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.
