Monday, May 13, 2024 – Azimio Coalition has threatened to lead nationwide mass protests over the draconian Finance Bill 2024 as proposed by President William Ruto’s government.
Speaking
at a church service at the Vision Centre in Embakasi East, Azimio
Principal Kalonzo Musyoka announced the coalition's plans to hit the streets, should Parliament pass the Finance Bill 2024 as proposed by the National
Treasury.
Flanked
by co-principal Martha Karua, Kalonzo lamented that the proposed taxes were too
high, especially for poor households.
He
further picked an issue with introducing taxes on basic items such as
foodstuffs, arguing that it was unnecessarily punitive.
He,
therefore, urged Parliament to amend the bill failure to which the Opposition
will join other Kenyans in staging protests countrywide.
"Besides
boda boda's tax going up, even bread tax has gone up. Now imagine, if you deny
a Kenyan child bread, what are you doing?" he stated.
"They
are even saying that civil servants will be signing a contract. We are not mad
people; we just love our country and want people to live in peace."
Karua,
who was in attendance, corroborated with Kalonzo, arguing that the new slate of
taxes was too high for a majority of the Kenyan households who are already
grappling with a high cost of living.
"The
tax must be paid because the government needs development but you cannot charge
the tax to the point of making food inaccessible."
"You
cannot tax so much to cause children from poor households to sleep hungry and
fail to go to school," she observed.
In the
recently released bill, the State proposed a raft of new taxes including motor
vehicle, minimum top-up tax, economic presence tax, withholding tax, and
digital content tax.
The
government also wants to make all employees in government work with contracts
and also sought to increase taxes affecting the boda boda sector.
The Kenyan DAILY POST
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