CS Yatani On Claims Of Ksh93 Million Uhuru Left For Ruto

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani has been forced to clear the air on claims by the Kenya Kwanza coalition that former President Uhuru Kenyatta left Ksh93 million for President William Ruto.

Reports on the state of the Treasury's balances were fuelled by a section of MPs who alleged that Ruto had inherited an economically depleted country from Uhuru's administration.

"The economy is no longer in ICU But Death because H.E Ruto found only Ksh93.7 million at the treasury, Uhuru went home with everything. State Capture is real!

"The country is broke Kenyans be patient H.E Ruto shall fix this through economic transformation and prayers from all of us. Amen," Nandi Senator, Samson Cherargei, tweeted about it on Sunday, September 18.

President William Ruto holding up the ceremonial sword on September 13, 2022 at Kasarani Stadium. /WILLIAM RUTO

Speaking during Senators' induction on Thursday, September 22, CS Yatani however termed the allegations as based on "ignorance", adding that the government collects money everyday, which is distributed to government agencies often for the basis of payment of salaries among others.

"When we are in the public, we argue out of ignorance. After the elections, some leaders were saying that they did not find the coffers and that the treasury only had Ksh93 million. We do not know whether we should sympathise with the situation because there is a lot of ignorance about it.

"The government does not collect money, keeps it in a place for one month and then distributes it after a month or year," he stated.

He added that there were moments when the taxman (Kenya Revenue Authority- KRA) failed to hit its target revenue hence the challenges in the disbursements of money.

"We raise revenue on daily basis and we fund govt on daily basis. There are also competing needs in terms of salaries to be paid and money to be taken to the counties, parliament, judiciary, and settle debt among others.

"Sometimes the performance of the revenue can be challenging because we make projections on the money we can collect in a week and then we find that we have collected less," he stated.

Ruto's allies had alleged that the previous government left Ksh93 million as an opening balance for the month of September, and even provided documents from the National Treasury to ascertain their claims.

This was notably exposed in the public limelight when Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua called out the previous administration for bleeding the economy dry.

In front of VIPs and over 60,000 Kenyans at Kasarani Stadium on Tuesday, September 13, Gachagua confessed that the task to restore it to the Kibaki era style to tackle the cost of living would take two years.

"The truth of the matter is that we have inherited a dilapidated economy which almost facing shutdown. We have a huge task to liberate this country and bring it back to where Kibaki left it.

"We have talked to the Treasury, and the coffers are empty. We will have to start from scratch," he stated.

Rigathi Gachagua sworn in as Deputy President on September 13, 2022. /WILLIAM RUTO