Former Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Justin Muturi, has made shocking claims that President William Ruto tried to force him into signing a questionable Ksh129 billion deal with Russian investors while he was still at the airport.
According to Muturi, the deal, valued at $1 billion (equivalent to Ksh129 billion), was meant to fund the planting of three billion trees as part of the government’s larger initiative to plant 15 billion trees.
However, he alleges that Ruto pressured him to approve the agreement immediately, without giving him a chance to go through the details.
Muturi explained that the incident happened in December 2023, during the COP28 Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
After attending a state visit, he flew directly to Dubai for the summit. While still at the airport, he received an urgent phone call from the president.
“I had just landed in Dubai when Ruto called me. He told me that the Russian investors were already in Dubai, waiting for me to sign the document. He insisted that my staff had already worked on it and all I needed to do was sign,” Muturi recalled.
Despite the pressure, the former Attorney General stood his ground, refusing to sign the deal. He maintained that he could not approve such a significant financial agreement without carefully reviewing it in his office.
“The document claimed to offer a $1 billion grant (Ksh129 billion) for growing three billion trees as part of the government’s 15 billion tree-planting target,” Muturi stated.
Muturi further revealed that President Ruto attempted to sidestep legal financial procedures by bypassing the mandatory involvement of the National Treasury in handling the funds.
“I told them that $1 billion could only be accepted as a grant, but it cannot go directly to the Ministry. According to the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act, Section 47, all such funds must pass through the National Treasury.
However, they were trying to avoid this requirement, even though the money was coming from abroad,” he disclosed.
President Ruto officially launched the 15 Billion Tree Planting Initiative in December 2022 as a nationwide strategy to tackle climate change and restore degraded land. The initiative aims to increase Kenya’s forest cover from 12% to 30% by 2032.
In his concluding remarks, Muturi expressed deep regret over Ruto’s leadership, describing his presidency as the worst thing that could have happened to Kenya.
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