Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday, October 26, was forced to take a step back on his stance on church contributions when he attended an event at Gekano Catholic Parish Grounds, Kitutu Masaba Constituency, Nyamira County.
At the fundraising event, DP Ruto announced that he and his entourage had handed their contributions in strict line with the recent recommendations by the Catholic Church concerning contributions by politicians.
"The same way we were given an order, we have given our contribution to the father, and we have given the amount that has been prescribed," he stated.
He also made clear that from the time onwards, he was going to maintain the threshold that had been given to him by the church.
On October 4, 2019, Catholic church leaders, speaking at the Catholic National Shrine in Subukia, Nakuru County, where they held their annual National Prayer Day, came up with stringent rules concerning contributions in churches.
The reason for the decision, they stated, was to curb the issue of politicians offering money whose sources were questionable, in effect tainting the names of the religious institutions.
One of the measures introduced was that donations made by politicians and well-wishers would only be made via banks or mobile money transfer.
The church leaders had also ruled that all the church bishops would be required to make a record of every donation made to their churches.
Their records are supposed to include all ongoing projects, with clergymen being tasked with documenting all work done by the church.
The bishops had also decided that well-wishers' with gifts of more than Ksh 50,000 would need to notify the church and ask permission and direction on how to go about it.
