‘I don’t want to postpone this agenda anymore,' President Ruto remains firm on housing levy

President William Ruto has remained steadfast in his quest to have salaried Kenyans deducted 3 per cent of their earnings to establish the Housing Fund as he hosted Singapore Prime Minister Lee Loong at State House, Nairobi.

During their joint address, President Ruto used Singapore as an example of how the Housing Fund has worked saying 85 per cent of the population lives in decent housing, further asserting that Kenyans will have to make the sacrifice so that Kenya too can have a success story.

“Kenyans are currently engaged in the housing debate, with approximately 6.5 million people lacking affordable and decent housing. I don’t want us to postpone this agenda any further and thus I'm asking Kenyans to make the sacrifices by saving into the Housing Fund so that 60 years from now we can also have a similar success story," said President Ruto.

“85% of all Singaporeans live in decent and affordable public housing. Their journey did not start overnight; it began 60 years ago, around the same time we established our housing policy. They took some hard decisions and made some sacrifices where they undertook mandatory savings, and the results are there for everyone to see. We are 60 years late in taking this bold step.”

On his part, Lee noted that his countrymen and Kenyans share similar aspirations such as inclusive growth high standards of living ethnic and religious harmony, and good housing healthcare education.

President Ruto added that it was time Kenya shed the tag of hosting the largest informal settlements.

The two leaders also witnessed the signing of three MOUs on ICT, which will facilitate cooperation on cybersecurity, digitization of government services and ICT capacity building, carbon credit collaboration and skills development to help boost the capacity of human resource.