Fact-checking Kenyan president Ruto and governors’ chair Abdullahi at the 2025 devolution conference
Ruto was correct that counties would receive KSh415 billion in the 2025/26 financial year, nearly KSh30 billion more than the previous year. His figure of KSh4 trillion transferred to counties since devolution began also held up. But the president exaggerated the number of people registered on eCitizen, the government’s digital services platform, and his claim about the billions collected through it could not be verified. Council of governors chair Ahmed Abdullahi was accurate that county allocations amounted to between 10 and 13% of the national budget.
In August 2025, president William Ruto joined Kenya’s 47 governors in Homa Bay county, about 400 kilometres southwest of Nairobi, for the annual devolution conference.
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Now in its 12th year, the forum has been criticised by some as a “waste of time and resources” but is often seen as a key moment for the country’s devolved system, established in 2010, to weigh its progress and shortcomings.
Ruto cited trillions of shillings sent to counties and billions coursing through eCitizen, the government’s digital gateway, as proof of the national government’s often-scrutinised support for devolution.
Council of governors chair Ahmed Abdullahi further highlighted county-level successes, citing more health facilities and the hiring of additional doctors and nurses.
But did the two leaders’ claims stack up? We checked.
President William Ruto
Ruto said the figures showed his administration’s commitment to devolving power and resources to Kenya’s 47 counties.
The constitution guarantees counties at least 15% of the most recent audited national revenues, known as the equitable share. The counties also get grants from the national government.
Under devolution, parliament, comprising the national assembly and the senate, allocates the funds. The national treasury releases the money, and the controller of budget authorises each transfer.
The allocations to counties are set out every year in the division of revenue act. The most recent, for 2025, shows that counties got KSh415 billion (about US$3.2 billion).
In 2024, the figure was KSh400 billion, but was cut mid-year to KSh387.43 billion after youth-led anti-tax protests. That lower amount was confirmed by both the controller of budget and the treasury’s July 2025 statement of actual revenues and exchequer releases.
Ruto got this one right. The counties’ equitable share in 2025 is KSh415 billion. In 2024, it was KSh387.43 billion. That’s an extra KSh27.57 billion – almost KSh30 billion more.
Africa Check also compiled historical data, showing that the 2025 allocation is the highest to date that the counties have received.
Ruto said the national government had transferred KSh4 trillion (about $30.74 billion) to counties during their lifetime.
Treasury data shows that from the implementation of county governments after the March 2013 general elections to June 2024, counties received KSh3.6 trillion.
Between July 2024 and June 2025, they received a further KSh418.3 billion, followed by KSh229.2 billion in July 2025.
By the time the president made his claim, total transfers stood at KSh4.24 trillion. Ruto is correct.
Ruto highlighted the growth of eCitizen, Kenya’s digital platform for accessing and paying for government services, applying for documents and checking official records.
He said it offered more than 22,000 government services, up from 300 at its launch.
The data supports significant growth:
In June 2023, Ruto launched the onboarding of 5,084 new services, confirmed in the treasury’s November 2023 sectoral report. By October 2024, the treasury reported 16,000 services. In December, the eCitizen directorate put the number at 22,515. A March 2025 auditor general report noted that 222 entities and over 22,000 services were on the platform. In his June 2025 budget speech, finance minister John Mbadi told parliament that the number of digitised services had risen “from 350 in 2022 to 20,985 in 2025”. The same month, the eCitizen directorate published a bulletin citing 21,000 fully onboarded services, with others still being integrated. The official eCitizen homepage banner at time of publication reads: “Over 22,000 Government services now available from 100+ Ministries, Counties, Departments and Agencies.”
The evidence shows steady expansion, with service counts varying slightly across official sources. Publicly available records do support Ruto’s figure of 22,000, although there isn’t a single definitive tally.
Ruto said that “more than 14 million Kenyans” had signed up on the eCitizen platform.
The available numbers tell a different story.
In December 2024, the eCitizen directorate reported 13 million registered users.
In June 2025, director general Isaac Ochieng said the platform had 13.5 million users at the end of the 2024/25 financial year.
On 16 August, the Kenya News Agency, the government-owned press service, reported that the immigration and citizen services principal secretary Belio Kipsang had put the number at 13.67 million.
Publicly available data does not support Ruto’s claim of “more” than 14 million. He may have rounded the number, but saying “more” means we rate this claim as exaggerated.
Ruto said the money collected through the eCitizen platform had risen from “KSh60 million to over KSh1 billion” daily.
An eCitizen revenue audit report by the auditor general for the 2021/22 financial year showed that it collected KSh21.2 billion, or a daily average of KSh58 million.
In June 2023, this figure had increased to KSh26.4 billion or about KSh72.3 million every day.
A March 2025 report by the auditor general showed that by June 2024, collections had hit KSh100.8 billion, equivalent to KSh276 million a day.
This is a 282% rise between the digitisation launch by Ruto and 2024, not 1,500% or more.
The president also said eCitizen pulled in “more than KSh500 billion [$3.84 billion] a year”.
On 16 August 2025, immigration and citizen services principal secretary Belio Kipsang reportedly said KSh500 billion was the total collection “since inception” in 2013.
He put average daily collections at between KSh700 million and KSh1 billion. To reach Ruto’s figure, they would need to average at least KSh1.37 billion daily.
No publicly available data confirms this or the 1,500% leap Ruto claimed.
June 2025 figures are not yet out at time of publishing. Because nearly all government services are now on eCitizen, we can’t give a verdict without it.
Ahmed Abdullahi, chair, council of governors
Abdullahi credited devolution with boosting health infrastructure, claiming that public facilities now make up “over 45% of all health facilities in the country”.
The evidence suggests otherwise.
A ministry of health census published in September 2023 found that 47% of facilities were public, 46% private and 8% faith-based or run by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The country’s statistics office publishes data on operational health facilities by ownership in its annual economic survey. The 2025 survey provisionally recorded 7,002 public facilities out of a total of 15,984 in 2024, or about 44%. The rest were 47% private, 7% faith-based and 2% NGO-run.
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Abdullahi’s “over 45%” figure is not supported by the most recent data. The data shows 43.8%, or 44% if rounded up. Close, yes, but “over” again stretches the truth.
Abdullahi said counties receive only 10 to 13% of Kenya’s annual budget, with the bulk of the money, 87 to 90%, retained by the national government.
Counties are allocated funds through the national budget, not given direct control over it, devolution scholar Dr Conrad Bosire told Africa Check. He has written extensively about the topic in Kenya.
“‘Devolving the budget’ may literally mean transferring budget-making powers and processes from the national to the 47 counties, which is not practical. The distinction is important, not pedantic,” Bosire said.
Abdullahi appeared to be referring to county allocations relative to the total national budget.
For 2025/26, the division of revenue act set county allocations at KSh415 billion against a national budget of KSh4.24 trillion. That works out to 9.8%, close to Abdullahi’s lower-end figure.
“Yes, we can say that 87 to 90% of the budget ‘sits at the centre’ even if the counties have revenue-raising powers because counties, by constitutional design, are not able to raise a bulk of resources needed to fund their functions,” Bosire said, adding that this made them intentionally dependent on the revenue collected nationally for their operations.
He shared an official report which showed the national government had kept hold of some functions assigned to counties, along with the funds tied to them.
Bosire also noted that since 2013, the state had borrowed heavily for capital projects, with repayments deducted first from the consolidated fund before county allocations were made. Each increase in these charges reduces the money available to counties.
The claim holds up. We rate it mostly correct.
