Moses Kuria Caught Lying On Live Citizen TV Interview [VIDEO]

Trade Cabinet Secretary (CS) Moses Kuria on Wednesday, September 13 struggled to defend his sentiments that the cost of cooking oil had gone down to close to Ksh240 a litre.

CS Kuria was part of a Cabinet team during a joint Royal Media Services production dubbed ‘The Big Conversation’ covering President William Ruto’s achievements and failures one year in office.

The interview, which brought together the likes of Citizen TV and Ramogi TV began when news anchor, Sam Gituku, revealed that the cost of cooking oil was approximated at Ksh340 per litre down from Ksh450 on that same date in 2022.

CS Kuria appeared to have made his first attempt to fact-check the journalist by revealing that President William Ruto's Kenya Kwanza government had brought down the prices a lot lower than what was projected by Gituku.

“I wish your figures were factual. You pride yourselves that your TV is the most watched in the country, so don’t forget that somebody is watching you from a supermarket, so be careful,” he argued.

“Cooking oil is much lower than what you project there, and Kenyans know that. You’ve said correctly that the price has come down, but it’s not even to the level you have said. It is by 50% since we came to government.”

Gituku then challenged the CS to explain his own figure to counter the Ksh340 he presented, with Kuria claiming with sheer boldness that the price of cooking oil was at least Ksh100 lower than the projections of the experienced data journalist.

“It is much lower than that, it’s in the region of Ksh230 to Ksh240…everyone can be entitled to their own opinions, but not everyone can be entitled to their own facts. Facts are universal,” he added.

Little did the Trade CS know that Citizen TV was preparing a real-time fact-checker just for him, with one of its reporters going live at a supermarket in the North Rift town and comparing some of the cooking oil brands that were on retail.

The Eldoret-based reporter, John Wanyama, showcased the various prices of the commodity; some lower than Gituku's projection, others higher, but none of them matched even closely to Kuria's authoriative figure.

For instance, one brand was selling it’s one litre price of cooking oil at Ksh355, another at Ksh347, while the relatively cheaper ones were going for Ksh307 and Ksh325.

Health CS, Susan Nakhumicha, sensing that her Trade counterpart was in trouble, cut Gituku short by highlighting the cheapest cooking oil brand, but even she was unable to stop Gituku from exposing Kuria for lying to millions of Kenyans watching at home.

When confronted by Gituku, Kuria's only defence was to implore the Citizen TV crew in Eldoret to “now go to Ruiru” and also check out the prices there because “we’re here for two hours, what’s the hurry for?”

Here is the video: