Osoro to Kenyans: How do you expect roads, electricity and jobs without more taxes?

South Mugirango Member of Parliament Silvanus Osoro has criticised Kenyans opposing the 2024 Finance Bill over the raft of additional taxes it proposes.

The unpopular draft law has been the bone of contention between legislators and Kenyans alike and saw protests in Nairobi on Tuesday ahead of its tabling before Parliament.

The government would later announce that it had scrapped select levies proposed in the bill, among them a 16 per cent Value Added Tax on bread and excise duty on vegetable oil.

But while some Kenyans are still dissatisfied and want the government to do away with the bill altogether, Osoro, the National Assembly Majority Whip, has dismissed their cries, arguing that the government relies on the proposed taxes to serve Kenyans.

“When you wake up and say you want roads built, or graduate, get a TSC number and say you want employment, you say you need to be taxed. Ideally, you say, ‘get someplace you can tax so I get employed’,” Osoro told Citizen TV’s Daybreak program on Wednesday.

“When an intern teacher protests in the streets wanting to be employed permanently, they are telling the government to expand the tax base.”

He termed the resistance to new taxes ironic and a deliberate campaign to “demonise” President William Ruto’s government, to whose UDA party Osoro belongs.

“When someone in the village says they want electricity, they simply say, ‘Please, tax us’. Kenyans must know that the government runs on your taxes,” said the Majority Whip.

The Finance Bill is sponsored by Molo MP Kimani Kuria, another UDA legislator who also chairs the National Assembly Finance and Planning Committee.

Treasury seeks to raise Ksh.346.7 billion more through taxes in the bill, the equivalent of 1.9 per cent of Kenya's GDP, towards the Ksh.3.9 trillion budget Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u presented last week.

Osoro argues that from the 2024/25 budget, the allocation set aside for salaries and development projects is not enough. He says the government needs more from Kenyans, hence the reason for more taxes.

“You need to get a source to fund this Ksh.4 trillion, pay salaries, build roads and supply electricity,” the MP said.

The exchequer last week said that Kenya aims to borrow Ksh.333.8 billion from external sources and Ksh.263.2 billion from the domestic market to finance the budget.

MPs are set to debate the bill from Wednesday and determine its fate before June 30.