President William Ruto has addressed claims made by Raila Odinga, leader of the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition, that the government-to-government (G-2 G) agreement between Kenya and the Middle Eastern nations was a sham.

Speaking on Friday, November 17, 2023, Ruto stated that the government was only involved in providing underwriting for oil imports into the nation.

“The purpose of government in that agreement is not so that we sell oil products. The only purpose of the government is to guarantee international oil companies that they can extend products to Kenya for six months and that after six months we are going to pay. we have kept our part of the bargain. We have made sure that they are paid their money by the oil marketing companies in Kenya,” Ruto said.

“We gave them the guarantee that dollars will be available for them. We have made sure that that is the case. The rest is private business. The international oil companies sell fuel directly to oil marketers in Kenya. The government of Kenya is not a broker. The entire process is private sector-led between international oil companies and our oil marketing companies in Kenya. Our business as government is to underwrite.”

This occurs one day after Raila asserted that there were no G-to-G (government-to-government) oil supply contracts between the Kenyan government and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Instead, Raila said in a statement released on Wednesday, November 16, 2023, that the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum inked an agreement with Middle Eastern state-owned petroleum companies that it described as a G-to-G.

According to Raila, the agreement fell short of its pledge to stabilize the value of the shilling versus the dollar and cut national fuel prices.

Ruto claimed that the previous government had artificially maintained a strong shilling by using Kenya’s foreign reserves, which was the reason behind the shilling’s depreciation against the US dollar.