good afternoon Mr President thank you so much for being here welcome to Germany how do you feel about being here we've had a wonderful experience great hospitality and um the celebration the national uh Citizens Festival was big and good and positive and uh we feel a lot of positive energy between the relationship between our two countries Germany I well invited you here as the first African country to be a partner at the Burger Fest which is said is the Citizens Festival and this year's theme is in fact in Swahili pamja meaning stronger together how do
you feel about your presence here in significance in fostering Global Partnerships especially during times of uncertainty well humanity is um now facing challenges that go beyond countries or communities and um the nature of uh the challenges that we today are Global and therefore there is need continuously for us to act in concept and together and that is why pamoja together gives us the Synergy and gives us the potential and the power to deal with uh Global challenges when we stand together today Kenya and Germany are great friends uh we have a history going back 180
years since the explorers and the missionaries to today and it was a very privileged opportunity for us as a country to be the first non-european country to be a profile partner on this uh Citizens Festival and it came out very well good to know following your recent meeting with President xiin ping and ongoing collaborations with other European nations how do you see Kenya balance in Partnerships with China and Europe well the the whole world is framed around interests and um we have absolutely no difficulty in pursuing our interest in the west and pursuing our interest
in the East and therefore um when our interests converge we work together and um uh we had a wonderful engagement in uh in Beijing together with my other African colleagues uh I have had a wonderful engagement here in Germany with my chairman counterpart I had an excellent um engagement with President Biden when I was in the United States and as you said earlier it's a global village I mean the the the the challenges that countries face whether they are in the west or in their East are common and therefore there's need for collaboration between all
countries to make sure that we configure and we figure out how to deal with the challenges that we have China and Europe which one do you think is a better partner for Africa right now um I do not think it is a there is a measure of finding out who is better than the other because as I said before uh many people try toe Ras into are you Facing East or are we facing west we are facing forward because that is where opportunity is that is where our interests are and therefore there are things that
we can do with the West there are things that we can do with the East there are things that are common that we can do both with the East and the west and I'll give you an example uh to deal with the challenge of uh the serious economic issues in our continent for example we've asked the US to enhance their ID concessional funding window to the multilateral development Banks we've done the same to Europe we've done the same to China because we are all one Global family and China is making as much a contribution as
Europe is and as much as the US is that way we can work towards the good of humanity let me give you another example climate change is an existential threat to humanity it knows no borders it knows no south or east or west or north it it's it's a challenge that faces us and we need to develop Global Solutions solutions that transcend you know sides and and and and and and and countries these are Global Solutions right let's go back to the bilateral exchange here um these exchanges what dividends have they yielded for the continent
so far especially in specific you can speak to Kenya one of them is the agreement we just signed this agreement will lock will unlock uh sorry uh 250,000 job opportunities for young people from Kenya that is a bilateral agreement between Germany and Kenya it it is a win-win you know there is a big Le labor deficit in Germany there is a big lab labor over Supply in Kenya how do you benefit Kenya by giving them the opportunities in here and how do you remove the deficit here by H leverage in Kenya are you young people
happy about this of course we understand that you've just signed this agreement with Olaf um Schulz uh but you also just recently um launched a climate resilience project warx to create over 200,000 jobs for young people how do you reconcile that with the fact that you want to send these same skilled workers to Europe Germany to be precise for your information we are injecting into the labor market a million young people every year and even if we created half a million jobs in Kenya we would still have another half a million who don't have those
opportunities that's why the opportunity to create resilience jobs which I did uh last week in Kenya has no contradiction whatsoever with what I'm doing in Germany because uh we have a huge bulge youth bulge we have demographic dividend that we have to deal with and um we need to create Pathways and opportunities we creating opportunities in our housing program we are creating opportunities in our digital Market we are creating opportunities in export of markets in export of Labor like the one we are doing with Germany so these are different opportunities that serve the same purpose
of making sure that we um um give our young people in Kenya the opportunity to work talking of bilateral as well uh all these um developments that you've mentioned that have been a fruit of the exchanges you've held uh those that also justify your frequent travels because your people seem to be rattled by the fact that you and your ministers literally change clothes at the airport missing out on some very ministerial meetings um I think that is an assertion that is not correct I mean um uh you know many people sometimes don't understand that some
of these uh bilateral engagements are necessary because some people expect instant coffee out of these engagements president Schulz came to Kenya Chancellor Schulz came to Kenya a year and a bit ago it is the reason why we are signing this agreement today we began the consultations then uh and when I talked about then that we going to have this agreement that will eventually facilitate many Kenyans to come to Germany many people thought it was Phantom many people thought it was not going to happen today we have an agreement in place and there are real people
now who have started that journey in fact next week for the 27th the first recruitment exercise will happen in Kenya how do how do you then begin to Center the interest of your people because First China has been criticized to not utilize for example local local workers when they come to um Implement these projects in these countries for Africa to be precise and they also overe exploit local resources EU on the other hand have a very intrusive approach though very comprehensive to solving under development but it seem to undermine autonomy in a sense you know
interests are balanced all the time you know um yes we have taken up uh um issues with countries that provide bring labor to our countries that we already have in country as opposed to labor that they they don't have in country like the case we are we doing with Germany it has to be mutual understanding that um whether it is labor whether it is uh incentives they must be negotiated so that every country's interest is taken is is taken into account let's go back to when you talked about conventional resources um already of course we
know Kenya's debt situation IMF alone you owe about $2 billion over it um how Su state able is Kenya's debt structures considering the fact that your previous strategies like the tax highs have hikes have failed public resistance um the situation around debt is not just around Kenya we have 26 countries in Africa that are facing very serious uh Deb situations in fact many people expected Kenya to have defaulted by now but I promise them that it will not happen under my leadership your de distress have been associated with poor locally made decisions that are motivated
by taking large loans for projects that yield limited short-term returns precisely and that is why I have put breaks on borrowing that we borrowed almost 10 years ago what we are paying today and our debt you know increased from about 1.8 trillion uh 1.8 trillion Kenya shillings to now 10 trillion it is the reason why I have said we have to look for alternative sources of are there Alternatives yes we are working on alternative sources of reeven raising revenue some of them are bearing fruit some of them majority of them were in the finance bill
that did not make it but we are working on how do we socialize ourselves to making sure that we protect our country from debt distress and from debt default and we are working with partners are working with uh development Partners we are working with different countries in fact yesterday I had a conversation with the uh Chancellor Schulz on their support of 90 million us to support some of our interventions and another $60 million so we are also going bilateral country by country how we can work on concessional funds that helps Drive our development now Mr
President consal or non-consensual these are loans and Loans must be paid perod of time and uh I want to say that what you're doing still uh taking aid from China from Europe and these are not free money aren't you building a debt trap that will be very disastrous for future generation who will not be able to pay such a debt and will continue to dance at the Mazi of these creditors instead of building sustainable wealth for the African continent aren you contradicting yourself because on one end you're you're saying we we we must must not
raise resources domestically we must and then yeah we must so we must yeah yeah so and that's exactly what my trajectory has been working with uh our economy to make sure that sustainably to use your words we raised resources locally that is that is my focus but even as we work on interventions because that will not happen in a day even as we do that we must balance it with the reality that you need some concessional funding and in fact some of the concessional funding we are looking for is to retire debts that are very
uh expensive debt so that we progressively manage our debt situation you've seen the agitation from young people and the recent protest not the very uh most pleasing situation any president or any leader would obviously want and young people are clearly not happy with the situation as well and of course over 20 people died 300 more injured you promised to give these families some explanation you also said that um you will support the injured and that a mechanism is there to hold the police to account how far have you gone in realizing these there's a lot
of progress that has been made in fact part of the launch of the resilience program that I launch is part of responding to some of the issues that have been raised about jobs the reason why I'm in Germany is because of the same reasons around jobs for our young people the same way we have a housing program responding to jobs for our young people the same reason why we are doing the digital ecosystem because we responding to jobs because ultimately let's go back to the the protest before we come back to the jobs Mr President
the protests were about opportunities that's why I'm saying but they also did not want tax hies and which also bring me back to the question of debt how do you in fact sustain the debts but you said there are alternatives but then you made a promise in your apology on X to these young people that you would ensure that it doesn't happen again and these families will be given an explanation absolutely do we see the president taking responsibility for what happened the absolutely my government has stepped forward to say we are going to support the
families that lost their loved ones we we we we we are working on a mechanism to make sure that that happens it's two months on yeah it's two months on but you know we just I just assembled a new government they are working on the nuts and Bs to make sure that we get that there I am responding to the issues raised about opportunities and that is why I'm telling you we just launched before I came to this uh City a 200,000 job program that will support young people that are coming from vulnerable neighborhoods even
as we respond to climate action climate change that is the essence of why we have a strained economy we have a strained economy because of climate change switching from drought to floods and using our resources instead of uh uh developing our social sector instead of baying our debt we are now focused on managing the effects of climate change and that is the reason why it has to be always a balance between what you're doing for the greater good and what you are doing to manage the crisis I'm glad that you said you are walking a
path to make sure that these people are given an explanation for the debts as well and um I'm sure you also know that the people who want you to terminate your social contract the people who went out to the streets chanting Ruto mosco no longer appreciate May awards from presidents what is your Assurance to these people Assurance is they they will see us in action the the the roll out of the programs that are there and for your information much of the protest was uh fueled by fake news and majority of disinformation and misinformation or
there is this tax about dogs or there is this tax about this land about this they were not there you know ultimately when people realized that what was being used to drive the negativity around the finance bill were actually issues that were not in the in the finance bill was that why you said they criminals and people involved in Tason of course there were criminals involved I mean the people who bured down Parliament the people who bured down people's businesses why would do you call those people but they were peaceful protesters in the beginning how
how does a peaceful protester bur down a building would you say that the actions that were seen on ground aggravated the situation in a way that young people had to also retaliate to stand their ground do you agree that uh people who burn down buildings are criminals I do not condone violence Mr President but your police officers you are the commander you are the Commander in Chief and you're also the chair of the National Security Council you may not hold the guns yet you pull the guns let me tell you that the police have a
responsibility to protect both the protesters and innocent citizens and property and life and that's what they must do it is a delicate balance but it must be done lastly your uh interest in the Au commission chairpersonship how do we see this change in Africa's Outlook especially in regards to the African peer review uh mechanism finding African solutions to Africa's economic and governance challenges rather than relying on external institutions that in a way onine Africa's autonomy my colleagues at the Africa Union have mandated me to oversee the reform of institutions of the Africa Union to make
it fit for purpose it is one of the assignments I want to undertake because it is important I have already done the first two meetings to make sure that we align and repurpose Africa Union to respond to the issues that affect our continent today issues of inter African trade issues of stability in our continent issues of the youth bulge issues of making sure that we use our resources to to create jobs in Africa instead of exporting raw materials and making sure that we trade more with ourselves these are critical issues that are important for Africa
and institutional development making sure that the Au commission is fit for purpose we have an accountability Mech mechanism using the panafrican Parliament that today is dysfunctional and we have an au an African court that makes sure that it provides the mechanism for interpreting what we are doing and managing the nuances between the different institutions that is my focus on making sure that we have an au that is fit for purpose and that serves our continent our countries and our people in the best way possible and I'm focused on achieving it we hope to see a
positive outlook for the African continent Mr President thank you very much thank so much for your time thank you thank you thank you
