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{
    "id": 1442076,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1442076/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 174,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kathiani, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Robert Mbui",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. In the spirit of Articles 1 and 95 of the Constitution, I stand to represent the more than 50 million Kenyans who have asked this House to reject this insensitive, punitive, ill-advised piece of legislative mistake. In the 10 years that Uhuru was the president of this country, we had Finance Bill every year but only one had very serious contention. The contention that was there was the introduction of 8 per cent VAT on fuel. The Kenya Kwanza regime has been in office for less than two years. The two Finance Bills they have brought to this House have elicited too much contention from Kenyans that I think there is something that is seriously wrong. The controversy of the 2023/2024 Finance Bill even got our Head of State a nickname. They call him ‘Zakayo’, the tax collector. We must move away from the tendency of imposing, every year, punitive taxes on Kenyans. Kenyans have not even recovered from the negative effects of the 2023/2024 Finance Bill. That Bill drastically reduced the disposable income of Kenyans. We increased PAYE, increased the NSSF, increased the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and introduced a Housing Levy. Now, we are proposing to move to Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), which is even higher. It has been very painful for Kenyans. They were hoping that this year things would be better considering that in the last election campaigns they were told that there would be pesamfukoni, which means money in the pockets. We have realised that what this regime wanted was not to put money in anyone’s pocket but to take any money that was in the pockets of Kenyans. The cost of Government services has gone too high that our children cannot even afford to have Identity Cards (IDs). We have to stand firm and reject a Bill that proposes to increase tax to the already overburdened Kenyans. We were told to tighten our belts. I know the intention is to hit us hard in the first three to four years, but some people might lose their lives because of hunger and stress. What do you do with them when they are six feet under in 2026/2027? We were told to tighten our belts, but as we tighten our belts, it is shocking to see the excesses that this Government is involved in. Hon. Speaker, we are taxing Kenyans to raise money to run the Government, yet we have excesses. We allocate Ksh600 million to repair and paint houses that were built with Ksh400 million. It is very painful. Then, we are told to tighten our belts. Two hundred million shillings was used on a return trip on a chartered plane to the United States of America (USA). This is not acceptable. All these are begging missions. We live beyond our means."
}