First Lady Rachael Ruto on Wednesday night hosted a thanksgiving service to commemorate a year since President William Ruto was sworn into office.
The First Lady hosted a raft of Kenya Kwanza leaders and other guests at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi “to give thanks for the blessings the Lord has bestowed on us in this first year of this administration.”
In a post shared on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Ms Ruto said; “The last year has been challenging, but God has watched over us. We are most grateful to the Most High God for what He has done; it is indeed marvellous in our eyes.”
She went ahead to share a Bible verse on gratitude and thanksgiving, writing “As a people, we choose to be counted with the one ‘leper’ that came back to Jesus to say thank you. (Luke 17:15) We are grateful to God!”
“To all the elected leaders, let us go back to the grassroots and serve the people of Kenya,” added the First Lady.
September 13 marked one year since President Ruto was sworn in as Kenya’s fifth president. His first anniversary has seen cries from Kenyans on the skyrocketing cost of living and increased taxation, among others.
Ruto narrowly won the August 2022 election on the promise of a “bottom-up” economic plan to put more in the pockets of who he calls “hustlers”; small traders, informal workers, and others living hand to mouth.
Yet his first year has seen him impose new taxes and borrowing has hit an all-time high.
Latest data from the Central Bank of Kenya shows that inflation fell to 6.7 per cent in August.
Even so, over the past year, prices of commodities have increased, like petrol which has gone up 22 per cent, electricity by nearly 50 per cent, and household staples like sugar and beans by 61 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
Pollsters have been scoring Ruto’s popularity poorly among Kenyans, with a recent survey by research firm Infotrak showing that 53 per cent of Kenyans think the country is headed in the wrong direction.
In the opinion poll conducted on September 10 and released on Tuesday, another 30 per cent think Kenya is on the right track while thirteen per cent of the respondents could not point out whether they thought the country was headed in the right or the wrong direction.
The major issues of concern Kenyans have with the state of the nation are the high cost of living, unemployment and affordable quality of education.
