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  • 2017-05-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Fact-checking Kenya’s deputy president on maize imports, debt, electricity & police (en)
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  • This article is more than 5 years old In a Citizen TV interview on 16 May, Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto sought to defend the government’s record, ahead of an August election. We came to the people of Kenya with pledges, a list of promises we were going to do, today, we are armed with a scorecard and a performance record, said Ruto, whose Jubilee party is seeking a second term. Ruto listed what he said were gains in decentralising government, putting up infrastructure and reining in corruption. He also tried to allay concerns about rising public debt. We fact-checked some of the deputy president’s key claims. Cost of living Kenya has been riveted by a saga revolving around the speed it took to import a shipment of much-needed maize. On 4 May 2017, the Kenyan Revenue Authority published a notice allowing duty-free imports of maize. On 12 May, a ship docked with maize allegedly purchased from Mexico, leading to speculation that well-connected individuals had prior knowledge of the waiver. An acute drought has seen prices of milled maize rise 50% over the last year , catapulting the staple into a campaign issue. Some 2.7 million Kenyans are in need of food relief, leading the government to declare the drought a national disaster in February 2017 a n d opening doors for international support . Ruto’s position was that a duty waiver had already been announced last month and that the resulting window was enough for anybody to import maize into the country. In a 30 March budget speech to the national assembly, the minister in charge of the treasury Henry Rotich announced that he was suspending duty on maize imports in a bid to rein in prices. ...the importation of maize during the next 4 months will be duty-free. I expect, therefore to see a reduction of prices for these basic commodities which are enjoyed by the majority of our people, said Rotich. On 13 April he published a gazette notice allowing 22 companies to import more than 400,000 tonnes of yellow maize (strictly for animal feed) duty-free until 31 August 2017. The cabinet secretary also allowed any person to import white maize without paying duty until 31 July 2017. The first known import of such maize arrived at the port of Mombasa on 12 May 2017. One global freight operator gives a timeline of 4 weeks to transport a container of maize from Mexico’s busiest port of Lazaro Cardenas to Mombasa and shorter from South Africa, the other port of origin mentioned in the saga . Ruto is correct that the import duty waiver was issued a month ago and that this information has been in the public domain. (en)
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