Edwin Sifuna at the Linda Mwananchi rally at Jacaranda Grounds, 13 September 2026. Photo: Capital FM
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Sifuna says Kibera is still a slum under Ruto’s housing plan. Ruto: ‘You have no plan’.
Kibera was pulled into the 2027 argument over housing this week.
Speaking at Linda Mwananchi's rally at Jacaranda Grounds on Sunday, Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna said: "When you were elected, the Mathare slum was there, Mukuru kwa Njenga was there and Kibera was there. Since you have built these houses, tell us which slum in Nairobi you have closed?"
He argued that "the slums in Nairobi are not a housing problem; they are an income problem", and said that if people had money in their pockets they would find decent houses themselves. He promised affordable houses for police officers if he is elected President.
Ruto's reply
President Ruto answered on Monday in Kisumu, on the second day of his Nyanza tour. "We have already planned 20,000 houses for the police. We are way ahead," he said. And to Sifuna: "You have no capacity to discuss housing because you have no plan, you have no agenda, you have no programme."
"Let me enlighten you: yes, Kenya's problem is income, but housing is what gives us employment," he said. Young people working on the sites earn money, he argued, so the programme "solves three problems – housing, income and employment".
He said 130,000 houses, 600 markets and hostels for 180,000 students are being built across the country, and that 1.1 million young people have been employed through the programme. The Star reports government data showing about 10,000 affordable units completed nationwide, of which about 8,000 are occupied.
The Kibera check
The government's own Boma Yangu page lists Kibera Soweto East Zone B as "ongoing": 4,054 units, made up of 1,740 one-room, 1,690 two-room and 624 three-room units, built by Intex Construction Limited under the social housing programme, with Kibera residents given priority in allocation. The page gives no handover date.
KNN reported this month that official statements do not agree on how many houses the project will deliver. Read that story here.
Sources: Capital FM, The Star, Boma Yangu
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Kibera was pulled into the 2027 argument over housing this week.
Speaking at Linda Mwananchi’s rally at Jacaranda Grounds on Sunday, Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna said: “When you were elected, the Mathare slum was there, Mukuru kwa Njenga was there and Kibera was there. Since you have built these houses, tell us which slum in Nairobi you have closed?”
He argued that “the slums in Nairobi are not a housing problem; they are an income problem”, and said that if people had money in their pockets they would find decent houses themselves. He promised affordable houses for police officers if he is elected President.
Ruto’s reply
President Ruto answered on Monday in Kisumu, on the second day of his Nyanza tour. “We have already planned 20,000 houses for the police. We are way ahead,” he said. And to Sifuna: “You have no capacity to discuss housing because you have no plan, you have no agenda, you have no programme.”
“Let me enlighten you: yes, Kenya’s problem is income, but housing is what gives us employment,” he said. Young people working on the sites earn money, he argued, so the programme “solves three problems – housing, income and employment”.
He said 130,000 houses, 600 markets and hostels for 180,000 students are being built across the country, and that 1.1 million young people have been employed through the programme. The Star reports government data showing about 10,000 affordable units completed nationwide, of which about 8,000 are occupied.
The Kibera check
The government’s own Boma Yangu page lists Kibera Soweto East Zone B as “ongoing”: 4,054 units, made up of 1,740 one-room, 1,690 two-room and 624 three-room units, built by Intex Construction Limited under the social housing programme, with Kibera residents given priority in allocation. The page gives no handover date.
KNN reported this month that official statements do not agree on how many houses the project will deliver. Read that story here.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
