'Singapore was a slum like Kibera,' President Ruto says as he defends Housing Fund

President William Ruto has come out to defend the proposed Housing Fund while reiterating his past remarks on borrowing Singapore’s model to actualize the affordable and decent houses for Kenyans.

Addressing the press at State House during the Presidential Economic Dialogue on Value Chains on Friday, President Ruto lightly quoted opposition leader Raila Odinga’s past utterances that Singapore was once the same level as Kenya at independence.

In the same way, the Head of State added that Singapore was once a slum like Kenya’s Kibra, but has been able to give a new face to the country’s housing sector by making difficult decisions.

He thus compared Kenya to the Asian country saying we ought to make the same decisions for us to move in a similar direction.

“I am very amazed I received the Prime Minister of Singapore. The great place we keep talking about, you know ‘they were with us, we were in the same place in 1963 today it is in the first world,” he said.

“Singapore was a slum like Kibera. All of you know and have seen pictures. It was like Kibera but they made some difficult decisions and that is why they are where they are and we are where we are, it is as simple as that.”

He added: “Between us and Singapore, the gap is the ability to make decisions. So how can we be celebrating Singapore? They managed to overcome the housing challenge.”

The President consequently condemned Kenya’s nature of not being risky with decisions ,intimating that he was getting impatient with indecisiveness. 

He therefore urged the nation to embrace making tough decisions in order to achieve great results.

“85 per cent of the people of Singapore today own a home while less than 5 per cent in Kenya today own a home. We are celebrating Singapore because they made a decision on housing, we don’t want to make the decision and yet we want to become like Singapore. How is that going to happen? Not even by miracles,” he stated.

During Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Loong visit last month, President Ruto said that Kenya would borrow notes from Asian country while implementing the affordable housing project.

"We have agreed to actively explore methods of acquiring knowledge and support from Singapore's highly prosperous housing model," said President Ruto at the time.

"Singapore has one of the most successful stories on matters of public housing. The PM has informed me that 85% of all Singaporeans live in decent and affordable public housing."