President William Ruto has now attributed some of Kenya’s economic trouble to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict that has been ongoing since 2022 and the COVID 19 pandemic going back on his initial stance.

Speaking at a round table interview with Journalist from across the media realm including Cape Media Limited owned TV47 , the head of state indicated that the the when he took over power the pandemic and the war were a major contributors to the weakening of the Kenya Shillings against the Dollar.

“As you know, I came into office when there was a lot of fluid activity in the space, we had a serious situation caused by Covid, we had a big war in Europe, a huge drought caused by climate change, and all those factors combined to create a situation globally that increased the prices of commodities that we import, and demand for the dollar,” Said President Ruto.

William Ruto while still the Deputy President has dismissed his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta when he blamed the same problems on the two major factors in May 0f 2022.

Uhuru Kenyatta the president asked his Deputy and Politicians allied with him to stop pin pointing the blame on him for the dwindling economy.

“There is this war we don’t even understand that has caused fuel and food prices to go up in other countries and brought us other challenges… I, Uhuru Kenyatta, surely, am I in Ukraine? Was I in Wuhan when Covid came?”

However, yesterday when asked about the free fall of the Kenyan shilling the president stated that there was an artificial dollar exchange rate where the former administration was using Kenya’s dollar reserves to protect the shilling from falling in the exchange rate.

“In Kenya, we were maintaining an artificial rate. We were maintaining it using our foreign exchange reserves. The Government of Kenya used 2.6 billion dollars in supporting the Kenyan shillings so that it does not go to the actual rate.” Stated President Ruto.

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He went on to state that the government to government oil deal he put in place has helped ease the pressure on the demand of the dollar.

The head of state also revealed that the United State increased the interest rate of the dollar that is why the KSH is trading a 150 shillings adding that without his intervention and the increased interest the exchange rate would be at KSH 250.