AA / Tunis / Majdi Ismail
Kenyan President William Ruto announced on Wednesday June 26 the withdrawal of the 2024-25 draft budget providing for tax increases, sparking a deadly wave of protests.
”Having listened carefully to the people of Kenya, who have said loud and clear that they want nothing to do with this 2024 Finance Bill, I am bowing down and will not sign the 2024 Finance Bill into law. , which will therefore be withdrawn,” declared William Ruto in a speech the day after a day of mobilization punctuated by violence against this draft budget which left twenty-two dead, according to the National Human Rights Commission of Kenya ( KNHRC).
The 2024-2025 draft budget notably provided for a value added tax (VAT) of 16% on bread and an annual tax of 2.5% on private vehicles.
The government, which considers the new taxes necessary because of the country’s high debt, announced on June 18 – after an initial protest – that it was withdrawing most of the measures planned for this purpose. However, the demonstrators, mostly young people, are demanding the complete withdrawal of the text.
”Following the passage of the bill, the country witnessed widespread expression of dissatisfaction with the bill as passed, which unfortunately resulted in loss of lives and destruction of property,” added the head of state, quoted by Le Monde.
And William Ruto emphasized: ”Since we got rid of the 2024 Finance Bill, there is a need to have a conversation as a nation going forward. (…) How can we manage our debt situation together? (…) I will propose an engagement with the young people of our nation, our sons and our daughters.”
The wave of protest began last week calmly and a protest movement against taxes, called ”Occupy Parliament”, was launched on social networks shortly after the presentation, in Parliament, on June 13, of the project budget 2024-2025
Thousands of people demonstrated in the capital Nairobi and other cities in Kenya, in rejection of the new taxes planned in the 2024-2025 budget, debated in Parliament.
The tension rose a notch on Tuesday June 25. Police fired live ammunition to dissuade the crowd, which forced security barriers to enter the Parliament grounds.
Buildings were ransacked and burned, notably in Eldoret, in the Rift Valley, the stronghold of President William Ruto. Nairobi and several other towns were also the scene of looting.
The government subsequently took the decision to deploy the army to support law enforcement in the face of this “security emergency” and these “destructions and intrusions into crucial infrastructure.”
Tuesday evening, June 25, President Ruto pledged to firmly repress “violence and anarchy” and promised to prosecute “criminals posing as peaceful demonstrators” who are causing “a reign of terror against the people, their elected representatives and institutions.”
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