Wetang'ula Defends Ruto's Absence During 2026/27 National Budget Presentation

On Thursday, June 11, National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang'ula defended President William Ruto's absence during the 2026/2027 National Budget presentation in Parliament.

Wetang'ula agreed with Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah and Minority Leader Junet Mohamed, who dismissed claims by the United Opposition that President Ruto should be present during the budget statement.

He ruled that the Head of State was under no mandate to be in the country, let alone in the National Assembly.

"Honourable members, for the avoidance of doubt, the President of the country is under no obligation to attend Parliament on the day when the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary comes, not to read a budget, but to make a statement and to give the country his revenue raising measures,'

"If the President chose to come, he would sit in the Speaker's row, not where I am sitting, where he normally sits when he comes to address the House. There is no such thing as a crisis because the President is out of the country; the Budget is a preserve and activity of the National Assembly, exclusively," the Speaker ruled.

Ichung'wah and Junet had called out former Attorney General Justin Muturi for allegedly insinuating that the country was in a crisis because Ruto was absent during the 2026/27 National Budget presentation.

Junet accused Muturi of misinforming Kenyans and questioned why he, an immediate former Speaker of the National Assembly, was not conversant with what the law says.

" I heard the former Speaker saying that this is the first time that a budget is being read when the president is not around. The last President who attended this House when we were reading the Budget was the late Mwai Kibaki under the old Constitution.

"It looks like these people don't know what is happening in the country. It is the Treasury who is supposed to present the budget, not the President," the Suna East MP retaliated.

On his part, Ichung'wah accused the United Opposition of misleading Kenyans about the proposed budget and the 2026 Finance Bill.

He rubbished their call for Kenyans to reject the Finance Bill in totality, stating that they were inciting Kenyans using false interpretations of the bill.

The Kikuyu MP noted that Kenyans' views on the Bill were collected and presented before the National Assembly, after which the MPs would address them.

Treasury CS John Mbadi arrived in Parliament to make a statement on his first budget since his appointment.

Mbadi termed his budget a people-centred budget and told Parliament that he personally engaged with Kenyans on the 2026/27 National Budget.

On June 10, the leaders in the United Opposition claimed that the Budget and Finance Bill 2026 would hurt Kenyans.

They opined that the budget allowed room for a lot of wastage of resources, through what they deemed as extravagant expenditure by the executive.