In a Tweet, to which the Kenya Kwanza Alliance Statement on artificial fuel shortage and high cost of living is linked, Deputy President William Ruto termed Kenya’s fuel crisis as a manifestation of the vestiges of conflict of interest and state capture whose malignant growth in all sectors of the Kenyan economy, asphyxiates our beloved Republic.
In the weeks ending March and ushering in April of 2022, anyone would forgive Kenyans for feeling as the Egyptians did when Moses came to ask Pharaoh to free his people from slavery. For much of the years past, 2019, 2020, 2021 and now 2022, it has been plague after plague. Covid-19 pandemic was for us all; but we as Kenyans did nothing to deserve the locust infestation, drought hunger crisis, rising food costs or as in the past few days, an artificial fuel shortage which threatened to snuff the little fight left in us.
And to think that in 2017, Kenyans – or at least 50% thereabouts of those who voted in that year’s general election, just like the Egyptians in 13th century bce – Egyptians, courtesy of Kenya Kwanza Alliance nemesis-in-chief Raila Amolo Odinga had believed themselves to be on the road to Canaan.
In the backdrop of public hue and cry, the Afternoon of 4th April 2022 saw President Uhuru Kenyatta sign the Supplementary Appropriations Bill into law. The President’s signature unlocked a total Sh139,752,936,287 exchequer funds for use in drought-related interventions; security operations; election preparedness; fuel stabilization; and settlement of pending bills among other pressing public needs says Capital News.
Moments after, the President’s Deputy, flanked by among others Hon. Musalia Mudavadi – the Joshua to Odinga the Kenyan Moses of 2017 – addressed the nation to these concerns, the Kenyan plagues of 2019 to 2022. In a statement read by none less than the Deputy President William Samoei Ruto, Kenya Kwanza Alliance fingered state capture, greed and outright corruption as ills at the genesis of it all.
STATEMENT BY KENYA KWANZA ALLIANCE ON ARTIFICIAL FUEL SHORTAGE AND HIGH COST OF LIVING CRISIS
4th APRIL 2022
Situational Analysis
The Nation of Kenya is groaning. We are in collective anguish and economic distress. The devastating effects of this current economic crisis is now manifest in the artificial fuel shortage and sky rocketing prices of basic food items.
Millions of Kenyans are witnessing in bewildered agony as fuel pumps run dry and queues grow longer due to this artificial shortage which has already disrupted the transport sector.
Kenyans are now forced to dig deeper into their pockets for bus-fare and boda-boda operators are being driven out of business. The skyrocketing prices of food items have pushed the cost of living beyond the reach of millions of Kenyans. Many farmers have failed to plant because the price of fertilizer has moved from Kshs 3,000 to a high of Kshs 7,000 per 50kg bag, a price that is beyond the reach of most farmers during this planting season. It thus means that this year’s harvest will be dismal, further compounding the problem of food security in the country.
Cooking gas that was retailing at Kshs 2,300 in February, is now sold at Kshs 3,350. The price of 10 liters cooking oil was Kshs 1,450, but now it is Kshs 3,100 and as already stated, fuel shot up from Kshs 135 per liter of petrol to between Kshs 150-205.
Hospitals that rely on fuel to maintain life support equipment are equally in a crisis. The government of Kenya knows that millions of households cannot cope with these prices. The largest casualties of this crisis are the vulnerable.
In the midst of the people’s loud cries of agony, the silence of all concerned government ministries is deafening and their inaction is snowballing into a national catastrophe.
Issues to address
Kenyans are calling on the national treasury and the ministries of energy, petroleum and agriculture to address the following issues.
- Noting that there exists a consumer protection mechanism to cushion Kenyans from adverse fluctuations in fuel prices. This mechanism is financed by the taxpayer at the pump through the fuel levy. Where is the 39 billion shillings Petroleum Development Fund meant for the fuel subsidy program?
- The auditor general has already raised queries on the irregular and illegal diversion of this consumer protection funds to state agencies and unnamed private entities. She also decried abuses on the petroleum import systems in favor of some preferred and politically connected oil marketers deliberately depriving Kenyans of the subsidy mechanism.
- Can the treasury also confirm or deny that the diversion of funds has been used in debt servicing and infrastructure development without the approval of National Assembly?
- Can the ministry list the import quotas that have been allocated to oil marketers over the last one year, by name?
- The Petroleum Products (Taxes and Levies (Amendment) Bill, 2021) whose passage has been frustrated should be processed in parliament as a matter of national emergency.
- Why hasn’t there been any fertilizer subsidy allocation in the budget in the last 3 years including in last week’s supplementary estimates where our MP’s attempts to allocate money for subsidy were frustrated? Only for the ministry of agriculture to engage in the current PR stunts late in the day to pretend to provide subsidized fertilizer. This is not only ridiculous but absurd. How do you make a farmer who needs 1000 bags queue for hours to only get 10 bags in a widely publicized LAUNCH?
The high fuel prices are unprecedented and are not due to ordinary market responses to global crude oil price dynamics. Our problem is cruder, and more local. This is the result of collusion between monopolistic cartels and economic saboteurs on one hand and oblivious, reckless, insensitive and incompetent public officials on the other. Insatiable greed and corruption is driving us over the cliff.
The current state of affairs is a clear manifestation of the vestiges of conflict of interest and state capture that is now pervasive in all sectors of our economy. Kenyans want an end to this issue of conflict of interest and state capture.
The casual and insensitive attitude to the plight of tens of millions of struggling Kenyans is a disturbing development that has emboldened cartels which have taken over critical economic sectors and are now moving in top gear to capture the state. That is why the benefits, advantages, powers, privileges and other interests of these barons and cartels take priority over the plight of 50 million Kenyans.
This is why, in the midst of this distressing crisis, the loudest messages from public officials including ministers are centered around, BBI Reggae and Azimio jingle bells and whistles. This tone-deafness, greed and callous indifference must stop. We therefore call on the National Treasury to account for the all diversions of funds out of the Petroleum Development Fund, and to restore the fuel subsidy mechanism forthwith.
The Treasury must rise to its constitutional accountability and live up to the Public Finance Management Act. Failure to do the right thing will convert the National Treasury into a cog in state capture and corruption that will destroy our country.
We demand that public officials responsible listen to the agonized cries of millions of suffering Kenyans and abandon their exclusive and destructive subservience to cartels and the barons of state capture and do something about the rapidly deepening economic crisis.