Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) Secretary General Francis Atwoli has pleaded with President William Ruto to suspend assenting the contentious Finance Bill 2024 into law until the matters vexing Kenyans are addressed.
Addressing the press on Wednesday, Atwoli stated that the chaos witnessed on Tuesday cannot be blamed on the Kenyan youth, famously classed as GenZ, arguing that the protests were infiltrated by goons who made the demonstrations violent.
“They had genuine concerns and even the President promised to engage them but come yesterday’s demonstration, according to us, it was inflated by goons,” said Atwoli.
“Those people who represented GenZ and Millenium young men who were looting, burning offices, that was not the intention of our young men. They had already said theirs was peaceful and anything to do with burning of properties was not in their calendar of demonstrations.”
With heightening tensions on the passing of the Bill into law, Atwoli urged President Ruto to halt the process and instead form a commission of inquiry to help iron out the contentious matters.
He added that allowing violence to escalate in the nation would strip off the gains made on democracy.
“I want to appeal to the President and his government… the Bill collects for the budget to spend and without a Finance Bill I know it will be very difficult for the government to operate but for now on behalf of Kenyan workers who cannot even access their places of work during demonstrations, we are appealing for the President to suspend assenting to the Finance Bill and appoint a commission of inquiry to inquire into the demands of GenZ and other Kenyans,” said Atwoli.
He urged Ruto to allow room for dialogue between him and the Kenyan youth, proposing that the committee should be formed immediately to achieve an amicable decision.
“These young people have a myriad of things they are asking for. It’s not only a question of the Finance Bill,” he said.
The protests on Tuesday led to police-inflicted killings of many young Kenyans as many were shot dead while attempting to access Parliament.
A section of the legislature was set ablaze as some of the protesters breached Parliament and vandalised its alleys and other areas.
President Ruto said that he would not allow “criminals posing as peaceful protesters” who attacked critical national buildings to get away with it.
“We must isolate crime from democratic expression and separate criminals from people exercising their freedom of expression and divergent opinion,” he added.
Officers from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) were deployed to reinforce the Kenya Police and a special sitting has been convened to approve the request by the Defence Council to deploy their officers.
According to Article 241 of the Constitution, the deployment of KDF cannot be enacted before Parliament’s approval.
