The president promised that the dollar crisis will soon end as his administration comes up with innovative mitigation measure to shore up the shilling as it faces pressure from a strong dollar.

Speaking during the listing of Laptrust Imara (REIT) at the Nairobi Security Exchange (NSE), the President directed that moving forward, oil brokers will not hoard dollars as the government will now be making purchases of oil using Kenyan shillings.

“As a Government, we have made innovative intentions and undertaken an innovative strategy to ensure that we ease the burden of the availability of Dollar in our market.

 

“We just concluded last week an arrangement in our fuel sector that will see Kenya access all our fuel needs in a deferred six-month credit. That will eliminate a demand of $500 million dollars every month from this market,” Dr Ruto said

The president further called out some traders who were hoarding dollars and thus creating an artificial shortage of the currency thus making its exchange rate against the shilling very high.

“Therefore, for the people who work numbers, I am giving you free advice that those who are hoarding dollars, you might shortly go into losses. You better do what you must do because this market is going to be different in a couple of weeks,” he warned.

 

“We have been having conversations with the Central Bank to reinstate the inter-bank exchange market that has since not worked and I am happy that the players in that sector are working with CBK so that we can again take charge of our market,” the President added.

 

This comes just days after the government sealed a deal with Gulf states in which we shall be paying for the oil on credit basis every six months. Thus, the president hopes to remove the pressure on the shilling by reducing demand for the dollar.