Nyong'o to Ruto: Reduce tax rate, broaden tax base

By Peter Ochieng

Kisumu governor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o has urged president William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza administration to reduce heavy taxation imposed on Kenyans.

Nyong’o in a press release on Tuesday, 5th December 2023 said the taxation is ruining the lives of the majority of Kenyans.

“Both the Executive and Parliament should sit down and exhaustively discuss this taxation issue which is ruining the lives of Kenyans. I was very surprised when I heard the government announcing new plans to raise money to pay the foreign debt by increasing taxes that will affect ordinary Kenyans, workers, businesses, consumers, and even the youth who get married,” said the county chief.

“I don't understand the government's voodoo economics! I wish they could listen to the British Prime Minister, who has just praised his Chancellor of Exchequer's tax cuts across the board to stimulate economic growth, wealth creation, and more employment generation in Great Britain,” he added.

The governor said Ruto should emulate what happened after former president, the late Mwai Kibaki took over in 2002.

As was the case 21 years ago, the governor says the current regime should reduce taxes, and broaden the tax base.

“When we came to power in 2002 as the NARC government, we decided that our economic growth strategy would be based on wealth and employment creation. We decided that our policy regarding taxation was to be very simple: reduce the tax rate and broaden the tax base,” he stated.

“In other words, bring more people and businesses into the tax bracket. They will now have to pay less per unit, but with the government ending up getting much more money in the treasury. It worked. We didn't need to borrow any money to finance our first budget, which was much bigger than the one the previous year in Moi's government.”

He reminded the Head of State that in 2002 when Kibaki took over from late Daniel Moi, the coffers did not have much, but they never complained, or ‘try to create a mountain out of an anthill.’

“We knew the coffers we had inherited did not have much, but we didn't cry about it: no hullabaloo at all. We let sleeping dogs lie and got to work. There was work to be done: We did it! There was phenomenal economic growth within one year. In just two years, our budget hit the one trillion shillings mark, more than half what we inherited from the previous regime.”

Ruto’s regime is battling a host of court cases opposed to introduction of new taxes, among them the controversial 1.5 per cent housing levy.