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{
    "id": 736509,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/736509/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 142,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Wakhungu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1889,
        "legal_name": "Chrisantus Wamalwa Wakhungu",
        "slug": "chrisantus-wamalwa-wakhungu"
    },
    "content": "People are crying because of high inflation rate. The cost of living is very high. The cost of unga is very high. In this case, I want to particularly focus on Pay-as-you Earn (PAYE). The net effect of the proposal to increase PAYE by 10 per cent is that whatever is going to go into your pocket after receiving your salary will be less. We have a very high inflation rate in this country. But if we are going to tax workers further by increasing PAYE, the little that will be getting into their pocket will not enable them to buy food, pay school fees and provide shelter. This is a very wrong strategy. When the CS appears before the Committee, we should have some amendments. This is going to disturb the pocket of the common mwananchi . When it comes to excise duty, the proposed Kshs175 per litre of spirit has been increased to Kshs200. If we make spirits too expensive, it is very unfortunate that the common mwananchi who has low income will not afford them. The common mwananchi will start consuming illicit brew. I can see the Member for Githunguri agreeing with me. This is the time you will find people going for illicit brew, which has not yet been ascertained in terms of quality. Such brews will make people blind and affect their productivity. Much as you are trying to increase revenue for the Government, this will particularly affect the youth. Maybe, they go into drinking because of stress of unemployment. If we make it expensive, it will be a disaster. We will have the same issue happening again – people going back to illicit brew. Therefore, this is something that needs to be reflected upon so that as we put measures in place to increase productivity in this country. We do not want to hurt the common mwananchi . The reduction of Corporate Tax from 30 per cent to 15 per cent is a wonderful idea that is going to encourage many multi-nationals to come to this country. In the long run, they are going to provide employment to our youth. We know very well that the unemployment rate in this country is very high, particularly among the youth. Research has shown that 70 per cent of the people who are unemployed today are youth. This measure of reduction to 15 per cent, if at all it is going to encourage more foreign investments to come to this country is, indeed, going to help us resolve the issue of unemployment. Unfortunately, we must go further to do some projection to be able to know the percentage of employment that a foreign investment coming to Kenya will provide to Kenyans. We have seen some organisations come here pretending to provide employment but only employ two or three people and yet we reduce their Corporate Tax. Most of the issues are to be done in a technological manner. We must establish and know how many jobs are going to be created by these particular investors or Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) otherwise, the issue of giving a blanket 15 per cent in the long run is likely to hurt the revenue of this country."
}