President Ruto: Kenya Open to Buying Fuel from Russia

President Ruto has said his administration is ready to buy fuel from Russia if this is what it will take to tame the skyrocketing fuel prices.

This comes at a time when some countries, including the United States, avoid engagement with Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine

In an interview with BBC, Ruto said his government plans to align with the market forces, through bilateral ties, to rein in the rising fuel prices that have put a lot of pressure on Kenyans since the fuel subsidy was discontinued.

"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," said Ruto.

"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 Sh20 to Sh25 percent cheaper than in the market.”

The president further defended his decision to withdraw the fuel subsidy, saying it has sealed the loopholes providing leeway for graft and saved funds that will be channeled to the large-scale development of the nation.

"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."