Kenya’s President William Ruto announced on Thursday (July 11) that he had dismissed his entire Cabinet along apart from the foreign minister “with immediate effect”. The move follows nationwide protests over against new taxes he was compelled to scrap.

The youth-led protests against the Finance Bill in June turned violent, leaving at least 39 people dead in clashes with the police. Some organisers had vowed to stage protests twice weekly until Ruto himself stepped down.

“I will immediately engage in extensive consultations across different sectors and political formations and other Kenyans, both in public and private, with the aim of setting up a broad-based government," Ruto said in a televised address in which he said additional measures would be announced soon.

The Kenyan leader said he had also dismissed the Attorney General, but the Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who is also the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Affairs, would remain in office. The dissolution of his cabinet does not affect Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who cannot legally be sacked.

Ruto announced on June 27 that he would pull the wildly unpopular Finance Bill that proposed taxes on everything from bread, sugar and vegetable oil to motor vehicles and mobile money transactions.

The bill aimed to raise KES346bn ($2.68bn) in additional revenue, equivalent to about 3% of GDP, to help pay down the East African country's spiralling debt, a necessity for accessing more International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing.

In June, the IMF reported that Kenya experienced “a significant shortfall in tax revenue collection and deterioration in the primary fiscal balance in FY2023/24 relative to program targets is expected to keep domestic borrowing needs elevated”.

East Africa’s most-developed nation owes about $80bn in domestic and foreign debt that together stand at 68% of GDP, while the World Bank and IMF’s recommended maximum is 55%. Most of Kenya's debt is owed to international bondholders. Its biggest bilateral creditor is China, to which it owes $5.7bn.

Without going into detail, Ruto said in the televised address on Thursday he would set up a new government that would assist him in accelerating the necessary, urgent and irreversible implementation of a raft of measures.

These include tackling the debt burden, raising domestic revenue, expanding job opportunities, trimming back government agencies with overlapping duties and combatting corruption.

Doing so, Ruto said, would consequently make the government leaner, but also more effective and efficient.

“During this process, the operations of government will continue uninterrupted under the guidance of Principal Secretaries and other relevant officials,” he said. Ruto has not indicated when he expects to name a new government.

This is the second Cabinet shake-up since Ruto took office in September 2022 after winning a contested election by a narrow margin, with the first coming in October 2023.