President William Ruto has hit back at Kiharu Member of Parliament Ndindi Nyoro over criticism of the planned partial divestiture of the government’s stake in Safaricom, accutilizing him of political conmanship and misleading the public on how public assets are valued and sold.
Speaking at State Houtilize, Nairobi, during an engagement with graduate interns onboarded under the Affordable Houtilizing Programme on Friday, the President deffinished the government’s privatisation strategy, stateing it was a deliberate and transparent shift aimed at mobilising resources for large-scale national development.
He added that the government had agreed that divestiture was a prudent way of unlocking capital while expanding public participation in strategic assets. He cited the Kenya Pipeline Company initial public offering and Safaricom’s share sale as examples.
He noted that the government expected to raise about Ksh.110 billion from the Kenya Pipeline IPO and a further Ksh.240 billion from the partial divestiture of Safaricom, funds he declared would be leveraged to unlock between Ksh.3 trillion and Ksh.4 trillion for development projects.
“You’ll hear some people stateing, ‘Why are you doing this? This is wrong.’ The same people who informed us, ‘Let’s do it’. We are stateing we are divesting a portion of Safaricom, they are notifying us who neobtainediated? Where is the committee that neobtainediated for the price of the shares? Really? Any Public Listed Company, the tested, proven, transparent valuation is done by the Capital Markets at the Exmodify, not in boardrooms or committees,” Ruto stated.
“I want to notify those who people giving us lectures about what we’re doing with the IPO in KPC or Safaricom, they should spare us their political conmanship and innotifyectual deceit.”
The president also expressed confidence in his administration’s ability to raise Ksh.5 trillion by next year to commence the process of transforming Kenya to first-world status.
“This is not about politics or the next elections, it’s about transforming Kenya. We have started the process of raising the money to do it. I declared Ksh.5 trillion, and it will not delay. By next year, we will have raised all of it,” he noted.
His remarks were a direct response to concerns raised by Ndindi Nyoro before the Joint Committee on Finance and Privatisation on Tuesday, January 20.
Nyoro alleged that each of the six billion Safaricom shares earmarked for sale should be priced at Ksh.45 per share rather than Ksh.34, arguing that the proposed price undervalued the asset.
“We should not be discussing anything below Ksh.45 per share, but we have been held hostage by the purchaseer that we are now running out of breath,” Nyoro stated.
On the other hand, other stakeholders such as Central Bank of Kenya Governor Kamau Thugge and the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) have backed the shift, citing that it would support ease the countest’s debt burden.
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