LIVE: Ruto's 3rd State of the Nation address

President Ruto: To scale up our transport and logistics programme, the Ministry of Roads and Transport have already mapped out a comprehensive network of 2,500 highways for dualing and 28,000km of roads to be tarmaced in the next 10 years. We will also onboard a private-public partnership in the modernisation of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Mombasa and Lamu ports, and sort out the challenges facing Kenya Airways by next year.

President Ruto: History teaches us that nations rise on the strength of transport and logistics. Japan’s post-war revival, enabled by strategic road expansion, is a clear example: From only 2,000 roads, they constructed over a million kilometres of paved roads in seven decades, while Kenya has constructed just 22,000 km, over a relatively similar period

A section of lawmakers disrupt President William Ruto’s State of the Nation address with chants of ‘two-term’

President Ruto: We restored fiscal discipline, we eliminated wasteful subsidies, we rationalized public expenditure, we strengthened revenue collection, and placed our economy on a path of recovery and sustainability inflation, which stood at 9.6% in 2002 in 2022 has steadily declined to 4.6% as of last month, bringing much-needed relief to households.

President Ruto: Our GDP has increased to $136 billion, moving us up to become the sixth-largest economy on the continent, according tothe  IMF. This steep rise is not accidental. It is the product of deliberate choices, disciplined execution, and strategic reforms that have strengthened our economy and unlocked its potential. Our foreign reserves have surpassed $12 billion, the highest in independent Kenya.

President Ruto: The last three years have not been easy. We have agreed, sometimes disagreed, and at times, those disagreements have carried great costs. We have compromised. We have confronted hard truths and we have endured storms none of us invited but we all take comfort that it has not been for nothing. For this is how far we have come. At a time like this in 2022, Kenya was in distress. Inflation had soared almost to double digits.

President Ruto: Today I have a story to tell; a story written not in the quiet offices or the comfort of boardrooms, but out in the blazing sun of our farms; in the dust of construction sites where our affordable homes now rise, and in the gift of our community health workers, doctors, medical professionals, who refuse to surrender in the quest for Universal Health Coverage

President Ruto begins his address to Parliament. He begins with the country's progress in many sectors.

National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang'ula begins his address.

The President arrives inside Parliament chambers as Senate Speaker Amason Kingi begins his opening remarks.

Ruto arrives in Parliament as security tightened around the precincts.