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President William Ruto vowed to implement austerity measures in order to reduce government expenditure.

Speaking during a media roundtable on Sunday, June 30, 2024, President William Ruto that his administration is also keen to ensure unconstitutional offices are removed from the equation to save on government expenditure.

Ruto observed that going forward, the Office of the First Lady and that of the Second Lady would be frozen in new austerity measures.

“Offices such as that of the First Lady have existed before, but from tomorrow we are going to do away with that and other offices so that we can check our spending. On CASs, the court declared themselves on that and we have respected that. We are not going to appoint a CS until our economy can sustain that,” Ruto stated.

Ruto made his comment in response to demands raised by Gen Z on various social media platforms. However, Ruto insisted that his administration will take into account some of their concerns on government expenditure.

Rachel Ruto is majorly involved in faith diplomacy while Second Lady Dorcas Gachagua runs rehabilitation programme for the boychild and alcoholics.

At the same time, the President pledged to crack down on opulence and extravagance displayed by some state officers, particularly Cabinet Secretaries and MPs.

“I promise you, watch this space. Going forward you will see changes because we must do something about opulence and extravagance. We are going to take measures that will put us in the right place,” Ruto insisted.

MPs planning to do away with Harambees

While addressing the nation, President Ruto revealed that some MPs have approached him the plan to doing away with public harambees.

He noted that MPs are ready to drop harambees where they contribute millions to churches.

“We are actually going to do away with harambees, because when a junior state officers donates Ksh20 million in a harambee, there is something fundamentally wrong. That is wrong,” Ruto affirmed.