Deputy President William Ruto has challenged his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta, to move with speed and urgently address the prolonged fuel shortage in the country.
Ruto, who was speaking at Ngong Race Course during the Kenya Kwanza coalition agreement signing, asked the President to save Kenyans from the crisis that is threatening to bring the country to a halt.
The Deputy President raised concerns on the fuel shortage, wondering why the Ksh34.4 billion approved by the President last week has not helped salvage the situation.
Taking a jab at the Jubilee regime, the DP stated that Kenya Kwanza will address such issues, but asked the President to give a solution in the meantime.
"The Kenya Kwanza government will sort out most of these things like unemployment and cost of living. But I request my friend, His Excellency the President, surely, we cannot wait for the next government for us to sort out the fuel crises," the DP stated.
"I respect Uhuru, but it is right to say that there is a crisis in Kenya. What is really going on with the petroleum development fund? The queues are getting longer, Kenyans deserve answers."
The Deputy President - who is known for his aggressive approach on issues - accused the Head of State of focusing on ensuring that Azimio La Umoja One Kenya presidential hopeful, Raila Odinga, wins the presidency at the expense of the common mwananchi.
He opined that Uhuru's efforts should be redirected to solving the problems Kenyans are facing at the moment.
"We appreciate that the whole government has been mobilized to run the Azimio project, but that cannot be at the expense of 50 million Kenyans. They (Kenyans) delegated those duties by Uhuru and he must up his game."
Ruto also weighed in on the recent directive by the Communications Authority Director General, Ezra Chiloba, that Kenyans should register their sim cards before the end of this week. The DP noted that as much as the exercise is important, it is not as urgent as the ongoing fuel crisis.
The DP added that the sim card registration exercise should be extended to save Kenyans from the long queues.
"Adding to the long queues even on a simple matter like sim card, we want to ask our people in the CA, please be human. It is not necessary for Kenyans to queue to get the sim cards registered. We have enough time, what is this magic about Friday?" wondered Ruto.
On Tuesday, April 12, the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) threatened to sanction oil marketers who will be found culpable of creating an artificial shortage. The regulatory authority threatened to slash the storage capacity of the said oil marketers for the next three months.
"EPRA has analysed the daily petroleum loadings over the past four weeks and noted that a number of OMCs have in the period under review given priority to export loadings while the local market was left to suffer intermittent supply," read the statement in part.
