‘Kenya Kwanza behaving like pickpockets,’ MP Mbadi rubbishes dropped tax proposals

Nominated Member of Parliament John Mbadi has come out to hit at the Kenya Kwanza government following its decision to drop a few contentious tax proposals from Finance Bill, 2024 following massive public uproar and protests.

This comes after the government on Tuesday withdrew the proposed Value Added Tax on bread, financial services and foreign exchange transactions, among other amendments to the Bill.

However MP Mbadi, speaking on Citizen TV’s ‘Tonight’ show, termed the move as nothing but a mere gimmick meant to hoodwink Kenyans and blind them from the bigger picture.

According to the legislator, despite removing the said tax proposals, the President William Ruto-led administration still seeks to increase the fuel levy by Ksh.9.

This, the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee Chair said, would subsequently only serve to increase the costs of other products that rely on petroleum.

MP Mbadi hence, in a dig at his Finance and National Planning Committee counterpart Kuria Kimani, who was also present on the show, termed this as the act of “giving with one hand while taking with the other” – or what he likened to pickpocket tendencies.

“Kenya Kwanza is behaving like a pickpocket. You know, a pickpocket would not put his five fingers in your pocket to pick your money, what they would do is put two fingers. So what they (government) and what he (Kimani) is deliberately not mentioning is that they’re proposing to increase fuel levy by Ksh.9; that is dangerous, and the people of Kenya must not accepts this, Parliament must not accept this,” said Mbadi.

“The moment you increase fuel levy by Ksh.9, you’re increasing the price of petroleum products, the cost of electricity, the cost of production…you’re messing up the entire economy, we know how we’re reliant on petroleum products as an economy. So don’t give us with the right hand, and take with the left hand.”

The opposition MP further accused Kimani of being cheeky in his role as the Finance and National Planning Committee Chairman, both with the current tax proposals as well as Finance Bill, 2023.

He narrated that, despite their initially being a proposed3% housing levy last year, MP Kimani and his committee presented Kenyans with a 1.5% proposal, which despite seeming lower only served to hurt them more.

“In the last Finance Bill of 2023, he did something with this committee that was very funny. There was a proposal on housing levy at 3%, he comes and says it is reduced to 1.5% but he made it worse,” stated Mbadi.

“At least the 3% was our money; we were being told if you don’t get a house, it will be kept somewhere for you, you’ll access it after a period, it was even having a cap. Now he goes and changes it to 1.5% which, at the face of it, looks like it’s a smaller percentage, and then we embraced it, only to realize that this is even hurting more.”

The ODM party National Chairman added: “That is what he’s trying to do here; he’s proposing these amendments, but increasing the fuel levy by Ksh.9; we must say No.”