The one thing the Government did not know is that while the Finance Bill 2023 drained the working class consisting of the baby boomers and Generation X, it threatened the very existence of their younger siblings, the Millennials, and their children, the Generation Z (Gen Z)
(Part 1)
BY OUMA OJANGO
The seeds of the seething wrath that fueled the riots by the young people preceding passing, in the National Assembly, of the infamous Finance Bill 2024, and that led to the unprecedented breach of Parliament on Tuesday, June 25, 2024 were planted at the Bomas of Kenya on Monday, August 15, 2022 at 6:03PM when IEBC Chairperson, Wafula Chebukati declared William Samoei Ruto winner of the Presidential Election.
The Presidential vote tallying had been characterized by intense controversy that ended up splitting the electoral body down the middle. Even as Chebukati proclaimed Ruto as President-elect amidst chaos and tight security, all televised live, four of his Commissioners were, in a never-before seen scenario in independent Kenya, holding a live press conference elsewhere in the city denouncing the results.
This cast doubt on the veracity of what the IEBC Chair had announced. The declaration of Ruto’s win, just like that of President Kibaki in 2007, elicited little excitement with celebrations popping up in a few town centres. There was a resounding disquiet.
The IEBC controversy that cast doubt on the truthfulness of the Presidential Election results denied Ruto’s Presidency the much needed legitimacy going into his reign. The Supreme Court, one may want to argue, ruled in his favour in the Presidential Election Petition E005, E001, E002, E003, E004, E007 and E008 of 2022 (Consolidated). Courts only rule in accordance with the evidence adduced before them, which is dependent on many factors, among them, the preparedness of the petitioner and how good the respondent, in this case, the State-aided IEBC, is at concealing evidence.
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and declared William Ruto as President-elect for lack of compelling evidence on the part of the petitioner to prove his case. That does not confer legitimacy.
It is on the pedestal of lack of legitimacy that President Ruto’s regime began the journey of its first term in office. The expectation was that his first big assignment would be to reunite the hugely divided country and that thereafter, he would embark, just like he had promised in his election campaigns, on rebuilding the economy and ease the pain of the cost of living that had skyrocketed for Kenyans in recent times. Kenya’s economy had collapsed out of the effects on global economy of the Corona Virus pandemic of 2020 and 2021, but also from mismanagement and rampant corruption in the previous Government of President Uhuru Kenyatta, to which President Ruto was principally part of.
President Ruto squandered the opportunity to reunite the country right from day one in office at his swearing in ceremony at Kasarani Stadium where he, and his Deputy, Rigatha Gachagua, attacked the exiting President in the public glare.
This was followed with ugly State-sponsored attacks on his farm in Ruiru, harassment of his family including his old mother who happens also to be a former first lady of the nation, and his children. That harassment has continued, manifesting in, among others, denial of his entitled State benefits.
Kenya’s first President, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died in office. The two Presidents after Kenyatta, Daniel Moi and Mwai Kibaki retired from office when their terms ended as per the stipulations of the Constitution. Tradition had been set, especially by Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta that former Presidents get accorded due respect irrespective of how their regimes had panned out. Indeed, decorum demands so. Ruto’s regime has, however, bastardized the immediate former President to the shock of many.
Cronies and sycophants
Immediately after his swearing in, came the formation of Government. This is where things begun falling apart. One, it was apparent, without even an iota of shame, that appointment to public service was majorly a reserve of the President’s tribesmen and women, and cronies and sycophants, with some spillover to his Deputy’s. Parastatals, Government agencies and departments, foreign missions were all filled by the President’s people, with meritocracy counting for zero.
It is, nevertheless, the formation of the Cabinet that broke the Carmel’s back. According to Art. 152 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, a Cabinet consists the President, his Deputy, the Attorney General, and not fewer than 14 and not more than 22 Cabinet Secretaries. The President nominates, and, with the approval of the National Assembly, appoints Cabinet Secretaries.
One, despite the much touted failing economy, the President went for the maximum number allowed by the Constitution. Had the Constitution stipulated a maximum of 40, no doubt, the President would have nominated 40 Cabinet Secretaries and secured the National Assembly’s approval for their appointment.
In appointing the 22, he did not only disregard their qualification and merit, he threw caution to the wind in regards to the integrity of some of them. Those who had been indicted for serious crimes like murder and economic crimes had their charges withdrawn from the Courts of law prior to their vetting in the National Assembly. He then, his ruling coalition enjoying parliamentary majority, prevailed upon the National Assembly to approve all of his nominees. Right from the beginning, very few Kenyans, if any, had faith in the ability of President Ruto’s Cabinet to deliver.
He did not match, not in a single docket in his Cabinet, individual qualifications and skills to the duties and responsibilities of the docket. Ababu Namwamba, a lawyer with no known enthusiasm, leave alone talent for sports was appointed to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sports and the Arts. Kipchumba Murkomen, another Lawyer, was appointed to the Ministry of Roads, Transport, and Public Works that would ordinarily be a reserve for someone with a background in civil engineering. Kindiki Kithure, a lawyer, and Aden Duale with a degree in education were appointed to the dockets of Interior and Administration of National Government, and Defence, respectively.
Then, there was the lot in this Cabinet, with limited academic qualification to merit appointment at such levels where policies that would herald a developing country like ours into a middle-class economy are expected. The President’s overarching consideration in nominating and appointing individual’s to the Cabinet and in civil service generally, it came to be known, was his desire to reward those that had stayed close and helped him ascend to the Presidency. You stood no chance if, as his Deputy would unashamedly declare, you were not a shareholder in their political formation.
Then came the issue of dealing with the economy. They first hoodwinked Kenyans into believing that Kenyatta’s regime had wiped clean the public coffers prior to their exit. That there was no money to run the country. Indeed, they raided the accounts of Government agencies and departments and forced them to contribute to the National Treasury from their 2022/2023 budgets. This affected programmes of the said institutions in a big way. They then forced down the throats of these institutions austerity measures that crippled their operations further, cutting down key public services with all the money collected from these endeavors ending up in bottomless pit of the new regime with nothing to show for it.
Public debt obligations
Coupled with the afore, they hoodwinked Kenyans into believing that we were on the verge of defaulting on our international public debt obligations whose consequences, they warned, would be dire. We had to raise money to honour our loan commitments, whose stock showing how much we owe and how it was expended has never been made public.
They immediately removed fuel subsidies. Then they drafted and passed the most punitive tax measures in Kenya’s history, the Finance Act 2023 that aimed at generating additional revenue to meet the government’s new Sh3.6 trillion budget. It raised the value added tax (VAT) on fuel products, excluding LPG gas, from 8% to 16%, prompting an upward review of prices of petrol, diesel, and paraffin to unprecedented levels. The ripple effect on the cost of living due to its use in many sectors of the economy is devastating to both households and businesses. It will take a long time for the economy to ever recover in this regard.
Besides, Finance Act 2023 also introduced a punitive, Housing Levy, which required both employers and employees to contribute to the National Housing Development Fund at 1.5 per cent of the employees’ gross salary. Despite the fact housing as a need wasn’t a priority in an economy whose masses are still grappling with human basics, its implementation remains ambiguous to date. The Act also introduced taxation on digital content monetization by enacting a withholding tax on income earned by resident, at 5 per cent, and nonresident persons at 20 per cent from digital content monetization. It reduced the turnover tax’s upper threshold from Sh50 million to Sh23 million and, at the same time, increased the rate from 1 to 3 per cent, to mention just but a few of the many new taxes that made it even harder for the common Kenyan to make ends meet.
It is the Finance Bill 2023 that revealed to Kenyans that it wasn’t going to be business as usual with the Kenya Kwanza Government. The Government pulled every trick in the bag to have the Bill, which Kenyans resisted, passed into law, including threats, intimidation, and false promises. Government blatantly defied any Court orders in the way of the Bill and crashed, heavily, and with huge casualty, any street protests against its passing. When the President was in the mood of toying with the minds of Kenyans, he promised that that was the last time he would seek to increase taxes.
Kenyans took it all in a stride. In the meantime, the economy shrunk. The cost of living skyrocketed for the ordinary Kenyan. On the other hand, the Finance Act seemed to have afforded Ruto’s government a financial muscle that no other President before him had. He, unfortunately, wasn’t intent on exercising that muscle to improve the livelihoods of his subjects.
Instead, he openly lived large. He traveled the world, and large while at it. He bloated his Government. Created unconstitutional offices including that of the First Lady, the Second Daughter, the Second Lady and flooded them with budgets from the exchequer. He swarmed his office and ministries with advisors at the expense of the people. He proposed, and even insisted on employing more than 50 Cabinet Administrative Secretaries, even when the Courts of law told him it was unconstitutional. He grew arrogant, talking people down. Members of his Cabinet took cue. Parliament followed suit. Public office corruption, seemingly sanctioned by higher powers gained currency. The display of opulence by the elite few grew to nauseating levels. The long-forgotten habit of road bullying by government mandarins resurfaced where they drove with sirens and chase cars pushing other motorists off lanes, opposing traffic, and even ignoring roundabouts.
To justify his government’s grandeur at the expense of the people, he lied to them, always promising grand plans to emancipate them in coming four, six months, “God willing”, even as key sectors of the economy including Education, Agriculture and health crumbled.
Finance Bill 2024
The cloak, in the meantime, ticked, and 2023 went by. To maintain the newly assumed exuberant, sumptuous, and lavish lifestyle of the President, his Cabinet, Parliament and government mandarins, means of expanding the resource base had to be crafted to maintain cashflow taps, hence the Finance Bill 2024.
The one thing the Government did not know is that while the Finance Bill 2023 drained the working class consisting of the baby boomers and Generation X, it threatened the very existence of their younger siblings, the Millennials, and their children, the Generation Z (Gen Z). Even though the Baby Boomers and the Generation X, having come of age in the dictatorial Nyayo era were prevalent to taking everything in a stride and suffer silently, their children and younger siblings had had enough.
They were not going to stomach the Finance Bill 2024. They emerged, in their new forms of mobilization afforded by social media including Facebook, TikTok, X, Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube, and warned the Government about the Bill. The Government, having never heard of them before, ignored and dismissed them, and went ahead with the process of passing the Bill that harbored heinous and punitive proposals on how to squeeze more money from the pockets of already broke people so as to sustain its new found and seemingly addictive opulence.
It is as a consequence of that approach by Government to the new, rising voice of opposition by the young that we are where we are today, with a breached Parliament, a dead Finance Bill 2024, more than 45 dead young people and still counting, a dozen of young protesters in hospitals allover the country with various serious injuries, a dismissed Cabinet, a cornered President and an anxious country on the verge of caving in.
