A week after President William Ruto declined to assent to the Finance Bill, 2024, rage is still in the air following MPs’ decision to vote for the impugned piece of legislation.
The Bill received backing from 204 MPs at the second reading stage and 195 at the third reading to sail through to the presidential assent phase.
Passage of the Bill was greeted with widespread public outrage with protesters who were still out on the streets resorting to stoning MPs’ vehicles that evening of Thursday, June 20.
Consecutive protests have led to destruction of property and loss of lives as public anger morphed into demands for better governance.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday, Kitui Senator Enock Wambua termed the MPs who endorsed the Bill sparking widespread public outrage as “sellouts”.
“If the National Assembly Mr Speaker had listened to the People, we would not be where we are today. That’s the point I want to respectively differ with on his comment during the interview that perhaps the 204 members of Assembly who voted in support of the Finance Bill would be our future heroes,” he said.
MPs are, however, constitutionally at liberty to vote whichever way they want on any matter before the House.
“Mr Speaker, those 204 members of the National Assembly who voted Yes for this Bill are sellouts. They have failed this country, they have failed their constituents. They have reason to apologise to this country,” Wambua added.
Some of the MPs have been at the receiving end of public rage and have had their property torched. Some have been beaten by their electorate.
In his address to the nation on June 26, President William Ruto said he was “grateful to all the members of the National Assembly who voted affirmatively for the Finance Bill 2024.”
He repeated the sentiments during a media roundtable on Sunday, June 30 at State House saying the country will in future see sense in their actions and described them as ‘true heroes of Kenya’.
Ruto commended the MPs saying they saw an opportunity to unchain the country from the debt trap and took it.
“MPs are the representatives of the people, they are not fools and are not mad, and I’m going to say that one day Kenya will know that the MPs who voted yes are the true heroes of Kenya,” the President said.
Wambua said the country is in deep crisis partly because of the MPs’ defiance to listen to the voice of reason at a time the country expressed open dissent to the proposed new taxes.
The government was looking to raise an extra Sh346 billion through taxes to finance its Sh3.92 trillion budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The amount was to bolster the collection of Sh2.9 trillion the National Treasury was looking to raise locally in the year.
The Finance Committee made concessions and dropped some contentious clauses in the Bill but the Gen Z protesters remained unmoved and called for the rejection of the Bill in its entirety.
“The young people on the streets are the true patriots, people driven by a deep sense of love for their country. They are saying, they don’t want their country to go to the dogs,” Wambua said.
“They love their country, they love their lives [and] they have a future to look into.”
Senator Wambua applauded the Senate for shooting down the adjournment motion and staying to debate issues at a time when the country is in crisis.
He took a swipe at the National Assembly for going on recess and equated their actions to running away from their responsibility.
“The leaders in the lower House whose actions have brought us where we are ran away. We are here to clean up their mess. They should forever occupy their space and listen when the people of Kenya speak, they must listen when the Upper House speaks,” he said.
