NAIROBI, Kenya — As Kenya edges closer to the 2027 General Election, President William Ruto’s campaign promises are coming under renewed scrutiny, with questions over the commitments that have been fulfilled, those that remain unfinished and others whose targets have changed since he took office.
The debate goes to the heart of electoral accountability: how should voters judge a President who campaigned on lowering the cost of living, creating jobs, expanding affordable housing and improving access to education, but whose administration is still defending its record on several of those fronts?
Ruto won the Presidency in August 2022 on the Kenya Kwanza platform, presenting himself as the champion of ordinary Kenyans, particularly young people, small traders, farmers and workers struggling with the cost of living. His campaign promised an economic transformation that would put the interests of the “hustler” at the centre of government policy.
Nearly four years later, the central question is no longer what the President promised. It is what the available evidence shows he has delivered, what has fallen short and whether the government has been sufficiently transparent about the difference.
An assessment by Mzalendo Trust’s Promise Tracker provides one measure of the gap. As of August 30, 2026, the independent civic-accountability platform was tracking 254 Kenya Kwanza manifesto commitments. It classified 25 as completed, 41 as broken, 150 as ongoing, 19 as not started, 15 as stalled and four as modified.
The classifications are the tracker’s own evidence-based assessments, not official government determinations. Nevertheless, they provide a framework for examining the administration’s record as the next election approaches.
The government, meanwhile, maintains that it has made progress on key economic and social commitments. Its January 2026 delivery scorecard reports lower inflation, cheaper subsidised fertiliser, an increase in housing activity and expansion in health coverage and employment programmes.
The competing assessments underline why a proper audit must examine individual promises, their original deadlines and the evidence used to declare them fulfilled.
The cost-of-living promise
Few issues featured more prominently in Ruto’s 2022 campaign than the cost of living.
The President promised to ease the pressure on households through lower food prices, cheaper fuel and affordable cooking gas. The pledges resonated with Kenyans facing high prices for basic commodities and declining purchasing power.
One of the most memorable commitments concerned cooking gas. In March 2023, Ruto announced plans to bring the price of a 6kg LPG cylinder down to between KSh300 and KSh500 by June that year.
The target was not achieved as originally presented. In May 2023, Ruto acknowledged that the ambition was over-optimistic and clarified that the proposed price reduction concerned the purchase of the cylinder itself, rather than the cost of refilling it with gas.
The distinction matters because the price of a cylinder and the recurring cost of cooking fuel are different expenses for households. A cheaper container does not necessarily make regular refills affordable.
The infrastructure intended to support lower LPG prices has also faced delays. A report published by The Standard in October 2026 said a KSh4.6 billion LPG storage facility expected to help lower costs had been delayed until 2028, beyond the current presidential term.
Fuel taxation presents another complicated test of the President’s promises. During the 2022 presidential debate, Ruto argued that taxes accounted for a substantial proportion of pump prices and pledged to review them, including VAT on fuel.
His administration subsequently reduced VAT on petroleum products from 16 per cent to 8 per cent in 2026 in response to pressure over fuel costs. That was a policy change, but it did not eliminate all fuel taxes and levies.
The record is therefore more complicated than saying nothing has been done. Some measures have been introduced, but the original expectation of substantial and lasting relief remains a legitimate subject of scrutiny.
The government also points to lower maize flour prices and subsidised fertiliser as evidence of progress. Its delivery scorecard says the price of a 2kg packet of maize flour fell from KSh250 in 2022 to KSh165, while a 50kg bag of subsidised fertiliser fell from KSh7,000 to KSh2,500.
Those figures should be assessed alongside household spending, market prices and the effect of other expenses. A reduction in one commodity does not automatically mean that the overall cost of living has fallen for every household.
In its July 2026 review, The Standard reported continued pressure from food, transport and household energy costs. That broader picture illustrates the difference between delivering a specific price intervention and fulfilling the wider promise to make everyday life more affordable.
Affordable housing and the jobs question
Affordable housing was another flagship commitment of Ruto’s campaign.
The President initially promised to construct 250,000 housing units annually, a target subsequently revised to 200,000 units a year, with the administration aiming to deliver one million homes by 2027.
The programme has become one of the administration’s most visible initiatives. The government says it has expanded construction activity and generated employment for artisans, suppliers, construction workers and other participants in the building sector.
But the number of homes launched or under construction is not the same as the number completed and handed over to eligible households. The distinction is essential when measuring progress against a promise to deliver affordable homes.
Questions have also emerged over the programme’s employment claims.
In a fact-check published in June 2025, Africa Check examined the President’s claim that the affordable housing programme had created more than 250,000 jobs. It found the claim was not supported by the available employment data.
According to the fact-check, Kenya’s official statistics showed that the construction sector added 41,200 jobs between 2022 and 2024. That figure measures the net change in sector-wide employment, however, and is not necessarily directly comparable with a government estimate that includes indirect or temporary jobs attributed to a particular programme.
The discrepancy makes transparent reporting especially important. The government needs to explain how it counts direct and indirect jobs, how long those jobs last and how it separates employment created by housing projects from changes in the wider construction industry.
The issue is not whether the housing programme has produced activity. It is whether the scale of its achievements matches the claims made in its name, and whether the homes being delivered are affordable to the people the initiative was designed to help.
For a household struggling with rent, a headline figure showing thousands of homes under construction is less meaningful than knowing how many units have been completed, what they cost and whether the household can qualify to buy one.
The promise to employ more teachers
Education offers another measurable test of the administration’s campaign commitments.
Ruto’s manifesto promised to recruit 116,000 teachers within his first two years in office to address staffing shortages in public schools.
The administration has recruited teachers, including both permanent employees and interns. In December 2024, the Teachers Service Commission reported that 76,000 teachers had been recruited under the government’s programme.
That was substantial progress, but it fell short of the original 116,000 target at the time the two-year deadline arrived.
The government subsequently announced further recruitment. In October 2024, the President said an additional 20,000 teachers would be recruited, while 46,000 interns who had served for two years would be employed on permanent and pensionable terms.
These measures demonstrate that recruitment has continued. They do not erase the question of whether the original target was met within the promised timeframe.
The quality of implementation also matters. Teacher numbers alone do not resolve shortages in particular schools, uneven deployment, classroom congestion or the costs associated with expanding enrolment.
A credible assessment should therefore examine not only the total number of teachers hired but also how many are on permanent terms, where they are deployed and whether staffing levels have improved in the schools facing the greatest shortages.
The lesson is broader than education: when a government announces progress after missing an original deadline, it should state clearly what has been achieved, what remains outstanding and when the remainder will be delivered.
Promises to women remain unfinished
Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza Women Charter included commitments on healthcare, school feeding, sanitary towels, support for mothers and gender representation in government.
In August 2026, Daily Nation examined the President’s claim that only two promises in the charter remained outstanding. Its review found that several commitments were still unfinished.
One was the promise to reserve 50 per cent of Cabinet positions for women. The report found that women continued to occupy a substantially smaller proportion of Cabinet positions than the pledged share.
Another commitment was the provision of free diapers for newborns during their first three months. The President acknowledged that the promise had not been fulfilled and said the government was working to incorporate the benefit into an expanded maternal healthcare package.
The charter also included commitments on sanitary towels for schoolgirls, school feeding, support for teenage mothers returning to school and assistance for women pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Some of these programmes have seen implementation or expansion, but the extent of delivery varies. School feeding, for example, has reached more learners, while sanitary-towel distribution has faced funding and procurement challenges.
This is a useful example of why broad claims about fulfilling a manifesto need to be tested pledge by pledge. Progress in one area cannot automatically be used to declare an entire charter fulfilled when other specific commitments remain outstanding.
Food security, dams and the distance between pledges and delivery
Ruto’s promises on food security also require examination against measurable outcomes.
His administration introduced subsidised fertiliser and has reported improvements in some agricultural indicators. The government’s delivery scorecard says fertiliser subsidies have helped reduce input costs and points to growth in some crop and livestock production figures.
However, agricultural performance varies by crop, region, rainfall and season. A claim that one intervention has increased national food production by a particular percentage needs to be supported by crop-specific data rather than inferred from fertiliser distribution alone.
Africa Check’s assessment of the President’s 1,000-day scorecard in June 2025 found that the claim that fertiliser subsidies had increased food production by 50 per cent was not supported by the available national statistics. Some crops recorded significant gains, while others declined.
Water infrastructure presents a different problem: delays in projects that take years to plan and construct.
Ruto has repeatedly emphasised dams and irrigation as part of his strategy to reduce dependence on rain-fed agriculture and improve food security. Yet in July 2025, Water Cabinet Secretary Eric Mugaa told the Senate that no large-scale dam had been completed under the programme being discussed, according to The Standard.
Large infrastructure projects can face financing, procurement, land and construction challenges. Those obstacles do not necessarily mean a commitment has been abandoned, but they do make it important to publish realistic completion dates and explain why deadlines have slipped.
For farmers, the practical measure is whether water reaches their land, whether production becomes more reliable and whether the investment reduces exposure to drought. Announcing a project is not the same as delivering its intended benefits.
Why repeat promises as the next election approaches?
The political question is why leaders return to commitments that remain incomplete, sometimes presenting them as fresh priorities or renewed targets.
There is no basis to conclude from repetition alone that a politician intends to deceive voters. Governments may revisit a promise because it has stalled, because funding or circumstances have changed, or because they believe a revised plan can still achieve the original objective.
But repetition without a clear account of previous performance creates a legitimate accountability problem.
When a president announces a new housing target, for example, voters should be able to see how many homes were promised previously, how many were completed, how much public money was spent and why the original target was changed. The same standard should apply to jobs, fuel prices, schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
As the 2027 election approaches, renewed pledges are likely to be judged against the record of the first term. The President’s political opponents have an incentive to highlight unfulfilled commitments, while the administration has an incentive to emphasise programmes and indicators it considers successful.
Neither political messaging nor social-media criticism is sufficient on its own. The evidence lies in budgets, audited expenditure, official statistics, project completion records and whether the promised service has reached the intended beneficiary.
The administration’s own delivery scorecard is an important source, but it should be read alongside independent assessments and primary data. Where the figures differ, the government should explain the methodology rather than expect voters to accept a headline number without scrutiny.
Is Ruto truthful about his promises?
Truthfulness is a question of more than whether a promise has been fulfilled.
A government may fail to deliver a commitment because of economic shocks, financing constraints, administrative failures or a change in policy. Failure alone does not prove that the original promise was knowingly false.
The question becomes more serious when targets are repeatedly changed without clear explanations, achievements are presented using figures that independent evidence cannot support, or commitments are described as fulfilled while significant elements remain outstanding.
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The available evidence shows a mixed record. Some indicators cited by the government have improved, including the cost of subsidised fertiliser and maize flour, and recruitment has expanded in education.
Other commitments, such as the original housing targets, the promised cost of cooking gas, the scale of housing-related job creation and several Women Charter pledges, remain subject to substantial questions or have not been delivered as originally promised.
A fair assessment must recognise both sides. It should neither accept every government claim at face value nor assume every criticism is correct.
For Ruto, the credibility test is whether his administration can give a clear account of its original commitments, the deadlines attached to them, the progress made and the reasons for any shortfall. For the opposition, the test is whether its criticism is supported by evidence and whether it can offer credible alternatives.
For voters, the task is to judge the record rather than the volume of campaign rhetoric.
As Kenya moves towards the 2027 General Election, the most important question is not how many new promises the President makes. It is how many of the old ones have been fulfilled, which remain unfinished, and whether the explanations for the gaps stand up to independent scrutiny.
Ultimately, electoral accountability depends on a simple principle: a promise should be measured against the evidence of delivery, not repeated often enough to become a political slogan.
