Nairobi — Deputy President William Ruto has maintained that the handshake deal between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former opposition Chief Raila Odinga is to blame for the current high cost of living.

Ruto said Tuesday while outlining the Kenya kwanza Alliance at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa that the handshake deal between the two leaders made it impossible for the current government to implement the Big 4 Agenda, a plan he said would have cushioned Kenyans from the current tough economic situation.

"The whole big 4 plan was shelved, and we went on a tangent because of the handshake equation and BBI. We didn't get the time to do what we had promised the people of Kenya we would do," he said.

The United Democratic Alliance presidential candidate said that his attempts to engage the Head of State on the implementation of the Big 4 agenda bored no fruit saying President Kenyatta decided to assemble a different group of people to deliver on his legacy projects who ended up failing to deliver.

"We find ourselves at this spot because there are some things we did not do right; we had a big 4 plan because we foresaw this situation," he said.

DP Ruto said that the real solution to the high cost of living is dealing with the cost of food

He noted that to increase agricultural productivity, the Government must ensure farmers have access to inputs and provide them with necessary capital to do farming and grant them access to markets.

Ruto said that he is the best placed candidate to resolve the challenges affecting Kenyans.

"We have 5 million young people who are not working,15 million Kenyans blacklisted in CRB, 10 million citizens who have no access to credit in micro and small enterprise sector. I believe I am the candidate with a plan to get Kenya to the next level," he said.