Embakasi East MP Babu Owino has rejected allegations made by activist Boniface Mwangi that President William Ruto bribed MPs to pass the Finance Bill, 2024.
Mwangi had suggested that the additional KSh30 million allocated to MPs through the NGCDF in the proposed budget was a ploy by Ruto to sway legislators into supporting the bill. However, MP Babu defended the NGCDF, emphasizing its positive impact on the lives of Kenyans at the grassroots level, while asserting that he personally has not been bribed.
“Ruto cannot afford Babu Owino, and that is why Babu on a daily basis comes out clear, guns blazing, against Ruto, because I went to Parliament to represent and work for my people. Because of the kind of lifestyle that I live while growing up, the kind of suffering…I know what it means to lack school fee, because I lacked at some point. So when I’m told that a child has been sent home, I know what it is,” the outspoken MP said in an interview with Citizen TV.
And when asked to comment on how the opposition has been weakened in the country, Babu declared himself the opposition.
“When I see a mama mboga, I see my own mother who sold chang’aa to take us to school. When I see a boda boda rider, I see myself. When I see a youth who has lost hope in the slums, I think about myself. Therefore, the challenges that I experienced, I cannot allow other Kenyans to experience, and that is why I come out every other time to defend the rights of those who elected me. And that is why there is the opposition, no matter few in number as at the moment, and there is Kenya Kwanza. I cannot justify the wrongdoings of Kenya Kwanza.”
Babu is one of the MPs who have openly voiced their opposition to the Finance Bill, 2024, arguing that it is “senseless and punitive” to the ordinary citizen.
During the parliamentary debate on Wednesday, June 19, it became evident that Kenya Kwanza legislators were being pressured to endorse the bill. National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula instructed any MP intending to propose an amendment to the Bill to do so by 1 pm today.
