rekindle fuel prices to affordable fuel prices, through bilateral ties.
“The strategy we have is to ensure that we work with the market forces on how we can have a government-to-government relationship that will get us fuel at probably Ksh 20 to Ksh 25 percent cheaper than in the market,” he said.
President Ruto highlighted that despite the high fuel prices brought on by the termination of the subsidy, he had taken advantage of the loopholes that allowed for corruption.
He defended the choice by pointing out that they were able to rescue resources that will be used for the country’s extensive development.
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“Those are the interventions I am looking at but I had to remove the subsidies because they were a huge drain on resources that would be used for the development of the country and yet the prices were not coming down and it was generally distorting prices of fuel in the country and creating unnecessary shortages,” he said.
“We now have gotten rid of shortages, we haven’t gotten rid of the high prices but we have done two things, we have saved money that was going down the drain with cartels in the subsidy program and we have eliminated shortages and I am now moving to the agenda of making sure that we have government-government relationships that will progressively begin the journey to bring the prices of fuel down.”
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