NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 11-Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has delivered a scathing assessment of President William Ruto’s first four years in office, accusing him of turning Kenya into an “imperial presidency” while declaring key government programmes such as the Hustler Fund failures.

📻 Breaking It Down

Gachagua said Ruto had abandoned constitutional democracy and the institutional reforms promised during the 2022 presidential campaign, instead centralizing power and presiding over what he described as lawlessness, economic hardship, and institutional capture.

“It is not about personalities; it is about evaluating promises with performance, commitments with delivery, and expectations with outcomes,” Gachagua said while presenting his accountability statement and performance audit of the Ruto administration.

He accused Ruto of making a “complete 360-degree about-turn” from his campaign commitment to build a secure, just and democratic Kenya.

📌 What You Need to Know

Gachagua said Ruto had instead created an “imperial presidency, economic apartheid” and was ruling as a “ruthless dictator.”

The former Deputy President said his assessment was based on what he described as the gap between the Kenya Kwanza administration’s campaign promises and its record in government.

Gachagua singled out the Hustler Fund, one of the flagship economic programmes introduced by the Ruto administration, arguing that it had failed to transform the lives of ordinary Kenyans.

The former Deputy President questioned the programme’s effectiveness, which he said had reportedly disbursed billions of shillings to millions of Kenyans.

“I am yet to hear of any one Kenyan saying that they have expanded their business courtesy of the Hustler Fund,” Gachagua said.

He argued that the small amounts disbursed to individual borrowers were inadequate to establish or expand sustainable businesses.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya