Ruto’s chapati machine and Sakaja’s senate update dominated headlines. On Thursday, as Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja faced pointed questions from senators on the president’s pledge for school feeding tech, he revealed one machine funded and churning out thousands daily, while the mega unit for a million chapatis remains undelivered amid growing scrutiny over timelines in the capital’s nutrition drive.
Sakaja, ever the quick-witted city boss, took the hot seat before the Senate Education Committee in a wood-panelled chamber overlooking Parliament’s manicured lawns.
Dressed in a crisp navy suit, he leaned into the mic with his trademark charm, but the air crackled with accountability.
“President Ruto has paid for one chapati-making machine that makes 6,000 to 8,000 chapatis per day,” Sakaja stated, his voice steady as he flipped through notes.
“The county is in the process of getting another machine to scale up.” The room nodded, but eyebrows arched when he pivoted to the elephant: “The president is yet to deliver the 1 million chapati-making machine as he promised.”
It was a candid admission, laced with that subtle nudge toward State House, drawing chuckles from aides and a flurry of phone cameras from gallery spectators.
The testimony ties back to Ruto’s March 2025 launch of the National School Nutrition Program, a flagship under his bottom-up economic model aimed at feeding 2.5 million learners daily with subsidised staples like chapatis, beans, and sukuma wiki.
Nairobi, with its 1.2 million public school kids crammed in underfunded classrooms from Kibera to Kasarani, stood to benefit big.
Ruto, flanked by Sakaja at the rollout in a bustling Eastlands primary, touted the machines as game changers: automated wonders from Indian suppliers that could crank out a million flatbreads in shifts, slashing costs and creating jua kali jobs for operators.
“No more manual rolling; this is hustler tech for hungry minds,” he quipped then, drawing applause from milling parents.
Fast forward seven months, and the pilot hums modestly while the headline hardware gathers digital dust. Senators, led by fiery Embu’s Alexander Munyi Mundigi, didn’t let it slide.
“Governor, where’s the machine that makes 1 million chapatis a day?” Munyi pressed, his baritone booming like a rally mic.
Sakaja parried smoothly: “Procurement hurdles, but we’re pushing. The first unit’s already in a Dagoretti depot, testing batches for 20 schools next week.”
He painted a vivid rollout: machines humming like mini factories, churning golden discs piped hot to tuck shops, boosting attendance from 78 per cent to near 100 in pilot zones.
Budget watchdogs at the Controller of Budget flagged KSh 2.3 billion allocated for the programme, with only 40 percent disbursed by September, citing “supply chain snags” amid global wheat spikes.
Sakaja’s update hints at relief: that funded machine, a sleek Turkish import, promises 6,000 chapatis by the lunch rush, enough for 3,000 kids doubled up. “It’s a start,” Sakaja told the committee, eyes earnest.
“Imagine scaling to a million; that’s a nutrition revolution, not rhetoric.” Critics, though, smell politics.