Azimio La Umoja One Kenya leader Raila Odinga called on MPs to reject the tax proposals fronted by President William Ruto’s government. Raila who took to his social media platform on Monday wrote, “The tsunami of taxes in that bill will bury everyone, especially the jobless youth and the poor struggling down at the bottom. The Bill is a promissory note to strangle and suffocate the hustlers that Ruto promised to remove the rope from their necks. Adding that he had directed MPs allied to his coalition to vote against the Finance Bill 2023, saying it was a punishment that Kenyans should be deeply concerned about.
He accused the president of misleading Kenyans by politicizing matters arising from bad advice outside the civil service. “The bad advice Kenya Kwanza leadership is going public with is definitely not coming from civil servants. Instead, it points to the strengthening of the criminal mafia networks within government,” he added.
He also noted that the new tax increments are in contrast to what he promised during his campaigns when he assured Kenyans that he would lower the cost of living.
President Ruto who maintains that the tax evasion debate is not politically motivated, has recently accused powerful figures in the previous governments of exempting themselves from paying taxes.
The push has been perceived as the President’s vengeance on the previous presidents of Kenya, the late Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi, who were exempted from paying tax under the “Estate duty Act”
According to Odinga, Ruto should first weed out tax evaders and “criminals” who he says have populated his government.
