Kioni lashes at gov’t for making Kenya visa-free

Jubilee party leaders in the Mt Kenya region have trashed President William Ruto's move to make the country visa-free next year.

Addressing a press conference in Nyeri, the leaders led by the party Secretary-General Jeremiah Kioni said that making the country visa-free will aggrieve the country's fragile security which foreigners and terrorist groups occasionally breach.

Salt to injury

"As a party, we do not support this move as we already have security problems in Lamu and the northern part of this nation. We feel that opening the borders is equivalent to adding salt to the injury," Kioni said.

Kioni said that visa requirement for any foreigner is paramount since one is scrutinized before being awarded the documents. As such they cannot pose a security risk to the host nation.

On the reduction of petrol, Kioni said that the move by the Kenya Kwanza administration is hoodwinking Kenyans since the reduction ought to be by not less than 50 shillings going by the fall of oil prices in the international market.

Hoodwinking Kenyans

"Kenya kwanza should stop hoodwinking Kenyans. The prices of petroleum products have fallen in the international market so they should have eased Kenyans' high cost of living by at least 50 shillings and that is when we would have appreciated them," he said.

Kioni said that the party is firmly in the Azimio coalition saying that they are yet to leave as speculated by some quarters.

"We know some people think we are out of Azimio going by the formation of lobby group "Kamwene." However this is not the case and we are firmly in Azimio, we will embark on grassroots mobilization soon since we are the strongest party in Mt Kenya region," Kioni concluded.