Ruto says firms in Nasa boycott list victims of extortion racket
What you need to know:
- He said some of the companies listed by Nasa in its economic boycott call had been victims of an extortion ring.
- Bidco is one of the companies that Nasa has targeted and asked its supporters to boycott its products.
- Others are Safaricom and Brookside dairies.
The Jubilee administration has accused the National Super Alliance (Nasa) leadership of running an extortion scheme in the name of boycott of products of some of the country’s leading companies.
Deputy President William Ruto asked the companies targeted in the boycott to reject what he described as a “bizarre extortion racket styled as economic boycott and continue to meet their taxation obligation only to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA)”.
Mr Ruto was responding to Friday calls by Nasa to supporters to boycott products of some firms the opposition considers to have played a role in supporting Jubilee in the August 8 presidential election annulled by the Supreme Court.
EXTORTION RING
In a series of tweets, the deputy president suggested that some of the companies listed by Nasa in its economic boycott call had been victims of an extortion ring perpetuated by some of the leaders in the coalition.
The DP said the companies had been asked to “donate” to a “supremo” to avoid being put in the list he described as a “brazen and bizarre extortion racket-styled economic boycott”.
“As the government of Kenya, we advise Bidco to reject extortion and continue its Sh20 billion expansion programme that will increase to 12,500 Kenyans working there,” Mr Ruto said in one of the tweets.
REJECT
He added: “We urge all companies to continue to partner with Kenyans, pay taxes only to KRA and reject the extortion scheme-styled e-boycott.”
Bidco is one of the companies that Nasa has targeted and asked its supporters to boycott its products. Others are Safaricom and Brookside dairies.
Mr Ruto took to his twitter handle hours after the Nasa MPs kick-started their boycott call at a media briefing at their Okoa Kenya offices in Nairobi.
The Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek), in a statement, urged the opposition to go slow on the economic boycott saying such boycotts are only called by consumer advocates and hardly not by partisan political leaders.
“Reasons for calling consumer boycotts largely revolve around bad quality, excessive pricing, labour and human rights issues within the firm manufacturing a product or offering a service in question,” reads the statement from the consumer body.
