President William Ruto has said that the greatest challenge in Kenya is that leaders are always afraid of telling the truth.

Speaking during the handing over ceremony of over 1,000 affordable houses in Mukuru in Nairobi County on Tuesday, May 19, 2025, Ruto said his critics will never tell the truth because they do not want to.

The head of state argued that shying away from the truth is what has derailed the country.

Ruto cited the affordable housing project as one of the things that require bold leaders who can make difficult decisions for the best of the country.

He stated that the construction of affordable housing projects is not an easy process, but eventually, they transform people’s lives and the country.

These homes are designed to cater to various income levels, which are social housing for those earning Ksh20,000 and below, affordable housing for those earning up to Ksh149,000 and upper-middle-income units for higher earners.

“Shida ya Kenya ni wale viongozi ambao hawawezi kusema ukweli, wanaogopa kusema ukweli, hawataki kusema ukweli kwa sababu kufanya mjengo kama huu si kazi rahisi (The problem in Kenya is those leaders who cannot tell the truth, are afraid to tell the truth, do not want to tell the truth because construction of a building like this is not an easy task). It requires a difficult decision to be made, and we have not had leaders with the courage to make difficult decisions that will lead to the transformation of our country,” Ruto asserted.

Affordable Housing contributions

He referred to instances where the state had to dig deeper into the pockets of Kenyans to fund the affordable and social housing project.

Kenyans have at least 1.5 per cent of their salaries deducted as a housing levy,‘Housing Levy deductions will include allowances’ – KRA with their employers matching with a similar amount.

The decision did not sit well with many Kenyans, but Ruto insists that bolder and more difficult decisions needed to be made to hit the milestones under the government’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), with Mukuru now home to the country’s largest affordable housing project.

Spanning 56 acres and comprising 13,248 housing units, the Mukuru project features a mix of bedsitters (5,616 units across 26 blocks), one-bedrooms (3,024 units in 14 blocks) and two-bedrooms (4,608 units across 48 blocks).

New Mukuru housing handover, Nairobi. https://t.co/D8IkvKSD2M

— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) May 20, 2025