Moses Kuria, Cabinet Secretary for Investment, Trade and Industry, found himself with egg on his face on Wednesday night after making an unsubstantiated claim on live TV and being fact-checked only a few minutes later.
CS Kuria was a member of a Cabinet team for a joint Royal Media Services program titled 'The Big Conversation,' which covered President William Ruto's accomplishments and failures in his first year in office.
The controversy began when Citizen TV news anchor Sam Gituku stated that the approximate cost of cooking oil in the country as of September 13, 2023, was Ksh.340 per liter, down from Ksh.450 on the same date last year.
Conversely, the CS disputed the figure, arguing that Kenya Kwanza government initiatives had reduced it significantly lower than the prediction.
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"I wish your figures were correct. You take pride in the fact that your TV is the most watched in the country, but keep in mind that someone is watching you from a supermarket, so be cautious," he warned.
"Cooking oil is much cheaper than you project, and Kenyans know this." You are correct that the price has decreased, but not to the level you have said. It has increased by 50% since we took office."
When Gituku challenged CS Kuria to produce his figure to equal the Ksh.340 he had presented, he declared that he had it on good authority that the price of cooking oil was at least Ksh.100 lower than the acclaimed journalist's approximation.
"It's significantly lower than that, perhaps between Ksh.230 and Ksh.240...Everyone has the right to ideas, but only some have the right to facts. He stated, "Facts are universal."
Less than 20 minutes later, Citizen TV's Eldoret-based correspondent John Wanyama went live inside a Naivas supermarket shop in the North Rift town, showing some of the prices of the various cooking oil brands available.
Some were lower than Gituku's forecast, while others were higher, but none came close to CS Kuria's purported authorized figure.
Moses Kuria dared Sam Gituku to call any supermarket in this country to confirm the price of cooking oil, only for Gituku to take him on the challenge and send a reporter to a supermarket LIVE on TV. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Republic of Violence. pic.twitter.com/XZ3CkASydF
— Gabriel Oguda (@gabrieloguda) September 13, 2023
Wanyama's investigation indicated that one brand's one-liter pricing of cooking oil was Ksh.355, another at Ksh.347, and the relatively cheaper ones were Ksh.307 and Ksh.325.
When challenged with these new figures, CS Kuria's only defense was to tell the Citizen TV crew in Eldoret to "now go to Ruiru" and check out the costs there because "we're here for two hours, what's the hurry for?"
