Fuel lies: Crawling nation wrecked by wrath of Ruto's cheap fuel promise

When  President William Ruto unveiled the Government-to-Government (G-to-G) fuel import deal in April 2023, he promised Kenyans a shield. The arrangement with Gulf oil majors, he said, would secure a stable supply, tame volatile prices, and end the era of crippling fuel shortages. 
Two years later, that shield lies in tatters. 

Kenya today faces its steepest fuel price increase on record. Diesel has jumped Sh46.29 per litre to an average of Sh242.92 in Nairobi, while super petrol rose Sh16.65 to Sh214.25, according to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA). The hikes arrived just weeks after the government deployed a Sh5 billion subsidy to cushion consumers—a sum that proved woefully inadequate.

Economists are now warning that these price hikes under the Ruto regime will wreck Kenya’s already frail economy by triggering a wave of inflation across multiple sectors.

The surge comes at a critical juncture, as both the World Bank and the IMF have called on the Ruto administration to shield vulnerable consumers from the fallout of fiscal reforms. 
More troubling, a parallel universe of secret imports, substandard fuel, and a new, fierce multibillion-dollar legal battle at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has exposed deep fault lines within a system supposedly designed to protect Kenyans. 

"Kenya continues to benefit from the fixed freight and premium costs for refined petroleum imports secured under the G-to-G arrangement," Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum Opiyo Wandayi said in a statement on Friday morning as Kenyans woke up to the fuel price shocker. Just weeks earlier, on April 7, he had publicly disowned a 60,000-metric-tonne petrol consignment despite official documents showing his own ministry had authorised it. 

President Ruto launched the G-to-G framework with Gulf petroleum giants Aramco Trading Fujairah, ADNOC, and ENOC as a strategic buffer. By cutting out middlemen and securing 180-day credit terms, his government promised price stability and supply security. 

For a time, it appeared to work. Between September 2023 and March 2025, negotiated freight and premiums for diesel fell from $118 to $78 and for petrol from $97 to $84. The Petroleum Development Levy (PDL) account swelled to Sh17 billion, and the Ruto government boasted that all stabilisation debts to oil marketers had been settled. 

Then the Middle East conflict escalated. The Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for one-fifth of the global oil supply, became a flashpoint, and the government's carefully managed system began to unravel. 

On March 25, 2026, former Principal Secretary for Petroleum Mohamed Liban signed a letter to One Petroleum Limited authorising the delivery of a 60,000-metric-tonne "contingency" petrol cargo. "The quality of the PMS to be delivered is as per Kenya Bureau of Standards specifications," Liban wrote. 

Just 13 days later, on April 7, CS Wandayi publicly declared that the same cargo was "unauthorised", claiming it was imported outside the G-to-G framework. He ordered One Petroleum to withdraw invoices and demanded that the company exit the Kenyan market. 

Wandayi noted the cargo was priced at Sh198,000 per metric tonne compared to Sh140,000 under G-to-G—a premium that would have added approximately Sh14 per litre to pump prices. What Wandayi did not say was that his own Principal Secretary had signed the deal, nor did he explain why the government had simultaneously approved two other contingency cargoes from Oryx Energies and Gulf Energy under the same emergency procedures. 

"The Cabinet Secretary stated he was unaware of the deal until March 30," a senior ministry official told Standard on Friday, on condition of anonymity. "But the ministry's own records show the Principal Secretary was acting with full authority. The contradiction is extraordinary." The fallout has been swift. Former Principal Secretary Mohamed Liban resigned; EPRA Director General Daniel Kiptoo was removed; and Kenya Pipeline Corporation Managing Director Joe Sang departed.

Now, a new crisis looms. Oryx Energies, the Swiss-owned firm whose contingency cargo was approved and then repudiated, has The Standard has learned taken Kenya to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking $60 million (approximately Sh7.8 billion) in damages. "The government's subsequent cancellation—and its public statements questioning the integrity of the transaction—have caused irreparable commercial harm," a source close to the company told The Standard. The government has not publicly responded to the filing. 

Compounding the crisis, the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry on April 30 approved a six-month waiver on fuel quality standards, permitting sulphur content of up to 50mg/kg—double the previous limit.

The waiver, signed by Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui, was justified by the Ruto government as necessary to safeguard supply amidst disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. However, the move directly contradicts Wandayi’s assertions that G-to-G ensures "the integrity of product quality."

"Kenyans are being told two completely different stories," said a former EPRA official. "One: G-to-G is protecting us. Two: we need emergency, lower-quality imports because the system isn't coping. Both cannot be true."On March 20, 2026, the government announced a Sh6 billion fuel subsidy. By mid-May, EPRA confirmed that Sh5 billion had already been exhausted in a single pricing cycle. Despite this, prices rose sharply as the average landed cost of diesel jumped 20.32 per cent in a single month.

"What we are seeing is a structural failure," an energy economist told Standard. "The G-to-G framework was designed for stable markets. It is not equipped for a full-blown regional war."
As Kenyans watch their shillings drain at the pump, the questions remain: Why were emergency cargoes necessary if the shield was working? Who will pay for the ICJ legal battle? And why is the government authorising "dirty" fuel as necessary? 
For millions of vulnerable Kenyans, the silence from State House is deafening, and the shield they were promised looks increasingly like a mirage.