Ruto rode to State House with a rosy manifesto but he has put it on ice

President William Ruto set out to disrupt the status quo, State capture and fight the ‘system’, but instead, he disrupted his own, ‘rosy’ manifesto. What he believed was his greatest asset — an outsider of the political establishment, but an avid student of the previous administrations — dragged him into a never-ending pursuit of attempting to erase the legacy of his predecessors.

Administrative watchdogs, human rights defenders and economists argue that if the system was bad, and if the same metrics were to be applied, Ruto’s is as bad squared.

His administration has favoured the elite, obstructed the rule of law, and stalled projects championed by previous administrations, costing taxpayers billions.

Being an outsider of the system as a presidential candidate, President Ruto managed to endear himself to the citizens, especially the common man — hustlers — and was able to find a narrative that captured their needs at that point.

Reversal of existing policies under Dr Ruto has been termed rushed and as ‘revenge policies’.

“Looking at how the improvements were done, it could be true that it was a revenge mission,” economist Patrick Muinde said, “he was part of those administrations for 30 years. So while he was an outsider to the elites who have ruled the country since independence, he cannot truly be an outsider.

“What he found was a language to dissociate himself from those elites and connect with the masses,” Muinde said.

“I think the easiest way to summarise President Ruto is that President Ruto the candidate and the President are two worlds apart,” Muinde said.

The President has been accused of being too controlling, “his disruptions are quite interesting, because they come from him as a person”.

“He wants to be everywhere. But the tragedy is, everywhere he’s been involved, we have seen scandals later,” the economist said.

The Auditor General, has in many cases raised serious questions about accountability on his program mes, putting him against the populace. And as the President, he has no leeway to disentangle from those issues.

And as citizens lose faith in him as a leader, Ruto has mutated into very costly ventures, like his much criticised empowerment programmes.

Experts say Ruto has resorted to buying loyalty, a big test for him, moving towards the next elections.

“It might be a very expensive campaign for him, because it would be very unlikely to mobilise people without those coupons that they have been used to,” economic expert, Muinde.

At the tail end of former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s term, there was a lot of public anger against the Uhuru government, as people felt, it did not speak to their basic good; and there was a lot of push for infrastructure.

Ruto capitalised on the newfound anger against Uhuru’s administration, politics around hunger and fuel subsidy, founding his niche.

In his campaign and manifesto, he promised a government for mama mboga and hustlers under his bottom-up economic transformation agenda, but once elected, experts say, he disconnected from that.

Economist Muinde says given the track record of his billionaire advisors and cabinet secretaries, Ruto’s is an elitist government.

“If we track his immediate policies and the programmes that he has done in the last three years, we can see how he went back to the very things he fought,” Muinde.

At the point when Ruto was being sworn in, the country was in a period of famine and hunger. About 10 counties had been declared as facing famine, and another 16 had been assessed as at high risk.

Before taking office, the interventions on famine and hunger in the country had changed. The policy changed from food stamps to cash transfers to vulnerable households, the economist reckons that, “the first thing he did was to reverse that, and he went back to food stamps”.

The President immediately removed the fuel subsidy, which he later brought back. The President also tried to change the university funding model.

The Hustler Fund was at the heart of the Kenya Kwanza manifesto, but Mauthis too, is argued to be a failed project.

“Experts and economists view Hustler Fund as good politics, but bad economics,” Muinde attributed this to the lack of impact and scalability of the model.

Today, the majority of people borrow from the hustler fund to buy food and respond to their needs, and not to do business.

The Auditor General has reported that two-thirds of the Hustler Fund is not being repaid, becoming non-performing loans. And in the current budget, 2025/26, the Hustler Fund has been defunded.

Maize flour is a cost-of-living barometer used in public discourse; this has been big politics for Ruto.

And while Ruto claims that flour prices have stabilised under his administration, experts attribute the price drop to good rains.

“It is still debatable as to whether it is because of government policy or good weather. It is largely the Act of nature,” said Muinde.

Recently, the weatherman has projected that there is a possibility of the failure of short rains in parts of the country- this will serve as the first test for Ruto’s administration.

Uhuru’s legacy was built on big built projects like infrastructure; in a bid to erase the achievements, Ruto, defunded Uhuru’s projects.

“There has not been any signature project that President Ruto started in the last three years,” Muinde said adding that the cost of stalling Uhuru administration’s affordable housing is double fold.

This has accrued upwards of billions in penalties and fines from contractor claims.

The Sh180 billion Rironi-Mau Summit road was cancelled, costing taxpayers Sh6.2 billion in contract cancellation fees paid to the French firm Vinci.  This amount could be used to fund subsidised secondary education, facilitating millions of learners today.

“It appears as a deliberate business where you negotiate very bad contracts, cancel them, you cash out, move to another one,” he criticised.

Under Ruto, experts say that a lot of money is lost through penalties and fines and poorly executed contracts, as well as budgeted corruption.

He says the President talks too much about the legacy, but it is not what he says. “Legacy is what communities and households feel.’’

Today, people are losing their jobs, businesses are going under, disposable income is down, schools are in shambles, universities in chaos, and the taxes are not doing what they are supposed to.

Given this, Ruto has been advised to go back to the drawing board.

“Being too controlling and touching everywhere, he presumes is the biggest asset, but is his biggest weakness, entangling his legacy, as too much talk, less impact where it matters the most,’’ said Muinde.

In his manifesto, the President promised to handle the issues of debt by not borrowing, he would not increase taxes and will ensure that the rich and dynasties are not the ones ruling the country.

He promises police will work independently and corruption cases will be pursued objectively. He assured independence of the Judiciary and enhanced funding to counties.

Ruto, in his quest to endear himself to the people, assured that he would hold his predecessors accountable, and would be guided by the rule of law alone, and follow the constitution to the latter.

He also pledged that children would not be killed and that abductions would be a thing of the past.

Since the eruption of protests in 2024, Kenya has seen significantly higher per year killings of protestors.

At the start of July 2025, Ruto instructed police officers to shoot protesters who vandalise businesses on the leg to incapacitate them, just days after more than 30 people were killed in a nationwide anti-government demonstration.

“Anyone who goes to burn other people’s property, someone like that should be shot in the leg, and go to the hospital on his way to court,” he said in a speech.

The pronouncement came barely days after the Interior cabinet secretary Kipchumba Murkomen sparked fury with his shoot to kill order, on June 26, 2025.

The Institute for Social Accountability Executive Director Diana Gichengo said that there is no independence of the police service.

She accused that the President of interfering with parliament’s mandate.

“He couldn’t even let Parliament do their own work and reject the Finance Bill, 2024. He had to call them to State House, reject it on their behalf,” she said.

She blamed that money laundering is not countered in the right way due to executive overreach.

“By the time somebody imagines they are stronger than the Constitution, that is beyond an autocrat,” she said.

While the fertiliser subsidy is a true subsidy, it is operated by the central government instead of county governments, though agriculture is a devolved function. This, raises questions about the separation of powers.

Gichengo says that under this administration, the hunger index has gone up, and 38 per cent of Kenyans are likely to go hungry.

The promise of creating 200,000 jobs under the affordable housing project is now a ghost dream.

“Because of how corrupt that process has been, he has not managed to even do 50,000 jobs,” she said.

According to Ms. Gichengo, what the president anticipated as disruption is a complete disconnect from the established rules of development, economics and logic.

“He has become that same thing he set out to fight squared. He has magnified everything,” Gichengo.

“He has done everything that he had purported to want to clean up, and compound it”.

The comptroller of the budget report shows that the statehouse catering fee is Sh3.5 million per day. This is a government that was meant to be mama mboga centered.

In a year, the office of the President, Senate and National Assembly uses Sh25 billion for travel- this could well facilitate over 1 million children in capitation.

Data by the Central Bank of Kenya shows that Kenya’s debt stands at Sh12.1 trillion. In the 3 years to 2025, the country has borrowed in excess of Sh3.5 trillion. This is 3 times the Sh1.2 trillion the late former president Mwai Kibaki borrowed throughout his entire tenure.

Kiharu member of parliament Ndindi Nyoro has cautioned leaders in the executive against selling a false positive narrative, at a time Kenya’s economy is on its knees.

“Through securitisation, Kenya’s economy is borrowing Sh100 billion every month, and Sh3.4 billion every day,” Nyoro said that Kenya has become reckless in borrowing, as governments focus on reelection, forgetting to lead.

He warned that the country doesn’t need to borrow that much, as previous presidents like Kibaki did heavy infrastructure development without borrowing that much.

Even with this, existing records show the president appears to be content with his leadership, and transformation agenda.

“I have combined all my predecessors. I have the Courage of Jomo, the education of Kibaki and the understanding of Moi, and I have the plan we shared with Uhuru Kenyatta,” President William Ruto said at State House Nairobi, during a meeting with leaders from Tharaka Nithi county

“I have no excuse than to do everything that needs to be done in this nation”.

“but no sooner had he started that he disrupted his own, I would say, what he has done very well is disrupt his own manifesto,” Diana Gichengo, the executive director, The Institute for Social Accountability, TISA, and convener of Okoa Uchumi Campaign Coalition, said.